Civil+War+Weapons+and+Tactics

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At the time of the Civil War these weapons were available. Some weapons were called artillery. Artillery are weapons that were too big to carry, such as a [|cannon]. Cannons are muzzleloaders. A muzzleloader is a firearm that is loaded through the muzzle. Muzzleloaders only get one shot; then you have to load the weapon again. Other weapons were called small arms. These a human could carry. This group of weapons included muskets and rifles. The most used muskets were the [|.58 caliber Springfield musket]. Usually soldiers would use the [|.69 caliber Harpers Ferry rifle]. For close-range work the musket was better than the rifle.

The last type of weapons were edged weapons. These included [|bayonets]**, sabers, swords, short swords, [|cutlasses], Bowie knives, pikes, and lances. These were mainly used when you were charging or face to face with the enemy.

The Civil War was the beginning of modern warfare. This is the first time the military used mines, ironclad ships, submarines, telegraph, [|trenches], and observation balloons. These are a few of the weapons used during the Civil War. ** www.civilwarhome.com

The Civil War started when opinions broke out about slavery and states’ rights. The south favored the idea in states rights and slavery. The north did not believe in slavery. The war started on April 12,1861 but went through 1861-1865. The overall goal was to destroy the enemy infantry but the north had more people so in most of the fights the north had the edge so the south had less but they did have better weapons. Although there is pleasure in numbers it was all about the weapons. Also in the war there was a new way of battling. Instead of standing in the open they would now hide in trenches and that reduced the amount of fatalities. Battles were also fought on the water. There were submarines that had sneak attacks from behind {imagine shooting one way at one side and then a sub comes from behind and starts to attack} Some of the tactics would backfire so that if they moved forward it would all backfire and they would all be shot from behind and die. In the end this was a pointless bloodshed.