With the winding down of operations in Kentucky, I'm going to show this as a combined Tn-Ky megamap. Power numbers for the forces in ().
Even though not fully rested yet, I'm going to load Pope's army onto transports in New Madrid, and sail them down river, in preparation for an immediate landing in Memphis. As I said above, that may be where Van Dorn is heading, so I'd like to get there first (and hopefully, with the most too).
One thing that is kind of odd is, Foote's ironclads have been on bombardment orders for the past two turns, and though adjacent to Memphis (Hatchies Confluent), they have not bombarded. A bug perhaps? The CSS Arkansas is docked there..would that prevent a bombardment maybe?
On the other end of the line, Thomas finds Kirby Smith and a whole division waiting for me in Knoxville, with sandbags and cannon on it's unit base. Good thing I opted not to rush in. Not sure what I'm going to do with Thomas, as he is certainly not strong enough to proceed now, but holding that end of the Gap is a good thing. To emphasize the terrain situation in the area, I marked impassible mountain provinces with an "X".
And Grant, of course, did quite well in Madison County. More on that later, but for now, here's the map:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
On to the battles. The first was McCook's assault on Livingstone, which was only garrisoned by a militia (not a regular as I had feared/hoped):
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now onto Madison Cty, round 1...we caught Hindman and Bushrod Johnson's far smaller command alone while crossing the river (I'm discovering now this stroke of luck may have been due to a CSA movement error with Bragg's corps...hmmm):
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Round 2 was the knockout punch. Note the CSA with the river crossing penalty, rather than me. Also, I opened at range 7 with my 20lbers (10 batteries of 'em, muhuhahah), him at range 6, and as you can see, the artillery duel was the decisive phase of this battle:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Round 3 with just Grant and McClernand in pursuit was the final jab. Not as impressive as the first two rounds, and I suspect the reason for that was that McClernand had used up all his ammo in rounds 1 and 2 (I neglected to include a supply wagon with his corps, an oversight I'll be sure to rectify this coming turn):
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tentative plans now are to hit that army in Corinth again, hard. Before he gets a chance to entrench there, and/or gets reinforced (see speculations re: Van Dorn, above). Wallace's corps is relatively cohesive, unbloodied and in striking distance, and will most likely lead the way this time.
One minor gripe about the battles...Wallace and Hurlbut (only) got noticed. I wish Sherman could have gotten a senority boost.
leure: I need to promote him ASAP, as the C-in-C is hinting at leadership transfers, west to east.
Also, one more oddity/possible bug to note (beside the naval bombardment at Memphis one): Kentucky is still displaying some strange control percentages. For example, at Clarksburg, Union control is at 41%, CSA control at 14%...so who controls the other 45%? You see lots of these percentages not adding up, mostly in Kentucky, but in a few spots in east Tennessee as well, I notice.