During the Civil War mutable types of weapons and artillery were used for the warfare. These included but were not limited to a handful of different types of rifles and muskets, a few different pistols, and was the first appearance of early models of a Gatling gun, and for the bigger blasts, cannons. Also, the civil war was the last war that triangular bayonets were used as they were then seen as too brutal for warfare. Because of these new weapons used there were many, many causalities. This on top of the fact that both sides were American made the civil war the war with the greatest number of american deaths.
Civil War rifles & Muskets.
The most common source of arms on the field of fire during the civil war was the musket and rifle, more specifically the, Springfield rifle, the colt revolving rifle, the Burnside carbine, the Tarpley carbine, and the Whithworth rifle.
Most of these rifles were a real hassle to use as they were fairly inaccurate. With the flintlock rifles the solider was forced to load every single, cartridge one at at a time. The bullet and the gun powder came in a paper bag of sorts. The bag was laced with pig fat so it would be easier to rip off with the solder's teeth during battle. once the bag was open the solider would dump the black powder in first fallowed by the bullet itself. they then took a long rod to pack it into the gun. |
Once the gun was loaded it needed to be ready to fire. A piece of flint was placed near the hammer of the gun, once the trigger was pulled the hammer would fall, hitting the flint which then sparked the powder causing the gun to fire.
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Civil war pistols
As a sidearm in the civil war the weapon of choice were pistols. At the time there were two types of pistols, those being flintlock pistols and revolvers. the flint lock pistols were cheap but didn't have every much range. the revolvers were better in every way shape and form but were much more expensive. The flint lock pistols worked very similar to how the rifles of the age did but the revolvers were a little different. The first revolvers used gunpowder, balls and caps like the earlier percussion-cap pistols. The shooter would load each of the six chambers in the cylinder with gunpowder and a projectile, and place separate percussion caps on corresponding nipples. While the loading procedure was tedious, a shooter could have six rounds fully prepared ahead of time. In the civil war was the first time the world saw a replacement of these balls and caps with actual bullet cartridges.
heavy weaponry: cannons and gatling gun
During the war when either side needed to fight from a range and really pack a punch they relied on their heavy hitters: the cannon and the Gatling gun. The cannon came in a variety of shapes and sizes for different types of ranges and terrain. These were placed far behind the front lines and were fired from long distances. A special team of men were assigned to firing the cannons. This was because you had to be very skilled with aiming the machine as because of the sights and variables such as wind speed.
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