Wood is definitely better than nothing, but I don’t really see a situation in which this thing would need protection against small arms anyway. Unless something has already gone horribly wrong, those small arms are a significant distance from your artillery. At that range, they are already effectively worthless because their lack of rifling makes them horribly inaccurate.
If I had to guess, you would mainly be worried about union sharpshooters (maybe) and artillery. At that point the only real advantage of the wood is the obstruction of sight.
Wood still wasn’t strong enough to sustain a lot of fire even from those rifles. The confederacy just didn’t have enough iron.
That’s some pretty thick wood at a good angle. Maybe there’s a mythbusters, but I’d expect it could protect against small arms fire of the day.
Wood is definitely better than nothing, but I don’t really see a situation in which this thing would need protection against small arms anyway. Unless something has already gone horribly wrong, those small arms are a significant distance from your artillery. At that range, they are already effectively worthless because their lack of rifling makes them horribly inaccurate.
If I had to guess, you would mainly be worried about union sharpshooters (maybe) and artillery. At that point the only real advantage of the wood is the obstruction of sight.
The standard rifled muskets of the time actually had a range of about a kilometer.
Make the wood thick enough, and you can even get a little defense against artillery!
The fourth guy from the right looks so confident; oh yeah, you think you got what it takes? Bring it!