Dioramas on display at Collingwood Library and Museum

No blog updates for a while as we are chasing little white balls through the Carolina sand hills. But in the meantime, the Collingwood Library and Museum will be displaying some of my Civil War military dioramas for the next couple months. Stop by there and check them out. Their website is here: Collingwood Library 

It is a really nice place in a spectacular location on the Potomac River just north of George Washington's Mount Vernon. In fact, George Washington used to own Collingwood.

All In

 I installed the last company of painted marching figures I have on hand. This makes 41 ranks of 4 men for a total of 164 men plus one mounted officer.  About 110 of these figures were painted by a professional figure painter. The rest I did.

There is room for another 10 ranks. Adding more soldiers won't embellish the scene very much as additional figures will be partially obscured by the sunken road and worm fence in the background. I also want to leave some "breathing space" between the soldiers and the backdrop. Finally, I plan to add a wagon with the unit's baggage so I need to leave room for that. A wagon with 6 mule team takes up a good amount of space.

This unit is part of the 7thNY Steuben Volunteers, a regiment that was composed of 2 and 3 year men. The two-year men mustered in for two years service on April 23, 1861 in  New York City with  Company I from Brooklyn. In the two years the unit lost 102 men from wounds and 47 from other causes. It took nearly 50 percent casualties at the battle of Fredericksburg (243 killed or wounded out of 488 engaged). The two year men mustered out on April 25, 1863 in New York City, while the remainder of the regiment combined with the 52nd New York. This regiment is notable for two things, one it was mostly composed of German immigrants many with European combat experience, and secondly that part of it was involved in a friendly fire incident at the battle of Big Bethel at the start of the Peninsula Campaign.

Why haven't the men policed up that scrap lumber for firewood?

This view shows a mock-up of the next structure planned for the scene.

Worm fences

Two companies installed. One more to go for the 2 year regiment heading home.

"The column was compact, and the glittering muskets looked like a solid mass of steel, moving with the regularity of a pendulum."

W.T. Sherman, "Memoirs of General Sherman"

It might not be as spectacular as the Grand Review of the Army of the Potomac that Sherman was describing in the quote above, but this scene does look cool. I have installed about two thirds of the planned number of marching soldiers for this regiment. The final total will be 175 men, well under strength for a full regiment, but not unheard of for a regiment after several bloody battles and two years of service  The figures along the route are watching the parade and perhaps vicariously sharing in the soon-to-be-mustered-out-soldiers' joy.

I also started to install the trees along the far wall. Before going final on the trees I painted some distant camps and extended the background trees the backdrop.



Worm fence

 I made some new trees by taking using the tops of my wife's miniature crepe myrtles. I was careful selecting the ones to use, as some just don't have the right limb structure. But others look very good placed against the backdrop with more detailed trees in the foreground.


Final install on some trees, more coming



Nothing says "civil war" quite like a worm fence. I thought long and hard about adding one, as chances are the fence would have been confiscated for firewood by scrounging soldiers. But I did find several prototype photos showing fences that survived near some camps, so I decided to add one to this scene. I cut a bunch of twigs to 3 inches long and then split them with my knife. In about 15 minutes I had enough rails to make this fence.

The trees in the background look good from this low, distant angle.

Of Sheds and Men

This small shed was based on the prototype photo.

Work continues on detailing Potomac Creek.
I added two more sheds - one on a new platform, extended the track side platform, added a fence along the ridge crest, made three trees, and started installing the marching column of two-year men.
A fairly productive weekend. I am thinking about adding a third shed to the scene since the prototype photo shows a cluster of at least 4 sheds and houses at the north end of the bridge.

I used my laser to scribe board and batten siding with uneven spacing and irregular battens..

The structures sit on post an beam foundations. Here I use my try square to lay out the posts.

The shed sitting on its platform. The line of boxes in the back and front inside the building create a snug fitting frame to hold the structure.

The simple post fence was based on a photo. The tree in the back is sagebrush with Supertree sprigs added using hot glue.

The two new trees are sagebrush tops attached to carved balsa trunks.

I reworked the loading platform based on John Drye's suggestion. It is much more believable now. The wagon ruts leading to it work to unify the various scenic elements.

Potomac Creek Station Platform and Crossing

An overview of the Potomac Creek Station scene

I added a loading platform and a road crossing to the Potomac Creek Station scene. The road crossing consists of individual planks at a slight angle to the tracks. I filled in the approaches with dirt. Once the scenic material was wetted and glued, I added wagon wheel ruts.

I like how the wood crossing helps tie the scene together by extending the road across the tracks and through the scene.

After looking at it for a while I decided that having the stockade walls  extend straight off the fascia looked odd. So I modified the ends of the stockade walls so that they now make right angles before they end at the fascia.

The small hut between the tracks is a stand-in. I need to build a different, slightly bigger structure for that location.

Switching action at Potomac Creek. It's tough to switch this location with a southbound train.