ACW (AB#4)

So I decided to post about my 15mm American Civil War collection, one of the most used collections that I own. It's stored in three large drawers (the type you get in school art rooms, geography rooms etc.). They're stacked high up on a set of shelves and are heavy (for me at least) and once more,  required me to risk life and limb to get the top one of the three.
It turned out that this contained my buildings and other scenic bits, most specifically for 15mm ACW.
As the collection is quite large, I'll be splitting the posts about this over two or more weeks.
For the ACW games we played, most were on a table 8 x 6 feet, with a few on a larger table of 12 x 6 feet. With that amount of table to cover and the nature of the war, a lot of buildings were needed\ (and fences, bloody fences) as well as all the other paraphernalia to make the game look like the war it was meant to be.

Rear view if above casualty figure is on  20 x 25mm base for scale

I used "Johnny Reb III", one of the best written set of rules I've encountered and even if they are a bit lengthy, they do cover everything I wanted from a set of rules. The last time this collection was used, if memory serves, was sometime over nine years ago (by my son and his friend) and probably more that fifteen years ago by myself.
The building in the photograph above and to the right was scratch-built from air drying clay and the two figures, a casualty and a kneeling cavalryman are 15mms.
I have a lot of dead  figures as they were used to represent casualties and when sufficient were accumulated by a unit a base of figures would be removed. When dealing with battles that contained corps sized with upwards of 20 regiments on each side represented, a lot of casualties were needed!

Another scratch-built building from clay, showing a lot of wear.

Close-up view (padding - Ed.)

Rear view (- bit obvious really).

Another clapboard building.

Side view, notice the sack at the front and barrel in the rear.

I mostly used a razor blase to get right angles and the thin planking, shingles etc., but also used matchsticks for porch supports and various bits - boxes, barrels and sacks from the old "Airfix Wagon Train" sets

Side and rear view

Rear and chimney view

One of my larger clap-board buildings, again from clay

Side view showing wear and tear.

Side and rear, more wear and tear.

These buildings have suffered a lot over the years, probably due to the fragile nature of the clay and I probably didn't varnish them either. They were built out of necessity as any available funds would be used on figures - and times were hard !

Simple log cabin made from matchsticks - it wasn't just clay that was cheap !

Obligatory really boring, slightly blurred picture of the featureless rear and side

Good card building that has survived well.

I also inherited a couple of card buildings from a friend, nicely reinforce with balsa (a building medium I hate).

Rear and side view.

Droopy front porch roof

Matchstick porch roof support

Side and back view

From the early days I used whatever I could,  including this very old vacuum-formed "Bellona" barn, which I reinforced with plaster.
It doesn't look much, but served well in many engagements across the years.

It shows wear from a lot of use, but mot bad for cheap thin plastic.

Scracth-build with missing supports

 Finally a scracth-build, though not one I built and I think is very professional, based on the John Ross house on Missionary Ridge, from what it says underneath. I haven't a clue where and how I acquired it either !

A great building and survived well imo

Side and rear view

So this first post only shows about a third of the buildings for my ACW games, next week I'll show the various commercial buildings that I bought over several years.

That's it then for this week, one where the last week my regular hospital and clinic visits have all but drained me off energy.

Thanks for taking the time to visit, hopefully something has been of interest and as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.


ADDENDUM:
Having messed up with the photogfrpahs and buildings I have, I hope ammended the relevant bits; adding an omitted card building and correcting the comments on a scracth-build.