"Understated deforestation?" Topic

I live in one of the many hearts of Civil War action here in NoVa. It's pretty well forested throughout.

But in ACW days the principal material for housing and fuel was local wood. I don't believe there's a whole lot of ancient woods around here.

On balance, do we clutter up our ACW games with too many trees? Wasn't it far more open than it was today?

The entire coastal area of the eastern US was essentially deforested. Patches of woods remained, but were small, and often confined to hilly/mountainous country or bsides watercourses.
Check out old photos of these areas (pre WWII). They often look shockingly open.

I was watching a show on the national geographic channel the other night that claimed the American Indians burned down great swaths of forest tract in order to promote the growth of massive grasslands. Their intent was to do away with woodland habitat and creatures in exchange for the open grassland habitat vital to the buffalo. Being nat. geo., I can't speak to the validity of the statement but I have always heard the buffalo were found in very large numbers.

At least in the Eastern Theater, from what I've read, many of the battlefields were open. Exceptions were several of the ones in the Seven Days (White Oak Swamp springs to mind), Chancellorsville, and, of course, the Wilderness. But the latter two were covered with secondary and tertiary growth, not old growth.

In the Western Theater, you would find more wooded areas on the battlefields, such as at Shiloh. In my neck of the woods in central Mississippi, the battles at Port Gibson, Raymond, and Champion Hill (Vicksburg campaign) had the tops of the ridges and hills clear farmland but the ravines and water courses were heavily cloaked with vegetation – canebrakes, thickets, trees, vines, etc. In descriptions from Port Gibson and Raymond, some of the ravines were impassable due to the thick vegetation.

Jim

I think the major fuel at this time was coal. Yes, farmers cut their own wood for their own home fires, but cities, industries and transportation ran on coal.

Yes, the eastern forests were cut, starting in colonial times. And allowed to regrow. And cut again. I think over-all, our third national clear-cutting is now in progress in the eastern woodlands.

It depended where you were, but there was a lot of second growth, in various stages of maturity. The Wilderness in Virginia was a notorious jungle of second growth. The Chickamauga battlefield was so heavily wooded that the generals couldn't see where their troops were – which led to Rosecrans pulling a division out of his line, coincidentally just before Longstreet's corps attacked into the gap that they didn't know was there. I've never seen a table-top battle set up with forests like Chickamauga. It would be too frustrating for the players.

My thinking is in line with Zippy. I always try to refer as much as possible to first hand accounts WRT the effects of terrain precisely because there are woods and then there are WOODS. An accurate battlefield map might show a large forested area that, upon inspection, has so little secondary growth one could drive a battery through there unhindered. Thin shelter belts, OTOH, could be passable only to skirmishers and block an entire brigade from view.

When I visited Chickamauga, I had a very good knowledge of the battle and the ground, but the density of the woods absolutely threw me. Combined with a heavily overcast day, such that I could't tell North from West, I was constantly "lost". Likewise, participants of Stones River emphasize the significance of the cedar brakes on movement and observation, and occasionally fire effect. They weren't exaggerating. There are places where you can't see a man standing fifteen feet away. I know because we measured!

My experience with ACW battlefields is confined to the west and I have to say the amount of cleared land seems to have been minimal and the forests dense, which corresponds to battle accounts. Chickamauga, Shiloh, Stones River are all very heavily wooded areas. The ground at Stones river is especially rough, with exposed limestone rock and deep gullies hidden within the woods. Cedars love crappy limestone filled soil which is why there were so many trees and so little farm land I guess.

Actually, if you visited Chickamauga recently you might change your mind. They have really cut back the undergrowth to what it was back in 1863. Remember, they used to let their livestock forage and eat in the woods. Most of the undergrowth was gone. You could see 100-200 yards under the canopy. There were areas of thick undergrowth in certain spots, but they were actually the minority.

A Chickamauga game is quite playable.

link

Had a very interesting chat with one of the Park Rangers at Antietam. There was a major push to restore many of the Civil War battlefields to their state at the time of the battle. In the vast majority of the cases it means removing trees.

He mentioned Antietam and Gettysburg specifically as he had been assigned to both. At Gettysburg they needed to remove trees to restore such things as sight lines. He pointed to the Devil's Den as one where it was so overgrown it was impossible to appreciate the position!

On the other hand Antietam was an exception and required a great deal of planting. He mentioned when environmentalist were seeking to stop the removal of trees at Gettysburg the Park Service pointed out that for each tree removed there roughly 10 were planted at Antietam.

But overall he said most battlefields in the East were indeed to heavily forested.

Yes, when you look at period photos ad prints, (notably those in Balltles & Leaders) there is a lot of open space. I visited quite a few battlefields in the '90s and noticed that trees had grown up in a lot of areas that the old prints showed as open.

Grelber

In the 1860's, Maine, known for it's vast forests, was a farming state. The majority of houses were built of wood, and wood was still a primary heating source throughout the state. In addition, Maine built ships. Packets, clippers, barges, sloops, whatever. Almost half of all the wooden vessels built along the eastern seaboard of these United States were built in Maine.

But again, farming was the principle trade, and as a result, much of the woods you see today here were once pasture or fields. This is why you find cellar holes and stone walls in the woods. Those woods are new growth, and those walls once marked boundaries of fields and open land.

Maine today has more than 3 times the woods that it had in 1860, and it's the same throughout many of the eastern states. When the changeover began from agricultural-based economy to one of industrial, the pastures began to turn into woods. Same thing with the switch from wood to coal, and then to electricity. Same with the increased use of brick and stone and plastics for modern houses, with minimal wood use.

The United States were a very different society, and it's true that there were vast deforested areas in the eastern states.

There still should be several patches of wood lots that were kept by farmers to keep them supplied with fire wood and lumber for fences and other needs around the farm. Some of which could be fairly large.

Looking at contemporary maps you'll see that most wooded areas are rocky hill and stream valleys, places you can't farm.