Pre-order a place in the online battle

The projected day of battle is: Tuesday, 21st July 2026

Buy a Command in the Online Game

1 officer commissioned. Not there yet: 127 to go.^*

59 out of 60 Union and 68 out of 68 Confederate available ^*

“Beauregard was caught by surprise, but he moved swiftly, still bent on launching his Napoleonic attack, He issued a paper shower of orders. Mounted messengers spurred out of Manassas for the line where they were either misunderstood or ignored.” William C. Davis “Battle at Bull Run”

“Colonel Miles,” McDowell said, ”You are relieved from the command of your troops.” …Miles.., ignoring McDowell’s orders, tried once more to direct Richardson’s troops. Richardson was not about to stand for it, "I am in command of these troops.” To Miles’s questioning stare, Richardson said bluntly, “Colonel Miles you are drunk.” Miles muttered something about arresting Richardson, who dared him to try it… William C. Davis “Battle at Bull Run”

Battle commences when circa ≥118 positions are sold or on Tuesday, 21st July 2026 (whichever is sooner). If the latter with the twenty nine, or twelve, players who have been in the queue for longest. The action is fought in fifteen weekly circa three hour episodes on G.M.T. Saturdays. Commencement is at 06:00 Pacific Standard Time, 14:00 G.M.T. & 24:00 Kilo (Brisbane) Time.

The free “Action at Blackburn’s Ford” commences when the first sixteen customers, who have both purchased a Bull Run command and taken a command at Blackburn’s Ford, are in place. Blackburn’s Ford is fought in three episodes. One per week. Each Saturday episode takes circa three hours to play. Each episode starts at 08:00 hours Pacific Standard (Los Angeles) Time, 16:00 hours Greenwich Mean (London) Time and 02:00 hours Kilo (Brisbane).

Historiographically speaking, southern historians had a common, though not perfectly adhered to, convention of naming Civil War battles after the nearest hamlet, village or town whereas northern historians had a loose convention to favour naming battles after the nearest natural geographical feature, including rivers. Had the outcome of the war been reversed the battle we know of as "Bull Run" would have been known as "Manassas Junction" instead. In the mid 19th century, the battle was as often called "Manassas", as it was called "Manassas Junction".

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS 28-Mar-23
Use Chrome Browser for the best experience

The game does not work properly on tablets, particularly for issuing movement orders.

Maximise screen resolution for the best view and use the browser's full-screen mode.

A MODEST REQUEST 28-Mar-23
The rules say players may not communicate with more frequency than is allowed in-game. Players who are in a position to circumvent the above rule are hereby requested to be so kind as not to.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS 11-May-23
• The customer agrees not to conduct player communications outside of the game upon pain of removal from the game without any refund falling due. But at least we do not apply the whip - a legal, and applied, military punishment of the US army in 1861. Indeed two men of the Federal army were whipped on the 20th July 1861 for having deserted their post.

• The customer grants permission, by virtue of playing the game at all, that any selfie provided to Historical Engineering, for the purpose of creating a composite image, or images, out of his own image and any image of a historical character that is any one of his avatars in the game, then this composite may be used in game as Historical Engineering favours as well as for marketing.

• The customer grants permission for in game communication both written and visual including video to be used in after action reports, if applicable, that Historical Engineering may, but need not, send to players and that this material may also be used, if applicable (allowing for the craftsmanly nature of the business it may never be!), for selling and marketing purposes. In-game communications are the exclusive property of the company, not the customer (though the customer may use such material as he collects for non-commercial purposes, such as fan clubs!), and may be used by the company at will including in the public domain. The form of such a purpose envisaged might be an after action report available on the Historical Engineering website to allow interested parties to look inside the game or demonstrate how the game works. An after action report is a dramatic recounting of some part or all of a battle.

REFUND POLICY 11-May-23
For the first hour of the battle time, from 05:40 hours to 06:40 hours (which is to say for the first seven days in real time after play commences), any player dropping out of the game will be granted a 75% refund for any reason upon request to +44-7525100774 or acup@historicalengineering.com. After 06:40 hours refunds are no longer available. Refunds made will be to the original card with which payment was made.

CANCELLATION POLICY 11-May-23
Customers may cancel pending orders within 14 days of purchasing a position and receive a full refund within seven days thereof.

PRIVACY POLICY 25-May-23
During the purchase process, we collect your given name, family name, e-mail and mobile (cell) number as these are required for game play. In order to reduce the chance of this data about you being stolen we archive offline as hard copy only all such information that pertains to a customer who has not played for more than two years. Prior to that we retain customer contact information electronically. Hard copy only contact information is retained for ten years. Once your contact information is archived we will not send you information about new or existing games unless you have confirmed otherwise in the market research questionnaire asking us to keep you informed about new and existing games. Prior to archiving we may send you information about new and existing games. Both prior to, and after, archiving we will not provide the contact information about you that we possess to third parties. In the event of sale of the business any new owner will be obliged to enter into the same privacy policy as ours such that, like us, they would have a duty to inform customers of any variation to this policy. They would contract not to use your information for any other purpose than as defined in this policy.

If you want to be forgotten let us know and we will forget you as the law, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), requires. In the event of the sale of the business, you will be reminded of your right.

For keeping in touch with you, even after you have left us if you do, and with other people who might wish to play our games with you, we invite you to complete a market research form upon your first (only) log in to a game. In the case you choose to answer this questionnaire you thereby assent to our using the information you have kindly provided to determine where to advertise our product. The electronic data about you gathered by our questionnaire is automatically deleted after thirty one days. Prior to this it is both aggregated electronically and retained as hard copy only.

No data is recorded until a command is chosen. If the choice is cancelled then all data of the customer cancelling that command is deleted.

We only gather cookies to record session IDs. Play constitutes your assent to this. This paragraph is present only to save you from having to click Accept (or Reject) to those ridiculous questions to do with whether you consent or not to the use of cookies.

Subject to our business not being sold or franchised none of the information we gather is provided to third parties whether or not for a fee except for anonymous aggregated data which may be.

There is no third party advertising in the game nor is any information shared with any third parties.