A Father of Miniatures Wargaming?

I continue to work my way – slowly – through the works of Tony Bath, with particular emphasis on his Setting Up a Wargames Campaign. Yesterday, I came across a passage in which Bath is talking about the introduction of a "campaign newspaper" as a way to keep players abreast of recent events. Bath states that

Robert Louis Stevenson was probably the first to produce one of these in the campaigns he waged. His was a very one-sided paper, which continually vilified his opponent, making light of his successes, emphasizing defeats and criticising his personal habits etc. This annoyed the chap so much that he made desperate efforts to capture the town in which the newspaper was situated – after which he hung the Editor with great jubilation and took over the paper, which immediately changed its policy! 

There's a lot to comment upon in this short paragraph and perhaps I'll return to it in a future post, but what struck me yesterday, when I first read it, was the reference to Robert Louis Stevenson and "the campaigns he waged." 

Though I cannot by any means be called a wargamer of any sort, I nevertheless knew that H.G. Wells had been an avid player of miniatures wargames. His Little Wars, first appearing in 1913, is perhaps the earliest published rules for fighting miniatures battles with the use of toy soldiers. Consequently, Wells's role in the history of wargames is widely acknowledged and celebrated. But Stevenson? I'd never before heard that he was in any way involved in wargaming, let alone being one of the first people recorded to have participated in the hobby.

Some cursory digging online led me to an article from the December 1898 issue of Scribner's Magazine entitled "Stevenson at Play" that included an introduction by Stevenson's stepson Lloyd Osbourne. The article indicates that Stevenson began his wargaming around 1881, well before the appearance of Little Wars. Of course, Stevenson never published the rules he used, which were primarily for his own amusement, though, as the linked article makes clear, they were fairly sophisticated. 

The older I get, the clearer my ignorance becomes. I'm always happy to discover new rabbit holes to explore and this is no exception. Looks like I have even more reading to do!