Aetius

I do this as well. Artillery in the trees, a brigade or skirmishers behind them to block that ford, one brigade in the fortification, and one brigade to their left up the hill, preferably with good long-range weapons (Lorenz or MJ&G) and a good firearms skill. Whenever Union units try to cross the bridge, the Confederate brigade on the left approaches and fires into their flank. Your artillery can't be seen in the trees, and takes few casualties while reducing the enemy artillery, which protects the troops on the hill. It's pretty much impossible for the AI to take the bridge with this setup, even with blobbing, and it also blocks the cavalry and skirmishers from getting across into your rear. You can hold this position through the entire fight with minimal casualties and maximum experience gain, particularly for the artillery. To cover your rear, just put one of Beauregard's brigades across the river and hold the buildings there (Hampton's Legion, because of where they enter, is perfect for this job).

Malvern Hill is completely doable, and without heavy casualties. The key for me is patience. I've played through it about four times now. My first attempts I rushed things, and took heavy casualties. On my last attempt, I moved much more slowly and carefully, and was rewarded with the above result. I spent half the battle working over the fortification on the Union far right with snipers and artillery - the snipers hidden in the woods in front of the eastern fort and the artillery positioned on the hills to the right of the Union position (along with some small cavalry and skirmisher units for protection and spotting). The rest of my attack forces were hidden in the woods further back. The snipers and the artillery focus on Union artillery, with one goal - to kill it or drive it away from the eastern fort. Once that's done, you can hit the eastern fort with a series of brigades on a one-brigade front. Each attacking brigade gets into melee in the fort, and gets fire support from the brigade behind it. It took two waves for me to take the fort, and then the follow-up brigades push through into the Union rear. At the same time, some brigades head to the far west, and position themselves to block the two fords without exposing themselves to fire from the hill. This will cause the Union to strip forces from the second defense line to face off against the units in the West. In combination with the sniper and artillery attacks on the eastern fort, you'll notice a general migration of Union forces to the left, which helps clear the way for your breakthrough. When your reinforcements arrive, they form a line facing the Union left and center, but stay out of contact except for artillery, which should commence bombarding the Union blob that's building up on the left. Your breakthrough brigades form a north-south line, and then slowly move west to roll up the Union line. Your snipers can take up residence in the trees at the eastern fort, and you can eventually migrate artillery there so they can keep firing into the Union blob. Both snipers and artillery should focus artillery units, and infantry should target them as well whenever they can. Send cavalry through the hole and / or detach skirmishers to roam the Union rear, capture supply wagons, and take the two victory locations. Eventually your breakthrough brigades will link up with your western forces, probably near the southern ford. At that point, the kill box is complete and you just move forward slowly, routing any unit that tries to stand or run and letting your artillery and snipers do their work. I can't emphasize enough that patience is important - the Union artillery left in the blob can sometimes just zap one of your units with canister if you get too close, and rout them out with heavy casualties. It was getting dark when I killed and captured the last Union units, with only one skirmisher on the far southeast edge of the map escaping.

I believe Medicine is much more valuable than Training. As far as I can tell, Medicine saves the entire cost of both the man and his weapon, which is a double effect like Politics. Its value is further increased because that man is an experienced veteran, not a "veteran" trained recruit - he adds to the unit skill levels, rather than leaving them unchanged. The only downside to Medicine is that its effect is lower when you take light casualties. Let's say, for example, that you are recovering 10% of your casualties via Medicine. If you take 200 casualties, that's 20 men returned. Making up some numbers, you'd have to pay $250 for a new "veteran" recruit, and then another $30 for his rifle. That means your Medicine saved you $5600. If you had taken 10% Training instead, you'd get a discount of $25 on each soldier. To gain a savings equivalent to Medicine, you'd have to recruit 224 men - more than you lost in the first place, and the dollar numbers don't take into account the man's experienced status. And that's just for infantry, with cheap weapons - for cavalry and snipers, the benefits of Medicine increase drastically because their men and equipment are so expensive (and in some cases, irreplaceable - like LeMats and Whitworths).