Relationships In Civil War California

(Original Version)
1. Family
1. Brother Against Brother (or Sister)
2. Parent & Child
3. Family by Adoption
4. Husband & Wife
5. Rich Aunt/Uncle & Poor Nephew/Niece
6. Cousins
2. Work
1. Prospecting Partners
2. Ranch Foreman & Cowboy
3. Boss & Personal Assistant
4. Partners in a Store
5. Master & Servant
6. Co-Employees
3. The Past
1. A Spouse, Presumed Dead
2. Former Master & Escaped Slave
3. Army Buddies from the Mexican War
4. An Old Family Grudge
5. School-Days Bully & Victim
6. Former Prostitute and Frequent Client
4. Romance
1. Old Flames, Rekindled
2. Forbidden Passion
3. Starry-Eyed Newlyweds
4. Unrequited Love
5. Star-Crossed Young Lovers
6. Happily Married
5. Crime
1. Bandit Gang
2. Con Artist & Mark
3. Plotting Treason!
4. Lawman & Wanted Bandit
5. Crooked Boss & Enforcer
6. Extortionist & Victim
6. Community
1. Rival Faction Leaders
2. Landowner & Squatter
 3. Local Official & Owner of Vice Den
4. Arbiters of Society
5. Local Misfits
6. Town Loser & Wife

Needs In Civil War California (Original

Version)
1. To Get Out
1. From Under the Family Name
2. Of a Partnership Gone Scary
3. Before They Find Out What You Did
4. Of A Romance Gone Bad
5. Of a Deal That’s Bleeding You Dry
6. Without a Dishonorable Discharge
2. To Get Even
1. With the Law
2. With the Army
3. With a Lover Who Scorned You
4. With a Treacherous Subordinate
5. With the Anglos Who Stole Your Land
6. With the Rest of Your Family
3. To Get Respect
1. From an Overbearing Parent
2. From the Folks Back East Who Laughed at You
3. From the Army
4. From Your Natural Inferiors
5. From This Vicious Little Town
6. From Your Distant Hero
4. To Get Rich
1. Through Your Big Idea
2. While Defending the Union
3. As Soon as Possible
4. Without Honest Work
5. While Getting Those Yankees’ Goat
6. Before the Lodes Run Out
5. To Get Into
1. The Confederate Army
2. Your Boss’s Good Graces
3. The Family Trust Fund
4. The Knights of the Golden Circle
5. The Circle of Respectability
 6. A Powerful Man's Bed
6. To Get Love
1. From Someone Who Doesn’t Know You Exist
2. From a Parent Obsessed with Success
3. From Anyone Who’ll Take You
4. That Drowns Your Shame and Guilt
5. From Your Whole Community
6. From Someone Who Hates You

Locations In Civil War California

(Original Version)
1. Frisco and the Bay
1. The Army Base on Alcatraz Island
2. The Benicia Arsenal
3. A Dance Hall on the Barbary Coast
4. St. Mary’s Hospital on Rincon Hill
5. A Pier on the San Francisco Embarcadero
6. The Back Room of a Boarding-House in Oakland
2. The Gold Country
1. The Hydraulic Mine at Dutch Flat
2. The Store at Carson’s Creek
3. The Wells Fargo Office at Placerville
4. A Tapped-Out Creek in the Hills
5. A Mining Camp in the Sierra Foothills
6. Bartram’s Hotel, East of Placerville
3. Off the Beaten Path
1. A Dry Gulch in the Central Valley
2. A Cave above the Altamont Pass
3. A Mountain Pass on the Placerville Toll Road
4. Near the Summit of Mount Hamilton
5. Among the Redwoods in the Yosemite Valley
6. A Hidden Cove on the Marin Coast
4. Sacramento
1. The State Capitol Construction Site
2. A Warehouse on the Sacramento River
3. The Goss & Nichols Iron Works
4. A Suite at the Orleans Hotel
5. A Railroad Camp, About Ten Miles Northeast of Town
6. A Disorderly House near the Riverfront
5. The Tri-Valley
1. A Cantina at Alisal
 2. The Dublin Stagecoach Stop
3. The Francisco Alviso Adobe
4. John Kottinger’s Barn in Alisal
5. A Field on the Outskirts of the Livermore Ranch
6. The Bilz Wagon Works in Alisal
6. South of the Bay
1. The Churchyard at Mission San Jose
2. A Shack in Niles Canyon
3. The Hill Farmhouse on New Almaden Road
4. A Quicksilver Mine Shaft in New Almaden
5. A General Store next to San Jose City Hall
6. The Halfway House Inn at Salinas

Objects In Civil War California (Original

Version)
1. Weapon
1. A Gatling Gun
2. A Hatchet
3. A Colt Revolver
4. A Branding Iron
5. A Ten-Pound Cask of Gunpowder
6. A Twenty-Pound Sledgehammer
2. Transportation
1. An Armed Schooner
2. A Stagecoach
3. A Buckboard Wagon
4. A Stolen Horse
5. An Engine on the Sacramento Valley Railroad
6. A Single-Sailed Dinghy
3. Valuable
1. $60,000 in Union Gold
2. A Letter of Introduction of Gen. A.S. Johnston
3. A Thoroughbred Race Horse
4. Plans for an Armored Steam Car
5. The Deed to a Comstock Mining Claim
6. Six Crates of Henry Breech-Loading Rifles
4. Information
1. The Name of an Undercover Confederate Agent
2. The Location of Someone’s Secret Trysting Place
3. The Route of the Next Gold Shipment Leaving Sacramento
4. A Duty Roster with Guard Schedules
 5. Someone’s True Place and Family of Birth
6. The Number of Someone Else’s Bank Account
5. Shameful
1. Correspondence Between Illicit Lovers
2. A Compromising Photograph
3. An Opium Pipe
4. A Baby of Mixed Ethnicity and illegitimate Birth
5. A Deck of Marked Cards
6. A Bundle of Counterfeit Banknotes
6. Sentimental
1. A Picture Locket
2. A Quantity of Clipped Tresses, Bound by Ribbon
3. An Heirloom Pocket Watch
4. A Letter from Someone’s Betrothed
5. The Cigarette Case that Stopped a Bullet
6. A Story Clipped from a Newspaper

A Seditious INSTA-Setup for California

Confederates
Relationships In Civil War California

For three players…

 Family: Brother against Brother (or Sister)

 The Past: Army Buddies from the Mexican War
 Crime: Plotting Treason!

For four players, add…

 Romance: Starry-Eyed Newlyweds

For five players, add…

 Community: Arbiters of Society

Needs In Civil War California

For three players…

 To Get Even: With the Army

For four or five players, add…

 To Get Rich: From Your Big Idea

Objects In Civil War California

For three or four players…

 Valuable: $60,000 in Union Gold

For five players, add…

 Transportation: A Stolen Horse

Locations In Civil War California

For three, four or five players…

The Tri-Valley: A Cantina at Alisal

Historical Notes for California

Confederates
For an overview of California's role in the Civil War, try the Wikipedia article here. The
material below provides background information about places and people mentioned in
the element lists.

Frisco and the Bay

Before Alcatraz Island became a federal prison, it was a military base helping to guard
the entrance to the San Francisco Bay. During the War the federal government uses the
island to intern suspected Confederate agents and Copperhead agitators. At the
northeast corner of the Bay, the arsenal at Benicia is the Army’s largest ordnance facility
on the West Coast, and the base there an important staging area for troops serving in
the West. St. Mary’s Hospital is run by the Sisters of Mercy, an order of Irish nuns who
also distribute food and clean linen to the poor and the sick of San Francisco.

The Gold Country

Hydraulic mining, such as that pursued at Dutch Flat, involves pressurized water cannons
that strip the surface off of mountainsides, directing the resulting “slurry” into long
wooden sluices to extract the gold, sometimes with the aid of mercury. Carson’s Creek,
one of the early boomtowns of the Gold Rush, is nearly a ghost town now that the easy
veins are all “worked;” and the remaining claims are tied up in legal wrangles. Placerville
is one of the hubs of the Gold Country, an important transit point for silver coming from
the Comstock Lode and one terminus of Wells Fargo’s Pioneer stagecoach route. East of
town, Bartram’s Hotel lies near a bend in the main road where an ambush might easily
be staged.

Sacramento
The State Capitol building began construction in 1861 and will probably not be finished
until after the war—the victim of difficulties with funding, flooding, and a cumbersome
day-by-day contracting system. The Orleans is the city’s most luxurious hotel, and hosts
a stop on the California Stage Line.

The Tri-Valley
Alisal is a small town only recently emerging from its past as a watering-place and haven
for Californio bandits seeking payback from the Anglos. It also serves as the judicial seat
of Murray Township in the person of Justice of the Peace John Kottinger. Close by lies the
adobe of Francisco Alviso, foreman of the Bernal rancho. More traffic, however, flows
through Dublin slightly to the north, where there is a Wells Fargo stagecoach stop. East
of Alisal and Dublin lies the ranch of Robert Livermore, Jr., a popular stop for travelers
going to or from the southern gold fields.

South of the Bay

Long shorn of its supporting properties, Mission San Jose is a parish church that has
given its name to the surrounding town built on the old mission’s lands. New Almaden,
south of San Jose, is the site of a bustling quicksilver mine that supplies mercury for use
in the hydraulic mining operations of the Sierras; Edward Hill owns a farm on the road
between New Almaden and San Jose. Even further south, the Half Way House Inn lies
where the L.A. to S.F. stagecoach route crosses the road between Monterey and San
Juan Batista, at the town of Salinas.

Other Noteworthies
The Knights of the Golden Circle are an organization of Confederate
sympathizers based in California, from whose membership much
Copperhead plotting arises. Gen. A.S. Johnston resigned his U.S. Army
commission in 1861 and laid down his command in California to travel
East and fight for the Confederacy.