The American Civil War – a conflict the United States between the Union (“the North”) and the Confederacy (“the South”) – was depicted multiple times on various levels – tactical, operational and strategic. The epic battles of Gettysburg, Vicksburg, or Antietam provide a lot of materials for wargames designers.

How the Union was Saved: the American Civil War 1861 – 1865 from Polish wargames publisher, Strategemata, focuses on the strategic level of this war. This is hex & counter type of game, with hidden information about exact strengths of the armies, random events at the beginning of each turn to spice-up and randomize the game and interesting system of activation using resource points for various actions you would like to take with your forces.

In below material I am focusing not only on presentation of the components, but try to explain the main game mechanics, focusing on the most prominent ones:

Enjoy!