Lost Battalion Dispatch #9 for the Week of August 28, 2022

The Lost Battalion Dispatch

The diaries he kept during his time in the army became the source for short stories that brought him to the attention of the literati in Saint Petersburg. He was not interested in high society however and soon left to organize a school for peasant children on his estate. After marrying the daughter of a wealthy Moscow physician, he began devoting all his attention to composing his epic novel War and Peace.

The novel contains a historical account of the wars between Napoleon and Russia. His descriptions of combat focus on the chaos of the battlefield. Generals, he claims, imagine they can anticipate contingencies and control the outcome, but battles are really decided by “a hundred million diverse chances.” This is consistent with his idea that the infinite complexity of human behavior cannot be accounted for by any system of philosophy or religion. Sandwiched among his historical narratives are accounts of fictional characters who illustrate the psyche of the Russian people, both the elite and the peasants. He also includes essays satirizing attempts to formulate theories of history and pointing out the biases inherent in writing historical narratives. He is especially suspicious of the Great Man theory which holds that history is shaped by the decisions of generals, political leaders, and intellectuals. Tolstoy maintains that history is instead shaped by the sum of an infinite number of small decisions made by common people.

Tolstoy’s other great work, Anna Karenina, is a journey into existential angst that can be summed up by the first sentence of the novel, “All happy families resemble each other; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” After writing this novel, he became increasingly despondent, likely due to his views that the actions of individuals were essentially irrelevant. He turned to the Russian Orthodox church for solace, but quickly decide that all churches had corrupted the true message of Christianity and devoted the rest of his life to his own version of the religion which stressed five of Christ’s statements from the Sermon on the Mount: do not be angry, do not lust, do not take oaths, do not resist those who do evil to you, and love your enemies.

A fierce preliminary clash at Brawner’s Farm on the 28th failed to dislodge Jackson so Pope laid plans to surround and destroy Jackson the next day. Pope’s complicated plans for attacking Jackson’s position led to confusion in the Union ranks. They were completely disrupted by the arrival of the first elements of James Longstreet’s corps which broke through the Union lines to link up with Jackson, effectively sealing the fate of Pope’s army during heavy fighting on the 29th.

On the 30th, more of Longstreet’s troops arrived and the Confederates went on the offensive, routing the Union forces. Confederate cavalry moved to cut off Pope’s retreat, but a heroic effort by John Buford’s cavalry at Lewis Ford drove the Rebels off and prevented the destruction of Pope’s army. Pope was relieved of command two weeks later. Buford, who was wounded at Lewis Ford, would again be the savior of a Union army when his cavalry succeeded in holding the high ground during the first day of the decisive Battle of Gettysburg.

Donald Featherstone passed on from this life on August 3rd, 2013. He was perhaps the most influential wargamer of the 20th century. Born in 1918, his introduction to the wargaming hobby was H.G. Wells’ seminal book Little Wars (which is available for free at Project Gutenberg as is the lesser-known companion volume Floor Games).

Featherstone served in the 51st Battalion of the Royal Tank regiment during World War II. His talent for writing and ability to type consigned him to a role as a clerk in the Orderly room, but he had a brush with death when a shell landed in the mess tent where he was eating with his comrades. Don was one of the few to walk away uninjured, a fact for which wargamers throughout the ages can be thankful.

After Featherstone left the service in 1946, he came across an issue of Jack Scruby’s Wargames Digest and his interest in the hobby was reignited. He met noted ancient wargaming enthusiast Tony Bath and they began engaging each other over floors and lawns using the 54mm (about 2.13 inch) tin soldiers available at the time. He also became acquainted with wargamer and historian Paddy Griffith. The two of them realized that wargaming could provide valuable insights into the understanding of military history.

Jack Scruby decided to discontinue Wargames Digest in the early 60s. Wargamers were a rare and eclectic audience at the time. (The first UK Wargame Convention in 1961 was a sparsely attended event in Featherstone’s house.) Nevertheless, Featherstone and Tony Bath foresaw a market that could be nurtured into growing and prospering so they took over the publication of Wargames Digest. In 1962, Featherstone hired a hotel conference room to accommodate the 20 attendees of his second convention. In April of that year, he began publishing his Wargamer’s Newsletter which he continued to write monthly for the next 18 years. Through his efforts and those of Tony Bath and others, the hobby continued to grow. The production of 1/72 scale plastic Airfix soldiers facilitated this, providing an inexpensive means of building miniature armies.

In 1962, Featherstone published War Games, the first of over 60 books he authored about wargaming and military history. Many of these have been reprinted by The History of Wargaming Project.

Featherstone was adamant in his belief that wargaming was first and foremost a social hobby. He would be deeply saddened by the migration of wargaming to impersonal online computer games. At Lost Battalion Games our goal is to preserve Donald Featherstone’s vision of social interaction through wargaming.

Donald Featherstone