Short answers, pulled from the story.
North & South was originally developed and published by Infogrames for the Amiga and Atari ST in 1989. It was subsequently ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System, Amstrad CPC, MSX, MS-DOS, Commodore 64, and ZX Spectrum.
North & South is based on Les Tuniques Bleues, a Belgian comic series created by writer Raoul Cauvin and artist Louis Salverius, later continued by Willy Lambillotte, and published by Dupuis. The comic series is itself set during the American Civil War.
Players can choose a starting year between 1861, the year the Civil War began, and 1864. Each starting year provides a different arrangement of armies and controlled states for each side.
Battles switch from the strategic map to a real-time action screen where each side controls infantry, cavalry, and artillery. A standard army has six infantry, three cavalry, and one cannon; cannons are limited to nine shots each before automatically withdrawing. Players can only control one unit class at a time, while the computer opponent can move all three simultaneously.
Microids released The Bluecoats: North vs South in June 2012 for iOS, Android, and Windows. The iOS version received a Metacritic score of 60. A later version, The Bluecoats: North & South, launched on the 27th of October 2020 for Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4, with a PC version following on the 5th of November 2020.
Computer Gaming World rated North & South one-plus stars out of five for wargamers and three stars out of five for arcade gamers, reflecting the game's hybrid design. In 2011, the Polish website Wirtualna Polska ranked it the tenth-best Amiga game.