Union Tactics
You are the quartermaster. A column has to reach The Landing, it eats three rations a day whether it marches or stands still, and it sets out with less than the road needs. Everything you can do about that runs through somebody else’s barn.
Nothing here fights. There is no battle in this game, no unit is destroyed and nobody is a casualty — and that is structural rather than a promise: the state object in lib/union.ts has no health, no strength and no attack, so a later change could not add a battle without adding a field. The reason is not squeamishness. A war game teaches that the interesting decisions are the fighting ones, and for a quartermaster they never were. The column is lost on the days it does nothing, eating.
The road is invented. The clauses are not. There is no source in this project for the logistics of any real campaign, so this game makes no historical claim at all: the six stops, the column, the rations and every number are invented and labelled as modelled. What is real is the constitutional text — seven clauses quoted exactly from the National Archives transcription of the 1787 parchment, pulled out of that transcript by the build rather than typed by anyone. Dressing invented logistics in real place names would teach history this project cannot support, and it would be believed, because the clauses beside it are true.
Two of the four orders may not be carried out. The militia may be called for three stated purposes and a debt is not one of them; money may not be drawn from the Treasury without an appropriation. When you take one of those orders the column simply does not move, and the clause that stops it is on the screen. Knowing which order you may not carry out is part of the job, and it is the part no supply table teaches.
Sixteen and over. That floor is a standing ruling rather than a guess about this game: the library’s register rules strategy-and-war out below the secondary band, with the reason recorded — war powers and the law of armed conflict are secondary-and-above material.
The order book
Four orders are on the table. Two of them this force may lawfully be used for and two of them it may not, and the clause is on each one. Reading them costs nothing.
Move the regular column to The Landing.
Call the county militia to repel an invasion.
Call the county militia to collect a debt owed to a supplier.
Keep the teamsters on past the end of the appropriation.
The clauses this board runs on
Quoted exactly from the National Archives transcription of the 1787 parchment. Everything else on this board is invented and labelled.
“To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;”
U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 12
Congress raises the army and pays for it, and the money for that use may not be appropriated for longer than two years. In this game that is the clock on the whole campaign: the column exists because an appropriation exists, and appropriations end.
“No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law;”
U.S. Const. art. I, § 9, cl. 7
Nothing is paid for without an appropriation made by law. Every wagon, every ration and every day of hired teamsters in this game is drawn against one, and when it is gone it is gone.
“To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;”
U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 11
The decision to be at war is Congress's, not the commander's. This game never asks the player to make it.
“To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;”
U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 14
The rules the army runs under are written by Congress. A quartermaster works inside them and cannot vote himself new ones.
“To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;”
U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 15
The militia may be called for three stated purposes and no others. In this game the militia column simply will not move for a fourth, and the refusal quotes the clause.
“To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;”
U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 16
Congress organises and arms the militia; the States appoint the officers and train them. Two masters, which is why a militia column in this game answers more slowly than a regular one.
“The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;”
U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl. 1
Command is the President's. Not the money, not the rules, not the decision to be at war — the command.
The clauses are quoted exactly and cited. Everything else is a board. This is not legal advice and it is not a history of any campaign; for the constitutional text itself, read it whole at /read, where the same transcript is served with its provenance. The column sets out with 15 rations, which is less than the road needs.
Nothing here is scored, saved, sent anywhere or compared to anybody. For the constitutional text itself, whole and with its provenance, read it at the reader.