Sorry for the thread necro, but I felt my posting will fit this topic very well.
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7th Mississippi Infantry - I do partially agree with you about many early archaeological & reconstruction efforts at historical sites (in the US as well as elsewhere) from the 1930s up to even the 1970s and later. Despite good intentions, many mistakes were made due to a variety of reasons (interpretation errors, imposing of individual views onto the site and making deliberate changes to it, so things match-up, lack of proper documentation of the situation encountered and the archaeological/restoration work that has been done, not following proper procedures (and again not documenting everything appropriately), unavailability of many modern technological tools we do employ today,...). So one can not blame the Civilian Conservation Corps guys too much for blunders made at Stockade Redan or in the rest of the Vicksburg battlefield area, as they simply did not know any better back then. Historical archaeology as well as restoration has come a VERY long way since then and one would go about this very differently today.
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Anyway I am currently trying to create an accurate 3D reconstruction of the Confederate fortifications complex surrounding Stockade Redan as well as the two smaller strongpoints Green's Redan and 27th Louisiana Lunette.
Things started out with me delving a bit into the literature and producing a more or less accurate section of the "Stockade Redan" (practically just to see if it could be done within the constraints of a game's engine as a few of us have been using a game's mechanics to construct small Civil War fortifications together):
On the left you see a screenshot of the first test of recreating "Stockade Redan" (the improvised scale on the left shows 1m and 2m segments). The screenshot of the right shows an example of the usual small earthworks we have been building so far.
After realizing it could be done, I thought it would be great to recreate the Assault on Stockade Redan and the other two strongpoints, but of course I want the earthworks to be as accurate as I can make them using historical accounts, not just slap something in and be done with it.
So I created the terrain matching the real life location (some details need to be slightly adjusted still as time, erosion, development and the "well-meaning" efforts of the CCC all did their part in reshaping and changing the landscape over the decades).
High vantage point on the barebones map, looking west from the approximate position of the Union Lines - one can see the deep ravines in front of the Confederate earthworks and defences (currently just mockups that is why it looks so weird) that greatly hindered the attack of the Union assault.
Been testing an awful lot regarding fortification construction in general and trying to connect this with RL accounts of the battle. One thing that puzzles me is that some Union soldiers claim to have managed to scale the Stockade Redan and lay flat on the parapet while the Confederate cannon and shots went only inches over their heads (also some made the mistake of lifting their heads too high and got killed right away). Which seems a bit weird, as I found no solution in how that might have worked. If the parapet is too high, soldiers inside can not shoot over it, besides it needs to have an angle or else your field of fire will be too obstructed.... (or rather more obstructed than it is going to be anyway, as it was pretty broad).
If the angle of the parapet's top side is too steep it no longer protects well (less earth in front of the men due to the angle). But how could the Union soldiers "lying down on the parapet" not be hit? I still have not found a solution to that problem. Maybe they rather meant the front wall of the parapet and not the top side?
Another puzzling thing, that I am trying to find out, is how the cannon might have been positioned, as it is unclear if there was really a gun embrasure in the parapet or if the single cannon at Stockade Redan was put on an elevated platform, shooting over the parapet. It could very well be, that the Union soldiers were only able to scale the parapet at the location of an embrasure?
Here is a crude mock-up of an elevated platform approach, on the left how this would look seen from the outside.
Here a embrasure approach is shown, from the side, top and front. Note that the "angle" of the embrasure looks big but this is necessary to allow a meaningful field of fire.
I am also thinking it might have been logical to actually have two embrasures to allow the gun crew to reposition the single gun as seen below in the mock-up test.
On the left you see the location of the embrasure, close to the salient angle of Stockade Redan as that point would give one a good field of fire towards the eastern approaches (the muddy line to the left is Graveyard Road and one can also see the ditch running in front of the main parapet). On the right you see me having put in a 2nd embrasure that would enable the gun crew to reposition the cannon if needed, to divert their fire on the northern approaches (have not put in any ramp though - would make sense to have a broad ramp configuration though, allowing access to both points so one could switch targets more easily, while still allowing the crew to load out of sight, maybe even including a bombproof for protection).
That is what I have for now. Hopefully you guys will be able to help me a bit and share your wisdom and knowledge.