| Frankfort, KY |
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| Editor: B General Fred Arocha Asst. Editor: Ginger Arocha |
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| Robert E. Lee once remarked that without music, there would have been no army. |
| Reporter: Ted Harris |
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| Bob Bohanan, Vice President, Historical Online Learning Foundation, Inc. Personal: Deputy Director of the Jimmy Carter Library in Atlanta, GA. Member of the Society of Civil War Historians and the Historical Miniatures Gaming Society. Author of published essays on Civil War generals Regis de Trobriand, Stand Watie, Montgomery Meigs, and articles in professional library and archival journals. Past roles: Commandant, CWOL Military Academy; RAB game administrator; TAC game administrator; Reunion organizer; and player. Current roles: New player enrollment coordinator, and RAB game administrator. Involvement in CWOL: In the summer of 1995 I signed up for a Civil War game called the American Cyber Civil War (ACCW). It turned out to be all role-playing and no war-gaming. However, I met a lot of great people, most of whom are still involved in CWOL. In the spring of 1996 John Crovo, Jay Haygood, Ted Harkema, Steve Rasmussen, and I tried to jump-start the ACCW game with war-gaming software written by Tim Desmond. When this didn’t work out the way we planned, we decided to start our own game based on the principle that we could run a free game in which we combined role-playing and war-gaming. We met in Gettysburg that year, and the Civil War On-Line was born. We learned a lot from running CWOL I, and the game really took off when John Crovo brought John Sanders on board. The SAS software is a modified version of the Tim Desmond original, and we have added modules for naval warfare, diplomacy, and the economy, in addition to the role-playing rules for RAB. State of the game and its future: In all honesty, I think we have a nice little game right now. But when we started CWOL I, we were already talking about what CWOL X would look like. We are up to CWOL VII and are not yet close to our vision. I think the thing that we do best currently is training new players. Jeremy Wakefield has developed a great program and does a fantastic job of running it. As a next step, we need to get the SAS and GQ software re-written in java script like NWOL, the Napoleonic Wars On-Line. We currently spend too much money on server fees because players have to download the SAS and GQ bin files several hundred times a week. There may be free games, but there’s no such thing as free bandwidth. I would also like to see the economic module run more like Monopoly and less like the Russian economy on a bad day. But now I’m nit-picking, so I’ll stop. As I said before, we have a nice game, and I hope everyone has fun playing. |
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| My dear Wife, I apologize for the long delay in my writing. Gen. Cook and Gen. Arocha has had me marching all o'er this damn State of Malaria. It's impossible for me to understand what goes through their minds day to day. Although as of late it looks like Gen. Chandler has had the same problem. We received orders to march along the river looking for the blue boys and any place they could cross. Lo and behold we found some coming at us through some trees. We'd just met up with a cav regiment that had dismounted for the night and were chewin some tabacca with em when we saw those damn union boys comin at us. We grabbed our guns and were at the ready but guess what? Those damn boys just a run scared when they saw us! Oh, I hit my knee so hard I nearly fell over it was so funny, that Gen'l ran so fast he could have set some type of speed record. Well we spent the rest of the night sippin' on some bourbon and hardtack waitin for them to return, they never did. How these blue bellies ever gonna win is a mystery to me. They don't fight and their generals are like scared chickens. With things goin the way they are, i'm sure i'll be back in your arms in no time. Keep the fires burning and know you're on my mind. Love, Bill |
| Letter Home from Col. Dull |
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| "At last!" The two old soldiers draw back into the hose, and are about to close and barricade the door when Dan Byrne stands before them. "Let me go out, uncle!" he says; "I shall be of more use there than within." His request is granted without a word, and in another minute he stands outside with the door bolted and barred behind him. The tramp grows louder and louder, the murmur swells into voices; lights, torches, and musket-barrels flash through the wet foliage. In another minute the approaching body, imperfectly seen in the darkness, emerges from the black covert of the woods and comes toward the house. It may comprise between twenty and thirty men, some of them wounded, half of them weaponless. Ragged dirty, shoeless, savage, weary, and intoxicated, defeat is written in their demeanor and aspect. Dan Byrne watches them narrowly. Espying his figure by the lights they carry, some of them set up a shout, half-inquiry, half-menace. He advances and confronts them, and is at once recognized by certain of the group. |
| ON THE BORDER - PART 7 |
| "What now, boys?" he asks, as they crowd about him with inquiries as to how he came there. "We’ve been whipped by the Lincolnites, ___ ‘em, and they’re after us!" is the cry, blended with demands for liquor and refreshment, which the more unruly spirits are about to enforce by a rush toward the house, when Dan raises his voice in vigorous remonstrance: "Boys!" he cries, "you know me as your comrade, and that I lost this arm in fighting for Southern Rights, and that I wouldn’t have cared if it had ben my life. Now, I ask you in return jes’ to keep right straight on, without touchin’ this house. It belongs to my uncle, and he’s an old man, and I don’t want him troubled. His only son got killed on our side in the skrimmage up to Edmondson’s, and he wants to be let alone." There was a confused clamor of voices, some in approval, some in dissent. Then a voice shouted, "We’ve hear of him! He’s a d__d Unionist and Yankee, and has got their ___ flag flying! Let’s have it down, boys!" A partial hurrah followed. |
| "I know you, Mat Green," said Dan Byrne, bitterly, in the direction of the last speaker; "the biggest coward in the regiment! Come here, and for all I’ve got but on arm I’ll whip you, and do it easy!" Some of the Tennesseeans set up a laugh at this, and for a moment the young Kentuckian thought he had prevailed. Only for a moment: in another he found himself hustled to and for, half in drunken sport, half in earnest, and heard four or five of the party, who had ascended the piazza, beating on the door and clamoring for admission and speech with the inmates. Very soon, in reply, an upper window was raised behind the planking, and the strong stern voice of old Jasper Byrne demanded the cause of the tumult. |
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