Technological Innovations From The Civil War Essay

Railroads are not nearly as popular in the United States as they are in European countries. Prior to the American Civil War, railroads were a fairly new, and untried, invention. Compared to carriages and the other modes of transportation at the time, the railroad was far superior. Due to this superiority, they were used to transport soldiers, food, and supplies. A systemic railroad began to spread all across the nation, and both sides of the war used them to their advantage.

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.

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

Like many other Civil War technologies, these weapons were available to Northern troops but not Southern ones: Southern factories had neither the equipment nor the know-how to produce them. “I think the Johnnys [Confederate soldiers] are getting rattled; they

The civil war developed many inventions. Telegraphs, weapons and ships, the gatling gun, and the ambulance corps. The gatling gun itself killed thousands of men while these bullets shot more than 600 rounds per minute, this gun was a killer. Without The civil war america would be technologically behind other countries.

Even though there were progress and the advancement of guns, you still had to reload after every shot, the repeating rifle allowed you to fire of a magazine of ammunition before reloading changed the effectiveness and also the deadliness of wars. The repeating rifle was invented in 1860 by a man called Christian Spencer, a machinist who worked in Hartford. It was the first of its kind, being able to fired tens of rounds in a minute compared to a few shots every minute gave a huge advantage. With the North being able to mass produce this weapon gave a huge advantage on the battlefield. The only weakness of the rifle was the short range. The repeating rifle was only one example of many where the North industrial side show it's overwhelming

Calcium floodlights were mainly used by the Union soldiers as made it easy to see and they soldiers were able to blind Confederate soldiers (8 Unusual Civil War Weapons"). One of the more creative weapons was a blanket used by Confederate soldiers (8 Unusual Civil War Weapons"). As strange as this sounds, the Confederate soldiers used the blanket to catch explosives and throw it back in the enemy's direction. My personal favorite weapon used was a hot air balloon. It was shocking when it say that hot air balloons were used to give a large view of the battlefield. (Appendix A) This was more commonly a Union weapon as the Confederacy lacked good, quality materials to build a durable balloon (“8 Unusual Civil War Weapons"). Like the machine guns and swords, rockets were actually used in the Civil War (“8 Unusual Civil War Weapons"). Although there were very few appearances from rockets, they still did help play a part by doing their job! The Confederacy used Congreve rockets as well (“Weapons”). They were around three feet and two inches long and filled with gunpowder. Although they could be powerful, they missed quite often and were pretty useless (“Weapons”). Used by both the Confederacy and the Union, underwater mines were useful to blow up the opponent's ship. Although the Union tried the underwater mines, the Confederacy had more success as they blew up dozens of the Union’s ships while the Union blew up only six Confederate ships (“8 Unusual Civil War

The telegraph was first widely used during the civil war it allowed the Union to communicate and coordinate directly with President

Technology has not only significantly improved daily life, but it has also changed warfare. In the 1860’s, controversies of the practice of slavery, westward expansion, and political authorities caused high tensions between the Northern Union and the Southern Confederacy. As the tensions built up, the Civil War began on April 12th, 1861 after the secession of the Southern states. Determining the independence of the Confederacy and the fate of the Union, the Civil War was a period of major technological transformation. In 1865, the Union officially won the Civil War with advantages such as industrialization, a larger population, and most importantly, technological innovations. Advancement in technology, such as the telegraph, railroads, and rifles, effectively changed the Northern military strategies by establishing a rapid network of communication, providing an efficient and safe system of transportation, and improving the performance of the weapons.

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 most important technological advance was the change from the highly used musket ball to the Minie ball. The Minie ball was a cone shaped bullet looking ammunition. Made by Claude Minie in 1846 made the Minie Ball and changed the ammunition that soldiers used in war. The original musket ball was very inaccurate and usually bounced around inside the

The Union soldiers were more likely to carry the U.S. Model 1861 Springfield Rifle-Musket than any other weapon. These guns were not the easiest or most convenient weapons even if they were the most common. The Model 1861 was a .58 caliber gun, was 58.5 inches long, and weighed in at a heavy 9.25 pounds. This rifle was nicknamed "The Widow Maker." This nickname was made with great thanks to the minie` bullet which was an integral part of this rifle-musket. The combination of the rifle-musket and the minie` bullet forever changed the face of warfare; thus because for the first time ever, men could aim at a distant target, and have a decent chance of hitting it. This luxury allowed the gun-bearers to hide in a safe place, yet still be able to knock down their target. Colonel George Hanger, an American Revolution officer, wrote in 1814:

     Riffles were another major contribution to the war, as far as weapons were concerned. The union forces had One of the most popular riffles was the Model 1861 Springfield Musket. The Springfield Musket weighed 9.25 pounds, had a twenty-one inch socket bayonet, and fired a .58 caliber mine ball traveling 950 feet per second. Riffled Muskets, which were also known as Enfields, were the second most popular riffles in the war. These Enfields, had a bore diameter of .557 inches, and weighed nine pounds three ounces. They were accurate at 800 yards, and could travel up to 1,100 yards without any difficulty. During the course of the war, 400,000 Enfields were sold to the Union troops, whereas a mere 20,000 were purchased by the confederate army. Although this weapons wasn’t as popular as the Springfield, the Enfield still packed a powerful punch at 1,100 yards (Ripley 43).

People were now able to obtain goods previously unavailable thus expanding the market for goods. Within ten years the railroads shipped 50 million dollars worth of freight coast to coast every year. The railroads also played critical role in the American Civil War. They allowed the North and the South to move men and equipment extensive distances providing significant advantages for both

The Telegraph helped to make communication across the battlefields easier. The Most noticeable thing about the telegraph is that it proved its value as a operational, tactical, and strategic communication device. The telegraph was able to help the field commanders to send real-time battlefield operations and it allowed the senior military officials to coordinate strategy across far distances. These capabilities were key factors in the North's (union army’s) victory.