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| Weapons were the main problem in the civil war, tactics were old and based on the facts that weapons were inaccurate and unreliable, but for the most part the weapons used in the Civil War accurate and DEADLY. The Standard Military fire arm was the rifle musket so called because on the inside of the barrel was “rifled” with spiral grooves, which gave better accuracy than smoothbore weapons. These weapons were four feet long an about nine pounds, and accurate up to about two hundred and fifty yards. |
| Rifles were very hard to use because loading took so much time, an experienced solider could only get about three shoots a minute. These are the steps for loading a Civil War rifle: 1] Steady the weapon on the ground while he took a new cartridge from his belt, 2] Rip open the paper cartridge with his teeth, 3] Empty the powder into the gun barrel and insert the bullet into the muzzle, 4] Draw the “rammer “ out of its carrying groove under the barrel, 5] Ram the cartridge into the barrel with the rod, 6] Return the rammer to its groove, 7] Lift the weapon half cock the weapon and remove the old “precession cap” and place a new one in its place on the nipple under the hammer, 8] fully cock the hammer……aim……and finally….FIRE. |
| . Almost all rifles had bannets, but were not used as a weapon as much as candle holders, eating utensils, they were also used to dig holes to hide in if there was a charge. There are two types of artillery Heavy and Light. Heavy consisted of mostly large smoothbore cannons, and were responsible for seacoast, mountain, and garrison artillery. Light was divided into to sections Calvary and mounted. |
| On June 18 1861 the secret weapon “Enterprise”, a balloon, was unveiled to the public. It was to be used to spy on the Southern attackers. In August the Confederates shot the world's first anti-aircraft battery against the Union balloon near Arlington. It failed to make contact but the balloonists were so scared they returned to the ground as quickly as they could. There were many weapons in the Civil War and I didn’t talk about them all, but I tried to talk about the important ones. |
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| Bruce Catton "The Battle of Gettysburg" 1963
"The American Civil War Homepage"Dick Weeks "Field Artillery in the Civil War"Chuck Brink S tephan T. Foster "Bayonets" Atlas Editions 1993 |
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8th Grade 2000 |