Plotting Rolla

 

Above : Google Image Rolla 

I couldn't sleep last night which was annoying so I got up about 4 am and decided to create my battlefield for Rolla. The screenshot of the local area above has been tipped on its side so that the top of the Photo is East. The large woodlands of the Mark Twain Forest are to the East also and the Ozarks wilderness and lake area broadly to the South East. 

There is a lot you can work out from maps and  satellite photos  on google. I have already established that Rolla was a  quite a small town in 1861. It still is - population c. 20,000 today. The Court House was roofed but unfinished  in 1861 which is presumably why the Union were able to use it as warehouse and hospital during the early part of the war. There are a handful of heritage buildings in Rolla but apart from the courthouse it would appear wooden built. Main Street is barely 200 m long and there are a few other gridded roads from old photos. It is wonderful bringing an old place back to life.  

The picture below is the town in 1860. Maybe a handful of  two story buildings only. A hotel and one or two grander houses and stores in town. Towards the edge of town just simple single story two or three room wooden houses.  There is probably some warehousing and facilities for the railroad terminus in the photo (the railroad planned to reach San Francisco from St.Louis ended here in 1861). 

Above : Historic Photo of City of Rolla (see footer) 

I don't think the town will need more than one Volley and Bayonet 6 inch x 4 inch template (An area 600 m x 400 m in ground scale). I have found a few more pictures of heritage buildings on public sites online. The courthouse : -

An old wooden schoolhouse :- 

And the County Jail block from the early Nineteenth century :-  

The road plan reveals an "Old St. James Road" leading on to St. Louis. From the map I have been able to find other old roads leading at different points of the compass to the nearby locations of Vichy, Salem and to Yancy Mills. The area is much more wooded than I expected with numbers of watercourses. It's possible that these might be seasonal given one of the names - "Little Dry Creek". I have been able to place some high ground to the North and West of the town, probably from where the photo above might have been taken. There are some tree lines  along the old watercourses and a few farms. Out come the coloured pencils and some common sense and can think back to this roughly 3 mile x 2 mile or 6 x 4 foot table for Rolla in 1861. 

The names of the tributary streams display the part German heritage of the town - "Franz Branch" and "Burgher Branch" e.g.  The aerial photo shows that the irrigated sections that are not hilly or wooded are densely marked out with square land claim plots. This original land claim parcelling is thrown forward into the more recent land use. So for example a local golf is crammed entirely into a  square plot that must have been bought originally as farmland. The same holds true for housing developments that fit to the square "claims" pattern out into the farmland surrounding the historic town. You just don't get that grid pattern of land use in the UK. In the US it is is extended into the farmland itself. 

The areas that are white on my "original" plan will randomly be carpet bombed with some square fields and a few square orchards or "wood lots". to show the land usage.  As the battle will take place in July some of the fields can hold crops which will behave appropriately under the Volley and Bayonet rules - blocking line of site until trampled by massed stands.  The streams whilst perhaps dry(ish) can operate as fordable streams for the purpose of the rules. They will cost half a movement to cross and where lines with a thicker area pf wood may affect visibility/ 

This will do - The Confederates line of communication will leave the map ay the middle bottom (West) toward Jefferson City and the Union troops from the East along the St. James/St.Louis road. I will post again when the two forces are complete and on my newly dressed tabletop. I am tossing up whether to build a small scratch built red courthouse from card. It does seem appropriate. I have opted for 6 mm scenery with my 10 mm figures and a lot of scenery and "dressing" is in the post. My cavalry are coming on in fits and starts so it may be a week before I can roll a dice in anger. 

Until then See you in hell Billy Yank ! See you in hell Johnny Reb !