What Were the Effects of the Rifle? Essay

Weapon number one is The Musket Rifle, the primary weapon for the Union and Confederate soldiers for fighting in battlefields fair in this deadly war. The rifle barrel now has a curved cylinder inside so the bullet will have more accuracy and better range. (www.brainpop.com/socialstudies/civilwar )

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

During the Revolutionary War we do not see much advancement in weaponry, but we do see a wide array of weapons such as Artillery, Rifles and Muskets, Pistols, Swords and Sabres, Ship classes, and even Submarines. Although there was not a huge technological leap in weaponry, the weapons were very interesting and effective at the time.

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 Civil War, also called The War Between the States, was one of the bloodiest wars in American history. What made the Civil War such a massacre? The Civil War was such a bloodbath because the technological advances were so far superior to the tactics of the infantry, that the weapons virtually obliterated the soldiers. Soldiers would form lines known as a battalions. In these battalions, soldiers would basically march to their deaths. In addition to weapons doing so much damage, fortification on the battlefield was far more advanced than had ever been before. The Cheveau-de-frise was the main focus of armored fortification in the Civil War. This fortification consisted of 10 to 12 foot

The Battle of Gettysburg has been known to many as the decisive turning point of the Civil War. The battle itself was a Union victory that forced the Confederacy into a defensive posture which ended General Lee’s most ambitious attempt to invade Union Territory (Gettysburg Foundation, 2017). The Battle of Gettysburg alone consisted of 67 Battery’s in which totaled 362 guns making it the largest artillery attack in United States history. This battle was a historical landmark for the field artillery, as it established the field artillery as an effective firing weapon system and paved the way for more accurate fires (Herhily, 1931).

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 Union blockaded the Confederacy soon after the war began in order to make it harder for them to trade. Many different “small-arms” or rifles and pistols were used during the war by both sides. The Union favored the Springfield rifle throughout the war and mass produced it because of its ability to be accurate and its range. In response the Confederacy manufactured the Fayetteville rifle based on the Springfield rifle. Since the Confederacy only produced about three percent of all weapons early on it nearly impossible for them to compete with the Union.

During the Civil War, great advancements in technology and weaponry were happening. Both the Union and Confederate side of the war used what were considered typical weapons. For example, they both used knives, swords, pistols, rifles, and muskets. Artillery such as cannons were also very popular. Though all these weapons were used in wars before the Civil war, such as the Mexican War, advancements were made to better the pre-existing weapons. Better bullets were made for rifles. Rifle barrels were advanced to make them more precise and shoot farther distances. Advancements were also made in the naval department. Before the Civil war, battleships were made out of wood, but around the civil war, iron started to be added to battleships. This newly

     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).

“A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” The right of all Americans to bear arms is a right the Founding Fathers held to equal importance as the Constitution itself. Gun control laws directly violate this right and therefore should not even be under consideration. Even if that issue is overlooked, gun control advocates state that in order to reduce firearm related violence, gun control laws must be implemented to remove the violence caused by firearms. Although this may seem reasonable, the consequences of such laws are ironically counterproductive; they exacerbate the problem instead of fixing it. Besides the fact that the American

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).