How Did The Minie Ball Affect Infantry Tactics During The U.s. Civil War?

Early bullets were designed to be placed in this new loading system. The classic way of having the powder and pellets separate was too slow and messy. This early design of the bullet is very similar to the simple modern one. It had a metal casing with powder placed behind the pellets or in some cases one large pellet (Hogg 54). With these being loaded from the side on the new rifles they were capable of firing a shot much faster then the gun of a hundred years earlier. Even though the gun had become more powerful the Civil War was still a political war.

The musket revolutionized weaponry during the Elizabethan era. This weapon was a muzzleloader which means in order to load the gun, the user must put the musket ball in at the end of the barrel (Britannica). It was approximately five feet long and weighed 20 pounds (Britannica). The musket had a matchlock system on it that used a lit match to light gunpowder on fire and the explosion caused a musket ball go sailing out (Norman & Pottinger 168). The musket balls weighed 57 grams and came in calibres between .69 and.75 inches in diameter.(Britannica) The musket balls could fly up to 175 yards, which is almost the length of the 2 football fields (Britannica). The early muskets were not very accurate but England was able to fix this and allow them to hit a person at 80-100 yards (Britannica). The musket will go down in history as one of the most famous weapons of the Elizabethan

Rifling was lining inside the barrel of the gun which made the bullet go much farther and faster. Rifling made the bullet not move in the barrel of the gun. With muskets, the soldier had to push the bullet into the barrel of the musket, taking a large amount of time because the musket and the ammunition was the just about the same size. While with the minie ball fit easily into the gun because the diameter of the bullet was smaller than the barrel. Some of these guns also had different technology. The Spencer Rifle had a very quick reload, and was very dangerous in war. There were also repeating rifles, these could shoot multiple bullets in a row. This was an upgrade of the Spencer Rifle and the musket because it was the first gun to be able to shoot more than one bullet in a row. Most of the repeating rifles that were used in the Civil War could shoot up to seven bullets, making it not just a skill of who could reload faster, but who had a better shot. The Union in the north had repeating rifles, while the Confederates in the south did not have them. This is because the North was much more industrialized than the South, so the North could make many more guns than the South. Ships were also used in the attack at some points, but sips were mostly used for transporting cargo and blockading the

Rifles with Minié bullets were easy and quick to load, but soldiers still had to pause and reload after each shot. This was inefficient and dangerous. By 1863, however, there was another option: so-called repeating rifles, or weapons that could fire more than one bullet before needing a reload. The most famous of these guns, the Spencer carbine, could fire seven shots in 30 seconds.

Few weapons were used only in the Union, as many were used by both or both tried their hand at them. One popular Union weapon was the Hale patent rocket launcher. The hale patent rocket launcher was a large metal tube

During its use by the Union army, the weapon was still in its earliest stages. Although the Confederate army did not adopt this specific weapon, they had similar ideas such as the Raines grenade, which was similar in appearance, but completely inadequate for battle. Instead of cardboard fins for a stable flight, the Raines grenade had a cloth streamer.

The Union army, unlike the Confederates, had multiple companies that provided simple, yet devastating weapons. One of these weapons was the .52 caliber breech-loading Billinghurst-Requa battery; it was produced only 50 times. This weapon consisted of 25 rifled barrels side by side that, when primed, were set off by a lanyard to inflict massive damage over a small range of territory.7

The small arms that the army did have were often defective and gunpowder was scarce. The standard musket used by the militia was inefficient in terms of fighting on the larger scale battle fields. Not only were the bullets completely inaccurate at 300 yards but they were also no longer lethal at that distance. Additionally, the rifles the militia used were their own and not available to the Continental Army as a whole. Therefore, the Continental Army began using the “Brown Bess”, the musket with bayonet attachment that the British Army used. They became available as the Patriots would capture British troops and were also shipped in from European manufacturers. Although it was highly inaccurate and was very time consuming in terms of reloading, considering it was used in mass in the linear formation of the ranks and file of the standing armies, it was highly effective in terms of the volleying of the rounds. At fifty yards, the “Brown Bess” would have an eighteen inch variance. However, in linear formations, this variance could be overcome and injury could still be imposed as soldiers were closely filed together. The musket weighed approximately 13 pounds and released a large amount of smoke after it was fired. Therefore, the linear tactics had to be employed to allow for repeated volleys, firing rank by rank, and thus unleashing more damage at approximately nine rounds per volley. Furthermore, the “Brown Bess” had the capability of attaching bayonets, which were also necessary on the battlefield. The bayonet was inserted down the barrel of the musket, which was imperative for close quarter hand to hand combat when time did not allow to reload the musket and the enemy was too close. Linear tactics also allowed Washington’s use of artillery, although it was limited. Washington utilized light, mobile cannons and field artillery to push back the

     Although the Model 1861 and the Spencer were the primary weapons for Union soldiers, their side arms were equally important. The Colt Army Model 1860 was the most popular sidearm among the Union army. The Colt Model 1860 was a .44 caliber six shot weapon which weighed 2 pounds 11 ounces. At $13.75, the Colt Army Revolver was much more expensive than those made by Remington or Starr. Production for the Colt Model 1860 ceased in November 1863. This pistol was the main weapon carried by upper class lieutenants, colonels, and generals throughout the war.5

A few years of development and a patent later, the minie` ball was ready for combat. In the 1850's, James H. Burton, a master of arms, made a few alterations such as slightly lengthening the bullet and thinning the walls of the hollow base. These alterations made the minie` ball much easier and cheaper to mass-produce; this is what was used by the blue and gray's out on the battlefields.

The American Civil War had a very dynamic effect on the growth of baseball during the 1860s. Before the Civil War baseball was flourishing and was at a point of dramatic growth and widespread popularity. During the beginning of the Civil War baseball was dramatically hampered with personnel issues and while still played, it was reported as more of a recreational, social support play style which was commonly used as propaganda to promote the Union “beating off the rebels who would dismember this glorious ‘Union of States.’ “ . Toward the end of the Civil War baseball seemed to regain much of its popularity through a combination of ruleset changes, and the changes within the economic and political climate. Baseball’s effects on the Civil

All firearms larger than small arms are known as artillery or cannon. Although there were dozens of different types of cannon used during the Civil War, they all fell into one of two categories: smoothbore or rifled cannon. They were further designated by the weight of their projectile (12-pounder, 24-pounder, 32-pounder, etc.), the caliber or size of their bore diameter (3-inch, 8-inch, 10-inch), method of loading (breech or muzzle), and often their inventor or the factory in which they were made (i.e. Dahlgren, Napoleon, Rodman, Parrott, Whitworth). A further distinction involved the path of their trajectories: guns had a flat

The “cap and ball” had two barrels, which held nine .40 caliber rounds on the upper barrel, and a .63 caliber on the lower barrel, and came with the option of either an eighteen or twenty gauge shot barrel. One model was even fitted with a full length barrel (Pikes 27-30). This greatly aided the northern victory due to the enormous power it possessed over the confederate’s figure eight’s.

In total, there were over 370 Union Army artillery units at Gettysburg during the battle on November 19th, 1863 (Newton, 2005). This gave the Union Army a stout advantage over the Confederate Army, who only had about 280 artillery unit’s available (Newton, 2005). Of the different pieces used, the 12 pound smooth bore Napoleon was the most common. With a range of 1,300 yards, this artillery piece was used for direct fire on enemy troops and advancing artillery (Newton, 2005). In most cases, the Napoleon used a canister shot, which consisted of one round and one charge (Newton, 2005).When massing artillery fires on enemy artillery, it was common for artillery sections to use a double canister, a canister with two rounds and one charge (Newton, 2005). This was done to increase the chance of critical damage to enemy pieces. Often times when engaging enemy artillery directly, Union artillery would focus the battery on one enemy piece at a time, using the double canister (Newton, 2005).

For some parents, this was the toy that they preferred due to the material in which it was made of. These foam balls couldn't hurt much. While they kept the kids entertained, they also were pretty safe to have around. At least that's what our parents told us. Even when propelled out of the guns, they didn't hurt that bad.