This guide walks through the early Confederate (CSA) battles for Ultimate General:Civil War on easy (Colonel) difficulty. With this start, you should be able to have a successful campaign.

As the CSA, you are usually short of men, dollars and weapons. And when just learning the game, it is difficult to choose where to spend your money, career points, selecting veterans or rookies, and a host of other choices. This guide provides very specific guidance on what to buy and what to build.

This guide assumes you are familiar with the game's basic mechanics, such as those documented in my Newbie Guide (pinned at the top of the Discussions).

It is NOT meant to tell you how to build your army for higher difficulties, nor how you may choose to make different decisions. It is meant to give you a decent start so that you are not 'behind the 8-ball' in later battles. Or, if you have already started and unable to defeat the Union, it may provide some ideas for going to an earlier battle save and rebuilding from there.

Many thanks go to the players on this discussion board who have helped me improve over the past year, and to the people who have posted YouTube video replays of battles. As the famous quote goes, "I see so far because I stand on the shoulders of giants." May you become one of those giants.

Part 0: Starting the Campaign
Although in general I recommend selecting Strategy, Artillery, Politics for your starting career choices, for this guide I am using Tactician, Infantry, Politics. The reason is that I want you to have 2 in Recon, which is what the first 2 selections will give you. This will allow you to see how your choices affect the scaling of the enemy. (Scaling means the game increases or decreases the number of enemy it will bring to the next battle depending on YOUR army size. More on that later).

So for now, use these options. And, of course, select Colonel (easy) difficulty.


Part 1: Capture the Fort

The key to this first part is to attack the Union brigades as they come up the far left side of the map, before they can entrench themselves in the Fort. You should try to hold them around the river crossing. When your reinforcements arrive, add them to the attack and wipe out the enemy brigades. Here is one example (where I actually captured one of the Union units).
After killing off the Union, rest your men until there's between 2 and 1-1/2 hours left, then attack the fort by rushing in there.

Kemper and Siegfried will be gifted to you later, after the battle, as your starting brigades, so try to preserve them as much as possible. Plus they will be holding the fort initially after you capture it, so you want them in the best shape possible.

Part 2: Defend the Fort

A trick here is that, after the battle, Cabell will be your artillery unit that is gifted to you, and the enemy flotilla will target mostly that rightmost artillery postion where Cabell starts. So right away, swap the locations of your artillery (red arrows).


Also, place Sigfried in the fortification, and send Birney outside. Detach a skirmisher unit from Sigfried and from Birney and send those out also. The key is you want to delay the Union as long as you can so that your reinforcements have time to arrive.

You should strive for a layout like this:
Your plan is to engage in fire, then retreat your Birney skirmishers to the woods and reengage.
Sigfried skirmishers should engage, then retreat to the farmhouse or field, and then eventually back to the fort and remerge with his parent unit.
Birney should stay outside, eventually retreating to the fort opening and aiming at the Union's flank as it tries to attack Sigfried.

Remember--the goal is to delay the Union getting to the fort. Don't get into a prolonged firefight out there. Retreat. This gives Sigfried and Kemper even more time to rest up, and your Artillery time to take out an enemy boat. Your artillery should focus on killing the leftmost enemy boat while the union infantry is being distracted.

Note: Some players advocate immediately taking (running) your units and artillery forward and engaging the Union as they cross the river. You *might* be able to do this if you want to try it.

Addendum Note: An interesting ploy by Something Compass in his video series was to detach one skirmisher and have him stand in the northeast section of the fort as something for the gunboats to shoot at. Then he brought both artillery up behind the entrenched infantry to blast the enemy with canister shot when they charged the fort. He never bothered to take out the gunboats and it worked nicely for him.

This is a VERY difficult first battle, so don't worry if it takes a few tries to get a victory.

At Camp before Newport

Now, your army screen should look close to this:
Sigfried usually gets killed, but I was lucky in this run. Just 'buy' a 2-star replacement if he's gone to the great beyond.

Career
Go to the Career tab, and add your 1 point to Army Organization to make it a value of 2. From now on, you will be applying all of your Career Points to either Politics or Army Org. This is because:
a) As the CSA, you are usually outnumbered. Arm Org will allow you to field a larger army.
b) It sure is nice to have lots of brigades to plug holes, take damage, etc. It provides more flexibility for deploying them around during the battles.
c) It is also easy to run out of men and money as the CSA, thus Politics will also be important.

When you add the 1 Career point, this will be the result:

NOTE: At higher difficulty levels, most players add points to Politics first to get more money and men. It is a balancing act, but as a new player, I believe fielding more men for the early battles will really help you more, esp. since you won't be spending $ unnecessarily.

Armory
Now, you should take a look at your Armory. The numbers should be approximately as follows, depending on how many of the enemy you killed and scavanged weapons from.
Here you see I have 1,136 Springfield 1842 (picked up from dead men in the last battle)
I can create a Brigade full of Rookies of this size at no cost. But we have a big battle coming up, so I want the maximum size brigade. I'm willing to spend some money to get a full Brigade of 1,500 men with the Springfields by buying the rest from the shop at $11 each (left column).

Army
Go to your Army screen, create a brigade and select a 3-star Colonel to lead it.
Why?
For the CSA, if you use a 3-star commander or higher, your brigade becomes automatically 1-star and gets a 'perk' enhancement. Click the + and select the muscled arm (rightmost) enhancement. GIve them the Springfield 1842's.

Now we're going to do some moving around.
Change the Division commanders to be a 1-star Generals (there are 2 available to you--perfect!)
Move Siegfried and Kemper to the 2nd Division. We won't be using them for the next battle.

As a beginner, I've found that it helps me to add after the brigade names the DISTANCE/MELEE values of their weapons. This way during a battle I instantly see them. So Springfield 1842's shoot a distance of 250 feet, and have a melee value of 88. You can see I've added that to the names. Our artillery is 6-pounders.

Final Changes to prepare for battle
Create a new brigade of 1,500 men using FARMER weapons (that's all you can afford). I add the word FARMS after their name, but if you prefer you could put 200/95 for their range/melee.

Boost your artillery to 10 units using ONLY VETERANS. It is important to level up arty quickly.

Boost Kember and Siegfried to 600 using ONLY VETERANS. Well, I like round numbers, and you want to groom them to become 2-stars later.

Put any leftover $ into your Supply Wagon. It won't be much, but you won't need more.

The result should be close to the following:

Oh yeah, I shorten the brigade names: Sig for Sigfried, Kemp for Kemper, etc. Makes the battlefield visuals less messy.

The Battle for Newport News

You are only allowed 3 units, so bring your two 1,500 man infantry and your one artillery of 6-pounders at the starting layout.

I've tried holding the forward position to delay the Union, but actually it is much better to just retreat everyone to the Town immediately and set up and wait. When the computer units show up as reinforcements, set up as follows (click the image to expand it):

I put my Brigade with Farmers in the front lines a) if they die, I lose cheaper weapons and b) they have a higher melee stat. They are surrounded by the computer units, so I can retreat them if needed.

My other unit with more expensive Springfields is on the right, where he's safer. If needed, he can switch to the left flank to assist. And/or he can fire diagonally forward if things get bad.

The cavalry is down below at the right. They dash forward and fire into the flanks of any approaching enemy, then my Springfield unit dashes forward to deal death.

NOTE: Some players 'sacrifice' their computer units as time runs down, so that some of their weapons get picked up into the Armory. I don't like sacrificing the poor guys so cold-heartedly.

Well that was tense at times, but also fun! On to our first Grand Battle: 1st Bull Run

Camp after Newport News

I will move a bit faster with fewer screenshots, since you should be familiar with this by now.

1) Go check the battle screen and press start for Bull Run. You are only allowed 4 Brigades. The rest of the units will be computer supplied (called AI units in other guides you may read). Go back to Camp.

2) Put your Career point into POLITICS. We don't need to increase the size of our army yet.

We will ONLY add men to the Brigades we are bringing. Adding men now to other brigades for a Grand Battle will cause the game to bring more enemy units or larger enemy units. Hey--it's hard enough in some of these fights!

Since we'll be limiting our changes, we will have extra money, and I'll show you how to use it.

Brigades

You will make changes to your brigades to reflect this:
a) Change out the Farmers for Springfield 1842's in your one unit.
b) Bring your Infantry Brigades to full strength of 1,500 by ONLY adding Rookies. If you lose a star, then add just enough Rookies to make the bar just disappear, then add veterans.
c) Select one of Sigfried or Kemper to bring up to 1,500 men (here I did Kemper)
d) Bring your artillery to 12 units. This is the OPTIMAL size for artillery. (I can reveal to you as a Newbie, I always maxed my arty to 24 units until I found this out.)
e) Max out your supply wagon to 35,000. This is a LONG battle.

Some extra purchases

Go to the Armory and buy ALL of the 24-pound Howitzer Artillery. (It will only be 2 or so)
If there are any 20-pound Parrott artillery, buy them (Usually none at this point)
Buy ALL of the Skirmisher Whitworth (TS) rifles. (It should be about 19 or so)

Why? After every Grand Battle, the Armory restocks. If you don't buy these now, after the battle you will still only have a few of these weapons. And the 3 weapons above are the most useful later on. The Whitworths have a range of 600 feet, and if you put them hidden on the flanks, they rout the enemy very very quickly.

At this point, I had about $9,000 still to spend, and 4,500 men in the recruit pool. We are saving these for later battles.

The Battle of 1st Bull Run

The first thing to notice is that, with Recon of 2, we are told approximately how many enemy will appear at the top, and our numbers at the bottom.
Subtracting our 600-man Sigfried brigade, that means we actually will outnumber the enemy slightly of a bit over 17,000 vs. a bit over 16,000 for the first part of the fight.

Here is how to lay out your initial troops to defend the bridge and nearby northern crossing.
NOTE: By keeping your infantry behind the ridge, they can't be targeted by the enemy artillery. Wait for the enemy to start to cross the bridge, run forward and fire at them, then retreat back behind the ridge. This saves you from being up close to the bridge and constantly bombarded by their artillery. I learned this from others. When I first fought this battle, I had everyone close to the bridge and took lots of damage.

Your other more rookie Brigade guards the more northern crossing. Eventually a Union Cavalry scout might appear, and having a detached skirmisher gives you some flexibility in responding. You can also bring the skirmisher over to help at the bridge if needed.

When the enemy is not trying to cross the bridge, use your artillery to target theirs.

When Bee's Brigade appears, have them spread out behind the river on the western side.
You don't need to try to defend that northern flag. Let the Union have it.

Eventually you will retreat your men defending the bridge behind the river also. The goal at that point will be to let the Union try to cross the river to get to you, as they will have no cover while crossing.

When Hampton's brigade appears, you can have him help at the bridge. Let the computer units take the damage instead of your men.

Fallback

When you are told to fall back, it can be tricky as the map expands greatly. Take Bee's brigade, detach skirmishers and spread out to control the western part of the river. Bring back one of your Brigades and your lone Artillery to help since lots of Union are coming from the northwest.
You can keep holding the bridge, but have some skirmishers there in case you need to retreat--they can delay the enemy.

When Stuart's Brigades show up, send 1/2 to the left to assist, and 1/2 to the right to help hold the eastern part of the river. Retreat the rest of your men from the bridge. You will need to run the units heading west to help Bee.

Once you have everyone behind the river, keep hitting whichever Union brigades try to cross.

When you get even more reinforcements and are told to CounterAttack, keep hitting them at the rivers to weaken them further before you try to flank them. I have seen both a left and a right flank attack successful, so use whichever you think would be better.

Use those computer units to kill as many of the Union as possible. Use your own brigades little during the mop up to preserve them. Killing more Union will give you more weapons after the battle, and you'll also face smaller enemy armies in later battles.

Success, and on to battle #4

Post 1st Bull Run Camp

You are allowed 10 Brigades for this next battle, so we're going to beef up our Army.

After every Grand Battle, you get 2 Career Points. Put 1 in Politics, and 1 in Army Org. The result is:
An Army Org of 3 will allow you to field 12 Brigades in your 1st Corps, so that is enough for the next battle. Adding to Politics will keep increasing your rewards after each battle.

Go to the Armory. Remember what I said about the shop restocking?
Buy up the six 24 Pounders and the 20-pound Parrotts (boo, only 1). But you'll now have 8 (6+2, sorry, the box around the 2 should be green) of those monstor cannister wielding instruments of death for a future Battle.

Notice I had captured some 12-pound Howitzers (13). We're going to make a new Arty unit with those.

Also, go to the Skirmishers tab, and buy up all the Whitworth (TS) sniper rifles before you forget. There should be about 64 of them.

Army Changes

Create 3 new Brigades with 3-star Colonels so that they get the 1-star upgrade perk (again, pick the strong arm icon). Change some of your other, more veteran, units to 2-star commanders if they have 3-stars so that you can give those Colonels to the Rookie brigades. Add veterans to your exiting Infantry to bring them back to 1,500.

You should have enough weapons to give everyone Springfield 1842's.

Create the Howitzer Artillery unit with the free Arty from the Armory, and up your existing 6-pounder to 13. (I like having an extra over 12, but no more than 15 at the max). Again, only Veterans when upgrading Artillery.

Now this is important! Create a Cavalry unit. Sorry, I mislabeled them as JackShoots. They should be JackMelee as I've picked good Melee weapons with a fast fire rate and high melee (see green boxes). Also, as a Melee unit, they shouldn't have a General who could get killed. A 2 or 3-star commander is more appropriate. Oh well, even I make mistakes!

Notice the blue boxes. We still have lots of $ and Men. We are saving these for later.

Capture the Convoy

In this battle you need to chase down supply wagons. Having an extra Cavalry unit will make it easier. Plus you start it closer to the enemy wagons than the supplied computer cavalry.
Immediately, send you cavalry around. Also, march your infantry out, then RUN them at the enemy infantry as soon as they appear.

Move your 2 artillery units out slightly to the village at the eyeball.

This battle can play out multiple ways. Either the enemy brigades with the convoy will come at you, while the supply wagons go the other way and are easy to catch with your cavalry. Or, the enemy infantry retreats instead (actually outdistancing their supply wagons) and you have to go chase them. See below:
In that case, send detached skirmishers ahead (with no-fire command), and try to distract the enemy with one of your cavalry units so it moves away from the supply wagons while the other cavalry goes on the chase to grab the wagons.
You MUST capture all three supply since you will get lots of money from them after the fight. If you don't catch them early on in the battle, restart and try again. (Hey, restarting isn't really cheating, right?)

After you capture the supply wagons, send them back to the woods while your infantry keeps the enemy engaged. Put the new wagons on NO SUPPLY (click once each on the arty icon iwith cannonballs and on the man with the same cannonballs on the bottom row of tabs). You don't want the wagons giving away ammo to your troops, since your own supply gets replenished for free after the fight.

Once you've safely retreated the wagons, retreat with your infantry and play defense as the Union will be getting reinforcements that will attack you.
Form an arc like above. I prefer to be a bit forward to see the enemy and respond. I've had the Union attack sometimes the right flank, and sometimes the left, and sometimes the center. If needed, THEN I can drop skirmishers to delay the enemy and retreat into the woods. Some players prefer to retreat to the woods immediately instead. It's up to you. Being out of the woods in the center lets me move my troops faster to where they are needed.

Be careful to keep track of the enemy cavalry with your own. You don't want them performing an end run on you and coming in from behind.

This is a messy fight that can go multiple ways, so experiment until you get all 3 wagons. Good luck!

Bring all your infantry back to 1,500 strength using ONLY VETERANS. The reason is that you shouldn't have taken too much damage plus you should have enough Springfields that it doesn't cost much. We want to build our units up slightly.

Go to Careers and apply the 1 point to Army Org (making it '4').

IMPORTANT: Now SAVE. We are going to learn about scaling.

Scaling

For Grand Battles, the overall size of your army determines somewhat the size and number of the enemy units.

For minor battles (as in this one), the average size of you units determines the enemy.

We can see the result of scaling because we have Recon level of 2 in our Career choices.

Your army should look close to this
Notice (orange box) that by upping our Army Org, we can now make our Infantry Brigades have 2,000 men instead of 1,500.

The big mistake most beginners make is to a) up all the brigades to max size; b) get as many brigades as possible in the army; and c) apply only veterans to all the brigades. You end up with hardly any money and few men to hire later doing this.

Go to the battle screen and select the Stay Alert battle and put in your Corps. Your numbers will be different (there is some randomness), but in my case you see that I have about 11,900 men vs. their 9,000.

Now go back to CAMP, and add Rookies to EVERY infantry brigade, bringing each to 2,000 men.

Then go back to the Battle screen and select Stay Alert and put in your Corps.The enemy size has gone up to 11,400 while we are now at 15,400. So the enemy went up 2,400 while we went up 3,400, so we made out! But at higher difficulty levels, the enemy has MUCH better weapons than you and MUCH higher star ratings (3-stars mostly on Legendary). So on high difficulty levels, you would be worse off. That is why on the discussion boards you see the topic come up. The effect is more pronounced also in the later, larger battles, as you'll see in this guide.

Getting ready for Stay Alert

Return to your save where you have 1,500 men in each brigade. Take you best 2 brigades, and increase them to 2,000 using Veterans and give them the much better MISSISSIPPI weapons.

Stay Alert is mostly defense until your reinforcements arrive, and these two units will be in the woods protected and doing lots of fighting.
Up your Cavalry (remember it is Melee) to 650 and move it to the 3rd Division, and create a NEW Cavalry unit of 500 with Sharps 1855. They are Shooter cav's as opposed to Melee. Give them a 1-star General so they get the 1-star perk. These guys will show up later as reinforcements, and having Cavalry lets them get to the battle faster. Plus at the time these reinforcements arrive, you should be ready to start flanking the enemy and/or chasing beaten-up enemy skirmishers and cavalry.
Note: Although this gives you 11 brigades, the Battle screen listing 10 is incorrect. All 11 of your brigades will show up.

Prepare for battle
Set up as follows.
Notice the placement of your two good 2,000-man units. They will fight plenty there while in good cover. Also, detach skirmishers from your weaker infantry and spread them around to help against the incoming cavalry you will face. You can detach more skirmishers from your better units if things get dicey on your flanks. Stay in cover as much as possible.

To get a Victory at Shiloh, It is absolutely necessary to capture Pittsburg Landing on Day 1. You do NOT want to go to Day 2.

The way to do that is to punch up the Eastern (right) side of the initial map with your forces.
With the computer forces on the second map, you want to push up the Western (left) side.
When the maps join, your 2 forces will be near each other in the Center. Move units through that center gap to Pittsburg Landing and get there before the Union to keep them away.

Building your forces for Shiloh

Add your 1 Career point to Army Org (bringing it to 5).
You will only be able to bring 15 Brigades (instead of the 20 allowed at Shiloh), so bring ALL of your Infantry brigades to their maximum size of 2,000. If a unit has an experience bar of 1/2 way, add mostly veterans (but no more than $10,000 worth) to help them build up to another level (and perk).
Add another artillery brigade, so you have 1 per Division. Here I created another Howitzer unit since I had captured some and it cost me less. You could argue here to bring 6-pounders or Napoleons. They are good for dragging in close to the enemy and unleashing cannister.

Why didn't I bring the 8 24-pounders? Well, I was worried that dragging them around would expose them a lot, and I want to save them for later when I can create a larger unit. Plus they eat up a LOT of ammo, and this is a long battle and even though we have 35,000 in there, you only have the 1 supply wagon.

The question also might be, why not buy better weapons for the infantry? Well, look in your Armory.
The shop is pretty bare except for Lorenz's, and if you buy 2,000, that will cost $44,000 or a good chunk of your money. Save it. You can win with this layout.

Even with only 15 brigades, you will still outnumber the Union 47,000 vs. 38,000 for this phase.

The Battle Plan

Detach skirmishers from all your Springfield 1842 units to lead the way. There are lots of enemy skirmishers and you want to find them.

2 Brigades should head up the left side on each side of the river. Everyone else should proceed diagonally to the upper right where you want to punch through.
Notice I have my 2 Mississippi units in the back. I want to preserrve them as much as possible.

One mistake is to slug it out with the skirmishers when you reach them. You don't want to delay, since the Union will be getting reinforcements. The skirmishers WILL retreat if you move forward to them. So after finding them, keep moving up your main infantry units (direct them to move past the skirmishers). Keep moving and pushing. If the enemy is close to moving out of cover, you can even hold fire until they are in the open and THEN fire at them. But keep moving forward afterwards.

Here we've pushed the skirmishers away. Next up:
Step 1: Get your Springfielders and artillery to fire on Hildebrand (green box). One of your Mississippi units should be able to fire from cover and not get hit in return as the enemy will target the closer units. Hilde will rout pretty easily...no need to charge.
Step 2: Move over to Peabody (blue box) and fire on him with multiple units. You may need to charge one of your Springfielders, but try not to.
Step 3: Occupy the forest denoted by the red oval.
Step 4: Fire on the units by the flag (orange arrow) to send them scurrying. Occupy the flag.
Step 5: You will get some Union coming at you from the North. Fire on them from cover (yellow arrow).

Eventually, you want to push west and take Shiloh Church, and move north (yellow arrow) and occupy those woods. You want to own the North and East side of the map (where the giant bluish area and border is.)

Phase 2

When the battle shifts to the right map, you will have all AI units. Here, you want to own the Left and North side of the map. You do NOT need to take the VP point in the Northeast. Ignore it.

Be on the lookout for enemy supply wagons to capture. You don't want to run out of ammo in this long battle.

Phase 3

Back at Shiloh, keep the Union to the West. When the maps join, you'll need to skedaddle your better units that have the most condition to Pittsburgh Landing. Send your cavalry. There may be some Union artillery there, but they can rout them easily.

Get over to the woods on the right to keep the Hornet's Nest guys from retreating north into the Landing

You do NOT need to push the Union out of the Hornet's Nest. In fact, it's best if you don't press the attack too hard so they stay in there and don't try to get to Pittsburg Landing before you.

Towards the end of the phase, the Union will get reinforcements from the northeast AND the northwest parts of the map. Be ready for them. Here, with an hour to go, I've moved almost all my units to protect the Landing.

Good luck!

You get 2 Career points for having successfully won Shiloh.
Put both into Politics (making it 7). Higher politics = more men and $ rewards.
You have a large enough Army Org for now and have 3 minor battles before the next Grand Battle.

Post Shiloh Army Changes (part 1)

You only need 8 brigades for 1st Winchester, so we will put only them in the 1st Corps (to make it easier to see the effects of any changes we make.)

Create a 2nd Corps (led by 2-star Major General Johnston). I kept myself as 1st Corps commander to build up my own experience.
Create 2 Divisions in the 2nd Corps.
Move ALL your artillery and cavalry to the 2nd Corps.
Keep your 2 Mississippi infantry and your BEST 6 other infantry in 1st Corps and move the rest to the 2nd Corps.
(These are the 8 Brigades you will bring to battle. You could argue to bring 1 Cavalry unit as the battlefield is open, and could argue to bring some artillery. This will depend on your strategy.)

Post Shiloh Army Changes (Part 2)

We will now change our 1st Corps to resemble the following:
Take your best Mississippi regiment and buy them Enfields (in my case they became 2 stars after Shiloh and I gave them the infantry/melee perk).
Take your other Mississippi brigade and buy them Lorenz's
Give the Mississippi's to your top 2 Springfield Brigades.
Add men to everyone in 1st Corps to the 2,000 men max. (Remember: veterans for your non-Springfields up to a max of $10K then rookies if needed; only rookies to the Springfielders)

TIP: We are using a 'trickle down' approach. Best/2-star units get Enfields or 1855's. Good 1-star units get Lorenz, MJ&G, Mississippi rifles. New 1-star and 0-star units get Palmettos, 1842, Farmers

More on Scaling and "Ballast" units (Part 3)

Look at the 1st Winchester battle and put in your 1st Corps. You are only allowed 8 Brigades (which is what I had your put in the 1st Corps).

Your 16,100 men will face about 11,400 enemy.

Go back to Camp.
Go to your 2nd Corps.
Add 7 Brigades of 500 men each. Just give them any commanders you have. Give them Springfields until you run out, then give Farmers. If you have to buy anything, make it Farmers.
Remember earlier I mentioned that for minor battles, the average size of your brigades matter? By adding many small brigades, you've brought your average size down.

Now go back to the Battles screen and put your 1st Corps back in.
Look! Our infantry now outnumbers the Union by quite a bit more (16,100 vs. about 8,800).

This is another reason why we ONLY add men to those being brought to the next battle. Adding men to unused brigades ups the average size of our brigades and thus ups the number of enemy we will face. It is important to look ahead and only add men to those who will fight next. You *could* view adding 500-man ballast brigades as cheating, so you might only want to do it if you are in big trouble in a minor battle and wish to replay it.

NOTE: You can always disband these ballast brigades by clicking on one and then the skull in the upper right. You don't lose anything. The men and officers go back into your pool of recruits, and the weapons go back into the armory.

1st Winchester Battle Strategy

You are ordered to take the town, and there are 2 ways you can fight this battle.
Option 1: Sweep way to the East and South (green and blue arrows below)
Option 2: Sweep down the Western side and then East (red and orange arrows below.
ALWAYS lead with your men with cheapest weapons, and have them detach skirmishers to lead the way.
The following is an example of Option 1 after I've taken the town.
Notice--I have my BEST units in the town where they get the most cover

AFTER having taken the town, the Union will try to retake it. Let them absorb losses, and after weakened send your Springfielders to push them out of the small woods (Small pink arrow). Eventually push the Union out of the large woods. Keep skirmishers on your flanks to guard against the pesky Union cavalry (you can see I have deployed some skirmishers in the Town).

Because I planned to fight mostly in the town and woods (Option 1), I didn't bring any Arty or Cav.
If you take the Option 2 route, you might want to bring some (although this will tend to even out the manpower odds).
The worst option is to just go straight ahead from the start and attacking both woods. You'll be out in the open and they will be firing from cover.

This battle has extended time, and you should try to kill as many of the Union as possible.

I have to admit, this is one of my favorite battles. You are allowed 10 brigades, and you have a great defensive position to repel the Union attacks. After repulsing them numerous times and inflicting massive damage, you have the option to go on the offensive and kill even more.

Career
Add your career point to Army Org, bringing it to 6.
My reasoning is that you are coming up on 2 Grand Battles, and having lots of brigades will help you. But there is an argument to go different ways:
a) Economy -- you're starting to get better weapons, and this will reduce their cost
b) Medicine -- in upcoming larger battles you'll have more casualties, and better men and weapons, and this will heal and recover more of them.
c) Logistics -- in those future longer battles, esp. with heavier artillery that uses it up quicker, it's nice to have more ammo
d) Recon -- as a beginner, I REALLY liked Recon 4, since it showed me during the battle the size of my army vs. the enemy plus the casualties. It made it easier for me to decide when to be bolder, and when to stay on defense. I recommend this AFTER the next 2 Grand Battles for beginners, not before.

Since this is still early in the campaign, I think being able to field more (and smaller sized) brigades in the Grand Battles is better early on. Optimum size for an infantry brigade is 1,800 men. I tend to go a bit larger (1,850-2,000) and for Rookie brigades 2,000 and a few higher, even at 2,500 for those that will be used to absorb heavy fire and charge into melee.

Army Camp

Now is the time to go to the Armory and buy up those expensive weapons that got restocked after Shiloh:
Buy all the 24-Pound Howitzers
Buy all the 20-Pound Parrotts (darn, still only 1)
Buy all the Whitworth (TS) sniper rifles

This battle will show you the value of the 24-pounders and the snipers.

Your 1st Corps has 8 Infantry units. You are allowed 10 brigades for this battle.
a) Pick the best brigade of Springfielders, and buy them Mississippis.
b) Bring all the brigades back up to 2,000 men (again, Veterans for your better units, up to a spending a max of $10K)
c) Go to your 2nd Corps, find your best artillery unit, give them the 24-Pounders (you should have 15), and move them to the 1st Corps. If you can, give them a 1-star General, and if it moves them to a 2-star unit, pick the stealth perk. You don't want the Union artillery spotting it and pounding it.
d) Create a skirmisher unit and give them the Whitworth (TS) scoped rifles.
Here is the result:
Tip: If a brigade has a General commanding it, I add a * at the end of the name so I know to be careful with that unit during the battle.

Battle Force Distribution

Deploy your troops as follows:
Your best brigade with Enfields in the middle of the bottom woods.
Detached skirmishers in the house at the bottom.
You snipers in the woods at your far left (the very top of the screen).
Your second best infantry (with Lorenz rifles) on your left flank in the field.
Springfielders in the front part of the small woods, Mississippis behind them, 24-pounder behind them.

The snipers will fire on the flanks of anyone coming in near your Lorenz infantry. Also, there is a Union artillery moving in that you'll be able to fire on and rout. Be careful to keep these guys back and hidden. If you are worried, it might be a good idea to detach a Lorentz skirmishers to be further up in the woods as a lookout.

When the Union tries to cross the river by the lower woods, you can rush units ahead to fire on them at the river, and then fall back (esp. your Enfields--you don't want them hanging out in the open).

You're 24-pounder will deliver truly awesome results.

One of your MIssissippi units can shift over to help at the southern woods later if needed if the Union tries to shift its main attack there.

When time is running out, you can decide to come out of cover and chase the depleted Union brigades.

Have fun!!

You are allowed 11 Brigades (not 9 as the Battle Screen states).

This is a tough decision. After this, you have a long battle at Gaines' Mill. Using the right strategy, you shouldn't take too much damage, and since it is a long battle, I would add the Career Point to Logistics. Do the same after this battle (add 1 point to Logistics).

Then after Gaines' Mill, add the 2 Career points to Medicine, since you'll be taking lots of damage at the next battle, Malvern Hill.

I could be talked into putting all your points into Medicine before and after Port Republic so you have 4 going into Malvern Hill. But I think as a beginner, it is hard to manage ammo efficiently. I leave it to you (and others who might comment).

So bring Logistics from 0 to 1.


Army Changes

Your current first Corps should look something like this. Hopefully, your 1st Division has multiple 2-star Brigades by now also.

For this battle, you need to go on the attack initially with superior numbers, and then defend against the Union coming across the river from the east to help. As such, again your 24-pound artillery will come into play, as will having a second artillery brigade (either with 6-pounders or Napoleons) to hit the enemy.

We don't need the skirmishers. Move them to the 2nd Corps, and bring over a good Infantry brigade and your other artillery. I had lots of Napoleons captured and in the Armory, so I switched my other Arty to those. They do more damage than the 6-pounders. And I brought over good old Kemper.

Up everyone to 2,000 men. Use only rookies unless it takes a star away.
This is the result:
Notice how much money and men we have (blue box). You'll be using that up when preparing for the 2 following Grand Battles.

You may notice I created a 3rd Corps. I added some ballast 500-man brigades there to see their effect, but it wasn't noticeable. You may or may not want to try that for yourself now that you know how.

Battle Plan

You only get 2 Brigades initially. Deploy your 2 best Infantry Brigades and take them along the left (western) edge down to the woods. They will then attack to the East (slightly before all your other men join the battle).

Remember to send out skirmishers first to guard their flanks. There should be 1 enemy skirmisher who will run, and a few potshots will come in from Union artillery (better they aim at your skirmishers than your full brigades).
The skirmisher on the right is the one who ran. There was another skirmisher who appeared briefly at the lower left, so my 2 skirmishers will go after him.
Once my big brigades are in the woods (run them), they will turn and go after the artillery.

Oops, there's more Union Infantry down there, but that Arty sitting there looks like a juicy target. I may wait to see how that infantry brigade reacts to my skirmishers before going for the Arty.
One thing I really don't like about this game..it likes to stick its Generals in your way so you fire on them instead of the nice target behind, and if you try to shoot past him you are blocked. Grrrr.

So as soon as my reinforcements arrive, here is where they will go:
Send a good brigade to the Green circle to guard that river crossing.
Send a Springfield brigade to the woods to help your 2 good units (and to act as a shield for frontal fire while the good ones head for the enemy unit's flanks).
Everyone else goes to the woods at the Orange circle. The 24-pound artillery will be closer to the river (right part of the circle) to hit anyone coming that way later, and the Napoleans more to the left.

The goal is to push out the units in the woods at the Red square to the bottom right. Your better units will push out that bottom guy there also.

After you have taken the woods in the red square, it is fairly easy to keep hitting the weak Union that have been pushed out. Move your Napoleans there to help fire on them and the river crossing. Use your lesser Springfield brigades to do the mopping up, and move your good brigades up the Orange and Red areas. They will hammer anyone who crosses.

After you've weakened the Union sufficiently, head North over the river to mop up.

Good luck, and good hunting!

You have 2 Grand Battles in a row now.

Gaines' Mill

After Port Republic, put your Career point into Logistics. This is a long battle.
Also, up your 2nd Corps supply wagon to at least $25K, more if you have it.
Don't forget to spend your reputation points if you are over 80.
Build up your 2nd Corps. Put your cavalry there, perhaps creating a 3rd brigade of them.

Take ALL of your initial brigades on a looping march across the top of the screen and come into the Union diagonally from the East/NorthEast just close to when the timer expires. Don't try to fight them from in front of their trenches.

After the battle, put both your Career points into Medicine. You'll take lots of damage in the next battle.

Don't forget to check the Armory to buy those expensive weapons (sniper rifles, 24-pound Howitzers, and 20-pound Parrotts) so they restock after the next battle.

Malvern Hill

This is a VERY difficult battle. You have to attack Union troops that have Woods and water protecting each flank, and fortifications in the Center.

In general:
Attack the rightmost woods as the Union is most vulnerable there. You'll have to send in waves of Melee units to push them out. Use your Rookies.

Snipers on the other side of the river can be very effective. You can use them on either flank this way.

Cavalry units from your second Corps can run around the right flank and take the SouthEastern Flag VP. Send some brigades with them to help.

Career Points

After this battle, I would put the 2 Career Points into Recon (Recon level 4) so you can see during a battle the enemy size vs. yours, and the deaths for each side. You don't really need this--it's a nice to have. You put your mouse over the top bar during the battle to see the numbers. It's a crutch, really. On higher difficulties you can't affort to spend your Career points on this.

Start applying points to Econ, Medicine, and Logistics from then on. If you are good at managing your ammo and capturing enemy wagons, then add less to logistics. About 2/3 of the way through the campaign, you want to be at 10 Politics and 10 Medicine as the later battles are brutal.

Armory

Don't forget to buy those expensive weapons after each Grand Battle.
Don't forget after Gaines Mill and Malvern Hill!

Reputation Points

The max you can accumulate is 100 points. Most of the Grand Battles are 20 points, so if you are over 80 reputation before one, you will waste the extra points. I try to keep my reputation between 45 and 75, depending on the situation.

After Gaines MIll you might want to use the points to buy some 20-pound Parrotts to pound Union artillery from long range.

As a beginner, I had to spend repustion points to get $$ and men. Hopefully, with this guide, you have enough of those to spare and can instead spend your reputation on good weapons.

Brigades

Use the trickle down approach for weapons. Best units get the best weapon upgrades, their weapons go to the next unit down, and so on until the pure Rookie units get the worst.

ONLY add men to brigades that will be going into the next battle. Check ahead. Check the CSA Battle Guide by D-Dub and Kristoph42 which gives exactly how many units will fight for each battle and the reinforcement timers and phases.

Try to keep your brigades around 2,000 men (when you get better, 1,800 is optimal). I give higher numbers to the weaker units since they are used as shields and take more damage.

Veterans vs. Rookies

All Artillery gets Veterans.
Reminder, hiring veterans for a 3-star brigade costs more than a 2-star brigade. (and 2-star is more expensive vs. 1-star, and 1-star more than a 0-star)
Your best units get veterans up to a cost of $10K, and then Rookies.
Units with an experience bar 1/2 way or higher gets a mix of veterans and rookies.
Everyone else gets only Rookies added.
Be flexible--if you have a beginner unit nearing another star, give them all veterans.

Snipers and Cavalry

These take a lot of micro-management and are tricky to use well.
Your Cavalry (esp. melee) works best in bunches.
Snipers on the flanks can do great damage to enemy morale, but are very vulnerable and need watching. Put them on HOLD so they don't chase a unit they've routed and go right into another enemy brigade. (I can't tell you how many times this happened to me before I learned my lesson!)

Good luck, Generals!!