Table of Contents:
Further Readings
The Civil War (1861-1865) produced more casualties than any other war in American history. Union deaths amounted to 360,000 while Confederate losses totaled 258,000. Part of the reason both sides lost so many men is because of the weapons and tactics employed during the conflict. Many military inventions and innovations came about during the Civil War. The telegraph made communication easier while railroads made the movement of troops quicker. Thaddeus S. C. Lowe organized a Union Army balloon unit to observe Confederate troop deployments. The Gatling gun, a weapon with revolving barrels, had its debut on Civil War battlefields in 1862. On the sea, both sides experimented with ironclad warships like the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia. In 1864 the Confederate submarine Hunley actually managed to sink a Federal sloop, the USS Housatonic, off Charleston, South Carolina. However, nothing had more impact on the war than the musket ball.
In 1833 a French army captain, Claude E. Minié, perfected a bullet whose powder would not clog a rifle's barrel after a few shots. The so-called "Minié ball" was an elongated, cylindrical bullet with a hollow base. When the rifle's powder charge was ignited, the base of the Minié ball would expand and cause the projectile to grip the grooves in the barrel. In the 1850s the US Army adopted the Frenchman's innovation, which made the loading of a rifle easier. More significant though was the manner in which the Minié ball improved the accuracy and range of the rifle. While a smoothbore musket had an effective range of only one hundred yards, the Springfield and Enfield rifles employed by 1863 could hit targets at four hundred yards.
Both sides in the Civil War employed military tactics that were made obsolete by this improvement in small arms firepower. The United StatesMilitary Academy at West Point adhered to a doctrine that identified the mass infantry charge as the key to victory. The academy's infantry manuals assumed that defenders armed with muskets would be able to fire only one or two rounds before being overwhelmed. However, when armed with rifles, a defending force could fire several rounds, and more accurately too. Now attackers would have greater difficulty in getting close enough to use their bayonets. Indeed, less than 1 percent of all Civil War casualties resulted from bayonet wounds.
The rifle produced significant changes in the way combat was conducted. The value of trenches became clearly evident to both sides because they provided defenders with good protection against enemy fire. By 1865 Virginia and Georgia were pockmarked with trenches. At the Battle of Fredericksburg (December 13, 1862), Union general Ambrose E. Burnside lost 12,000 men in fruitless charges against the rebel positions. Rifle fire also decreased the effectiveness of cavalry. Traditionally the most elite and prestigious element of an army, the cavalry now had to play a secondary role to the infantry. Mass cavalry charges against entrenched foot soldiers were suicidal, and as a result the horsemen were used increasingly for reconnaissance missions and for raids on supply trains. Rifled artillery pieces also proved their value. At Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on July 3, 1863, Federal artillery devastated the charge of General George Pickett's division long before it reached Union lines. Nevertheless, the rifle did not invalidate the tactics of the day. Attacking armies always had a good chance for success if they surprised the enemy. The lush forests of the South made ambush a regular occurrence. For instance, at the Battle of Shiloh (April 6-7, 1862) a Southern army almost defeated a much larger Northern force by a surprise attack.
Like earlier wars, the Civil War was fought in a succession of encounters that pitted one infantry line against another, each firing volleys and maneuvering for position. Both sides had trouble exploiting their victories because most battles were long, bloody affairs that left the troops physically and psychologically exhausted. Politicians in Washington and Richmond criticized the generals for not pursuing their foes, but these statesmen rarely understood the logistics of the situation. It was nearly impossible to maneuver an enemy army into surrendering. Not surprisingly, Union and Confederate generals alike concluded that the best defense was a good offense.
Thomson Gale Document Number: EJ2104240825