How common were "snake" rail fences in the ACW really?

[robh]

I have been watching ACW campaign and battle documentaries while working on my 2-3mm game set and rules and was struck by comments from a couple of the Park Wardens about the lovely white fences.

Independently they both said that the abundance of snake and rail fences were a modern (tourist) thing and in practice the battlefields did not feature nearly so many of them as are there now.

My assumption (and seemingly most of the ACW gamers on the web) was that they were the primary way of marking boundaries but this would seem not to be the case and most of the land was open or boundary marked with stones.

Anyone in the know have a better idea on how common these things were and how they should appear on terrain boards?

[Leman]

Strange how an innocuous question can make you rethink what you assume is common knowledge. I was prompted to get out my only volume of The Photographic History of the Civil War - The Decisive Battles. A good few photos of very open and unobstructed battlefields. Lots of photos of straight picket and post and rail fences, mainly around buildings or edging roads. A lot of logs being used in defensive works, but only two photographs clearly showing snake rail fences. One was a farm near Chattanooga, the other the fence around Appomattox station. Looks like the Park Wardens know their stuff.

[vtsaogames]

Bloody Lane, Antietam.

[Codsticker]

When I was making my hills for our Battle of Gaines' Mill I noticed a lack of snake rail fencing in the contemporary photos. In the modern ones from the park they are all over the place.

[FifteensAway]

Reminds me that a long standing reconstruction of Fort Necessity got torn down and replaced when archaeology proved the stockade was round and small - not your typical 'toy set' square fort. 

Now I can dedicate more of my unassembled fences to good old fashioned fenced fields with straight fencing. Hal-e-who-ya!

[robh]

After a few evenings scouring books and the web I have not found many period pictures or sketches which show them either. Comparing images from the war with later collections a lot of the "snake rail" fence lines seem to have been put up in the 1880s. 

Although they look great, I am kind of glad. In 2mm they are a real PITA to make in bulk.

[Leman]

The Altar of Freedom website has some free coloured paper buildings in 3mm, which include 3mm snake rail fences.

[zippyfusenet]

So go learn:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2115927?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Civil War armies habitually stole rail fences for firewood. Once soldiers had camped in a neighborhood for a few days, there would be a lot less fencing.

[Leman]

I assume they would fight after camping a lot of the time, eg Shiloh, so the battlefield would have less fencing?

[vtsaogames]

I assume they would fight after camping a lot of the time, eg Shiloh, so the battlefield would have less fencing?

And damn few chickens.

[zippyfusenet]

Roger that, Vincent.

Also. The American Civil War was fought largely across undeveloped land, not farms and towns, because most of conUS remains undeveloped to this day. (>41% of conUS, by far the largest part of what we use today, is pasture and grazing land.) Unlike Western Europe, which ran out of undeveloped farmland around 1500 AD, the United States still has millions of square miles of sweet-fork-all just lying around, and there was even much more of it in 1861.

Major battles like Shiloh, Chickamauga, Chancellorsville and the Wilderness, and many more small battles, were fought in forested country so dense that commanders couldn't see their own troops or the enemy, didn't know where they themselves were and couldn't tell where the roads ran.

Rail fences are nice to dress up your model ACW battlefield, but what you need are trees, boxes and boxes of trees. No one ever has enough model trees to wargame the American Civil War. And sticker bushes, poison ivy, gullies, mud holes, hornet nests, fire ant hills, water moccasins, snapping turtles...better get busy modeling.

[Old Contemptible]

Yes lots of trees. But a lot of model trees are a PIA when playing a game. They just end up getting set a side. I use a lot of trees in my AWI and ACW games and they invariably get moved out of position or even removed from the game mat. Just be sure to have some way to mark the border of your woods.

[sukhe_bator]

Snake rail was designed for farmland with poor or hard soil where it was harder to drive in the posts so the fence needed greater stability and zig zagged. So bottom line only in farmed land in poor soil areas and only before the armies had stripped them for firewood...
 

[tin shed gamer]

Civil war is period I hate getting commission for. It's such an emotive subject for American's simply as they have a different perspective on time to Europeans(for a start we've had more of it and several holwers of bust ups trodden across home soil since the time of the civil war.) With experts contradicting themselves left right and centre.Half baked theorys born of preconceptions and geographical tradition.
One of my favorite examples of this is in the Civil War Documentary series (often shown on PBS.) In one episode you have the residents historian and author waxing lyrical on how no one today really knows what a rebel yell sounds like.Then recites an anecdote of confederate officer being asked to perform a rebel yell at ball and declining to as it would scare the ladies half to death.
Only to have less than two minutes later a peice of film with Old confederate and union veterans sat dining together. On a veterans day.Where several confederate vets perform a yell. Which is then authenticated by an old confederate officer who says for those of you who don't know that there is a rebel yell.
It's a long winded example of how anecdotal examples don't necessarily make for a qualified truth or historical fact.
So the statement by the warden that the fencing wasnt put up till the 1880's can't be seen as an absolute in any sence than the fencing was put then.As it doesn't account for several mundane factors including the afore mentioned stripping of fences for fire wood both before and after a battle. The deliberate flattening of fences to increase a field of fire or to aid the movement of a unit.
When it comes to photographs of the battle field its important to know how long after the battle the photographs were taken. Often examples are quoted with heavily bloated bodies or even skeletal remains.
With photos of this age definition is an issue. So if the pictures are taken days or even weeks after the actual battle the sites and remnants of such items may be obscured buy regrowth of vegetation and low definition.
What you need is images depicting the landscape before the arrival of either side.In order to have a fair understanding of the potential obstructions that existed before a shot was fired.
More over its important to note that farms and farmland were need post war and the average recovery time for a privately owned farm to be back to its prewar state is ten to fifteen years So its not unreasonable for farms to be rebuilding and adding or appear to be adding new fences twenty years later when theres time and money to invest in such a project.

From a gaming point of view unless your actually intent on the recreation on a particular battle field. Then just go for it snake rail fences are evocative of the period and add an interesting dynamic to your tactical game.

[Leman]

Well folks we’d better get working on that time machine to sort out this hugely important question.