Excerpts from the designer's introduction: "From Manassas to Appomattox is a Grand Tactical level rule set. It has been designed to place you in command of corps or armies and to allow your decisions to affect the outcome of the battle. The emphasis of the rules is upon playability while attempting to maintain as much historical accuracy as possible. The rules have be designed to cover field actions, but may be adapted to cover the sieges that occurred during the war... The use of cards for activating formations has been done to create a situation where players are uncertain as to which formation will be activated next and to represent some of the confusion that occurred during the battles of this period.