Great AAR Charles!

You played an excellent game, it was a pure joy having you as an opponent.
This AAR sells Charles smart moves short. Perhaps his greatest achievement was the evacuation of VA. I had already outflanked him, had taken Petersburg and was threatening Lynchburg from Covington, while his main army was still at Charlottesville and inside Richmond. Still he manged to get every single soldier out of the state. Even Magruder got away from the tip of the Peninsula. I tried hard to prevent it, but failed. With this beautiful maneuver, Charles made sure our game lasted a whole year longer.
Most of my ACW PBEM have been playing the CSA. When we started this was only my second PBEM with the Union. But it was a lot of fun. One plays a lot more relaxed when you are not a single defeat away from loosing the war.
charlesonmission wrote:4. It’s hard to win a 1 on 1 battle against an entrenched force, it can be difficult even if it is 2 to 1.
That is probably the reason I won. Almost all of Charles early defeats had me as the defender. I always tried to outflank him and offer him some stacks that looked ripe for an attack. Early on it worked quite well, but the longer our game lasted the more costly the battles became for me.
Another factor working in my favour was our recruitment and spending policies: I was more aggressive with the mobilization option. Also, my building policy was almost exclusively land oriented. Until mid 1862, my only naval investment were a few ironclads on the Mississippi. By spring 1862 Charles had naval superiority near the coasts: my brown water fleet got repeatedly trashed at the coast of NC. But Charles lacked the ressources he had spend on his navy on the land.
The end felt a bit anti-climactic. I didn't manage to destroy Johnston's Army - Charles put up an incredible fight in spite of 5:1 odds.

In the end it was the virtually unopposed capture of Charleston that gave me the victory.