while a serpentine wall is one brick wide, (and a well designed one is also 'peek-a-boo'--with a lattice like stucture), it doesn't use 50% fewer bricks, it only uses 30 to 35% fewer bricks (brick were expensive to produce in colonial america)
the structure its self --the corrugatations-- are what give it its strenght. just as corrugated paper is stronger than flat paper.
one of the engineers can explain just why.. but the finer the corrugations, the stronger the structure.. so brown paper is corrugated, and stuck between two layers of cardboard, and you can make paper that will easily support 100lbs or more.. (one paper company has a display of a car sitting on a paper pedistel--)
a serpentine fence works on the same principle.. by having many folds (or curves) you reduce the amount of material needed.(not by half(1 brick wide vs 2bricks wide) but by about 1/3rd..(1 brick wide but 'folded' and the folds use up more material than a straight wall.
(its something like making mini trusses)
