Laurent Tisseyre emerged from a field of 37 players to win the 6th BPA PBEM tournament for the Great Campaigns of the American Civil War. The tournament participants played a total of 59 games over almost two years, and the finals saw Laurent, the winner of the PBEM Division, play Paul Sampson, the winner of the Live-Play Division. Laurent ended undefeated over seven rounds of the tournament. Other laurelists, coming in 3rd through 6th, were Jean-Louis Dirion, Ken Lee, Bruno Passacantando, and Steve Likevich, in that order.
In the finals, Laurent’s Union forces prevailed over the Confederate troops commanded by Paul in the Advanced Game of Hood Strikes North. The game simulates the Civil War campaign in Tennessee in November-December 1864. Laurent’s Union troops fell back towards Columbia in the early days of the campaign, crossing the Duck River in good order and with Franklin and ultimately Nashville on the road ahead. Rain on the fourth day and again late on the fifth day slowed the Rebel advance on the Union forces. Nonetheless, Forrest’s Confederate cavalry destroyed a Union wagon train on the fifth day and threatened to block the retreating Union forces, before Schofield’s Union troops inflicted significant losses on Forrest’s units. Stephen D. Lee’s Confederate corps slipped ahead of the retreating Union forces on days 6 and 7, beating them to Franklin. But Union forces rallied and eventually surrounded Lee’s corps, halting the advance and demoralizing the Confederate forces in combat.
With Lee’s corps surrounded in Franklin, and with winter weather on the way, on day 9 Stewart’s Confederate corps, located several miles to the west of Franklin, made a bold move: rather than attempt to relieve Lee’s forces at Franklin, Stewart’s units marched quickly and unabated towards Nashville. Taking and holding Nashville at the end of a day would give an immediate victory in the game to the Confederates. Stewart’s corps destroyed a fort on the outskirts of Nashville, with the open city in front of it, but various Union units rallied, defending the city, surrounding Stewart’s units, and eventually ejecting them. At that point, the Confederates conceded, and Laurent had earned his first BPA championship plaque for the Great Campaigns series.
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