Petersburg Lines from the Civil War Wesley decided to recreate an important battle of Civil War. The Siege of Petersburg was a series of battles that were done around Petersburg Viriginia. An important aspect of the struggle was trench warfare. The trenches extended over 30 miles. Trench warfare would become an important aspect of World War One.
The idea was to capture the railroad system supplying the Confederate forces. The series of action by Union forces lead to the Confederates to abandoning Petersburg and Richmond. Soon after that the Lee would surrender at Appomattix court house.
Petersburg Lines from the Civil War Wesley McGrath the Photos
The first photo shows confederate forces defending against a Union attacking force.
Here is a closeup of the Confederate forces. The cannon is done by Imex. Wesley added chains, hooks, trial spikes, and buckets to cannon.
A different view of the confederate defense postion, can you identified the figures Wesley converted.
A closeup of another Confederate cannon and gun crew.
The Confederate gun crew firing the cannon. I always like the man holding his ears.
One more photo of the defense position.
Petersburg Lines from the Civil War Wesley McGrath Final Thoughts
I really like the work Wesley has done on his display. You can see Wesley did a lot of work on the his display. I like his additions to the Imex cannons . I will be curious to see how many figures you indentified in in the display.
Petersburg Lines from the Civil War Wesley McGrath A question
Wesley had a question for the our readers. A while ago he can across a Russian site that had the best ACW cannons in plastic 1/32 scale he had ever seen. Problem he could not work out how to buy them, Anyone in the group know of such a site ?
Awesome job.Great realism ,like a war painting or better photo.!!!! 🙂 🙂
I can see Accurare,Imex,MARKSMEN so far…..from my phone.
Need take better close up look.
Intersting in IMEX cannon.I have not got it.Is it made of same fragile plastic.??
🙂 🙂 🙂
Good spotting Erwin, there’s the odd BMC there too believe it or not. The IMEX guns are pretty good scale pieces with some detail that I have just enhanced. The gun on the left (4th photo) has a Expeditionary Force Napoleon barrell. The guns take a lot of work to make them look the part but it is a lot of fun to do. I’ve done the same thing to the IMEX limbers, I’ll send some photos of them one day.
I also can see Cunningham, along with Butternut & Blue. The Confederate holding the flag looks like BMC.
The IMEX cannon & limbers were soft plastic (like AIP and CTA English Civil War cannon), but they were sturdy enough (not fragile).
Thank you Don.
I though they were bad plastic.
Another to hunt I guess!! 🙂 🙂
Don ;is Cunningham the one kneeling with bonnet type hat?
I can detail it well. I saw the BMC after you mentioned ,I think I miss the banner pose.LOL
You’re right Don, the IMEX cannon and limbers are sturdy enough but also easily cut and drilled into. That’s how I moun the chains and trail-spikes. I’ve converted some IMEX limbers so that they are open and show the shells inside and have a spare bucket underneath. I also blended a BMC limber base with IMEX limber boxes to create a caisson. One day I’ll make some more.
My great grandfather fought with Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia at the Siege of Petersburg and was with him when he surrendered at Appomattox.
Lynn, that’s quite a family history. May I ask: Are you yourself from Virginia? If so, where? Also, do you know what regiment or unit your ancestor was in?
Don, we are Buies from the Buie’s Creek area of North Carolina. I cannot tell you exactly without digging out records but it seems something like the NC 5th infantry. He would migrate to Texas in 1870 where most of the family resides today. Me, I married a girl from Missouri who came to Texas to college and have resided here for over 37 years. We still own land that he acquired in Texas in 1879. His name was John Dixon Buie. Wesley’s next project should be to build a diorama of the Battle of the Crater. This was where a group of Pennsylvania coal miners were attempting to tunnel under the Confederate trenches and blow them up. The Confederates knew they were doing it and tunneled back out towards them. The Union guys came up way short in their tunneling and blew it up short of the lines. Thus creating a crater in which the Union suffered a bad defeat at the hands of the home team. I have walked the grounds of the Siege of Petersburg.
Now there’s a challenge, Lynn. I’ve got the space and the dirt,…..hmmm, maybe.
I see a lot of Imex or Accurate, can never get them straight. I see a few Cunnyngham’s a Barzso, a dead TSSD, possibly some Union Butternut and Blue, can’t really see the Union too well. The artillery officer in the last photo looks like a Replicants. Possibly a dead Conte.
You’ve pretty much got them all…….I call them IMEX, but yes they could be Accurate, same thing really. The Union were not really my focus (pun intended) when taking the photos, that shpould give a clue where my sympathies lie, the 3rd photo does show them but I can’t get it to ‘enlarge’. Can anyone see the sharpshooter I created by adding a scope to his gun ?
Nice Work!
It is great to see so many different makers represented in your scene. Do you need any extra cannon parts? I have spare ones from Britain’s 12 pounders as well limber pieces if they are required. (I dismantled a few to make them into other projects that will likely never be completed.)
Thanks for the offer Michael but trust me, I have enough spare artillery parts to last a lifetime ! I reckon I might have the largest (modest as it is) 54mm ACW collection in Australia.
Very impressive work; always fun to see others’ work – particularly when it is done so well.
A comment on Imex Plastic – Erwin, the early Imex figures were in very good softer and sturdy plastic similar to Accurate and classical Marx; I didn’t notice any problems until they came out with their “newer posable and paintable” plastics – about the time of their 2nd set of ACW Confederates (my order came with about half the weapons busted off still on the sprue) and their unfortunately brittle 1/72 scale Alamo Mexicans. Even their original releases of 1/72 scale Alamo Defenders were pretty well done and in good plastic.
I don’t know if they ruined the arty sets or not, but the ones I have are still in good shape some twenty-plus years later.
Thanks for the eye candy on this Sunday.
Thank you Wayne.
I was wondering as I had bough some sets and as you said early happen to be done with right plastic.
While some of later AWI I got were in bad plastic.Very stiff.
So I guess I have to look for old cases.
Best….
Wayne the IMEX 706 set (the 2nd CSA set) is one of my favourites although, yes the weapons are very brittle. I have used a few of these guys in this diorama and have replaced weapons and added back-packs and bed rolls where I thought they’d look better. I am still lokking for the flag guy though, I don’t have him.
Wessley, that’s what made the plastic so tragic in my opinion; they had such great sculpts – even their Alamo guys – but screwed them with the plastic. I bought enough boxes of their Mexican artillery in 1/72 scale to field about three batteries I painted up as Napoleonic French – I didn’t really need 1/72 Alamo – doing that in 1/32 scale but figured they’d make nice French Line arty. And they did look nice. I put them up and a few months later got them out to do a diorama/photo series on Waterloo I’d been planning and there wasn’t a single wheel left on any gun – totally disgusted. It wasn’t like I’d tossed them in a box and threw them around, either.
I haven’t seen my Imex rebs in the hard plastic in years – they’re stored safely (I hope) – I’m almost afraid to see the condition they’re in as the plastic seems to fall apart on its own. JMO.
I’m wondering if they deal w same making the last bad plastic reissues of Airfix .Emhar had same issue too.
I was cutting the exess loose from one ,then got a minor piece in to my eye that jumped off so fast.It took me quite a work to get it out my eyes with out injuries.
Since then I use eye protector.
Crazy.
Erwin, Emhar and Imex had a deal going on right there at the end where several of their sets were the same figures just different boxes as far as I could tell. I got some of their Saxons in 1/72 scale and several broke trying to cut them off the sprues. Totally ticked off – another company I pretty much scratched off my list until I heard their recent Nappies were cast in a marginally better plastic. I haven’t had a chance to get to them yet so the jury is out.
This is a museum-quality diorama! Very well done! Besides the figures others have mentioned, I can see a Marx Fort Apache 7th cavalry man with his carbine replaced by a shell in photo 4. He has a red kepi and a white shirt. I think the officer commanding the gunners is from Marksman.
Replicants/Marxman, same thing really. Same guy made them. I think that red kepi guy is a Barzso, unless he changed the stand too that is definitely not a Marx stand. Barzso did some Civil War cannon guys and he looks like one to me. I could be wrong though.
Well spotted Mark, I got him in a job lot and his carbine was busted so it seemed obvious to me to make him into an artillery crew member. The officer is Marksmen, no alteration to the base.
Excellent work, there.
As far as I can tell, all of the early releases of Imex were in very good soft plastic.
Only the latter issue stuff starting with the AWI artillery and Light Infantry sets were in that awful brittle plastic.
All of the various color sets that John Stengel ran are fine and not brittle.
I love those tan Imex horses. They look so cool with the dark charcoal Marx CSA riders
and the bright blue Union Cavalry on them.
Great Diorama! If you need some additional abatis I have lots of cheval de frise in 1/32 scale, soft plastic.
Loved it! I looked at the pics over again about 3 times. Depicting the assault at the crater is going to be figure intensive! The figure painting will drive you CRAZY! Save yourself! Don’t do it! I’d love to see it, but I’m sure you remember the Feds got stacked in TIGHT from the rear units pushing forward. You’ll get committed to having to paint 200 or more figures and converting them into contorted poses. We won’t see the results until 2020.
Or even later. I have maybe 50 guys painted up so I could sort of do it with lots of tight photos but I’m not sure I have the right poses. I’d also need some damaged guns and debris, not to mention bodies so maybe I’ll hold off on the challenge.
Wessley, what was the name of the Russian brand/maker of the 1/32 models you saw? Did you bookmark the page? I’d be interested in those as well.
Sadly I cannot remember. I seem to recall seeing them linked in a forum of sorts and whilst I could view the range and they offered ALL the ACW guns I could not figure out how to but them….I’ll check if I bookmarked it…