The

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...

, fought between the Union and Confederate forces, took place from 1861 to 1865. During the war, a variety of weapons were used on both sides. These weapons include edged weapons such as knives, swords, and bayonets, firearms such as

rifled musket A rifled musket, rifle musket, or rifle-musket is a type of firearm made in the mid-19th century. Originally the term referred only to muskets that had been produced as a smoothbore weapon and later had their barrels replaced with rifled barr ...

s, breech-loaders and repeating weapons, various artillery such as field guns and siege guns and new weapons such as the early grenade and landmine. The Civil War is often referred as one of the first "modern" wars in history as it included the most advanced technology and innovations of warfare available at the time. Some of the advances and innovations of the Civil War included

mass production Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and ba ...

of war

materiel Materiel (; ) refers to supplies, equipment, and weapons in military supply-chain management, and typically supplies and equipment in a commercial supply chain context. In a military context, the term ''materiel'' refers either to the spec ...

rifling In firearms, rifling is machining helical grooves into the internal (bore) surface of a gun's barrel for the purpose of exerting torque and thus imparting a spin to a projectile around its longitudinal axis during shooting to stabilize the ...

of gun barrels and the use of the Minié ball, the advent of repeating firearms and metallic cartridges,

transportation Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land ( rail and road), water, cable, pipelin ...

railroads Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a prep ...

with armed locomotives, ironclad warships,

submarine A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...

s, one of the first uses of air corps for aerial reconnaissance,

communication Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inqui ...

(especially the

telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...

), advances in

medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...

and the gradual decline of

tactics Tactic(s) or Tactical may refer to: * Tactic (method), a conceptual action implemented as one or more specific tasks ** Military tactics, the disposition and maneuver of units on a particular sea or battlefield ** Chess tactics ** Political tact ...

from previous centuries.

Personal weapons

Edged weapons

In 1862 Joseph E. Brown governor of Georgia, proposed issuing pikes to the State militia to compensate for the shortage of guns. Thousands were made and issued but not known to have been used in combat.

Sidearms

Some Confederate cavalry units were equipped with single-shot

caplock The percussion cap or percussion primer, introduced in the early 1820s, is a type of single-use percussion ignition device for muzzle loader firearm locks enabling them to fire reliably in any weather condition. This crucial invention gave rise ...

or even

flintlock Flintlock is a general term for any firearm that uses a flint-striking ignition mechanism, the first of which appeared in Western Europe in the early 16th century. The term may also apply to a particular form of the mechanism itself, also know ...

pistols early in the war. Some pistols were of the military make and had been issued to the US Army but were obsolete by the time of the Civil War due to the introduction of revolvers.

Rifles and muskets

The .69 caliber muskets (mostly percussion, but some flintlocks as well) were common in the early part of the war (either in their original form or converted to rifling). Early in the war the Confederates used civilian firearms including

shotgun A shotgun (also known as a scattergun, or historically as a fowling piece) is a long-barreled firearm designed to shoot a straight-walled cartridge known as a shotshell, which usually discharges numerous small pellet-like spherical sub- pr ...

s and hunting arms like the Kentucky and Pennsylvania rifle due to the shortage of military weapons. The British officer Arthur Fremantle observed that revolvers and shotguns (especially double barreled models) were the favored weapons of Confederate cavalry and mounted infantry during his 1863 visit to the South.

Grenades

The American Civil War belligerents did have crude

hand grenade A grenade is an explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a shell (explosive projectile) shot from the muzzle of a rifle (as a rifle grenade) or a grenade launcher. A modern hand grenade ...

s equipped with a plunger that would detonate upon. The Union relied on experimental

Ketchum grenade The Ketchum Hand Grenade was a type of grenade used in the American Civil War. It was patented on August 20, 1861 (U.S. Pat. #33,089) by William F. Ketchum, a mayor of Buffalo, New York, and was partially adopted in the Union Army. They were used ...

s with a wooden tail to ensure the nose would strike the target and start the fuse. The Confederacy used spherical hand grenades that weighed about six pounds sometimes with a paper fuse. They also used Rains and Adams grenades which were similar to the Ketchum in appearance and firing mechanism.

Landmines

Originally developed by General Gabriel J. Rains, were typically iron containers, loaded with gunpowder, a fuse and also a brass detonation cap. Some of these still-activated landmines were recovered in Alabama in the 1960s. Landmines were an intimidating method of psychological warfare but were viewed as unethical. Union General William T. Sherman also hated them and declared them as not warfare but murder. Confederate General James Longstreet banned their use for a time. (ed.)
"8 unusual civil war weapons"

Rapid fire weapons

Similar weapons of the Union included the .58 caliber Ager machine gun also known as "coffee-mill gun" which was similar to the Claxton machine gun. Like the Gatling I and Gatling II machine gun, the cartridges of Ager's invention were fed by a hand crank with a hopper on top and had a steel guard, and this is why some people believe that President Lincoln called it "the coffee grinder gun". Other infantry support weapons included the

Billinghurst Requa Battery The Billinghurst Requa Battery gun was an early rapid-fire gun used during the American Civil War. It was invented by a Dr. Josephus Requa (1833–1910), a dentist by profession, who had at the age of 16 spent three years as an apprentice to Wi ...

volley gun which had eight banks of cartridge chambers that were rotated into alignment behind the row of 25 barrels. Chief of Ordnance, General

James Wolfe Ripley James Wolfe Ripley (December 10, 1794 – March 16, 1870) was an American soldier who served as a brigadier general in the Union Army during the Civil War. In 1861, he was selected to be the 5th Chief of Ordnance for the United States Army Ordnanc ...

was against issuing repeating rifles and rapid fire weapons to the Union army as he believed it would waste ammunition. Nevertheless, several generals, including General

Benjamin Butler Benjamin Franklin Butler (November 5, 1818 – January 11, 1893) was an American major general of the Union Army, politician, lawyer, and businessman from Massachusetts. Born in New Hampshire and raised in Lowell, Massachusetts, Butler is ...

and General Winfield Scott Hancock, purchased Gatling machine guns that were the logical outgrowth of the trends portrayed in the Ager machine gun and the

Ripley machine gun The Ripley Machine Gun was a volley gun, an early precursor of the machine gun, which was patented in 1861 by Ezra Ripley. Although it is likely that it was never actually produced, it demonstrated a number of basic concepts that were employed in t ...

.William B. Edwards, "Civil war guns", Thomas Pubns (October 1997) The Confederacy used the single barrel hand cranked Williams machine gun that was similar to the single barrel hand cranked

Gorgas machine gun The Gorgas machine gun (or sometimes just a Gorgas gun) was a manually cranked prototype machine gun, the creation of Confederate States General Josiah Gorgas. It had a single smooth-bore barrel. The barrel was fed from a revolver-like ring, but ...

and the Vandenberg volley gun that was similar to the French De Reffye mitrailleuse and the Belgian Montigny mitrailleuse.

Artillery

Field artillery Field artillery is a category of mobile artillery used to support armies in the field. These weapons are specialized for mobility, tactical proficiency, short range, long range, and extremely long range target engagement. Until the early 20t ...

Siege artillery Siege artillery (also siege guns or siege cannons) are heavy guns designed to bombard fortifications, cities, and other fixed targets. They are distinct from field artillery and are a class of siege weapon capable of firing heavy cannonballs o ...

Special weapons

Congreve rocket The Congreve rocket was a type of rocket artillery designed by British inventor Sir William Congreve in 1808. The design was based upon the rockets deployed by the Kingdom of Mysore against the East India Company during the Second, Third, ...

* Hale rocket launcher *

Sea mine A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to damage or destroy surface ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, any v ...

Winans Steam Gun The Winans Steam Gun was a steam-powered centrifugal gun used during the American Civil War, which used centrifugal forces (rather than gunpowder) to propel projectiles. Description Similar in size to a steam-powered fire engine of the day, the ...

Vehicles

Animals

Horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million yea ...

Carriages

* Horse drawn carriages * Steam powered carriages

Trains

* BLW Armed train

Ships

Ships of the Union Navy A ship is a large watercraft that travels the world's oceans and other sufficiently deep waterways, carrying cargo or passengers, or in support of specialized missions, such as defense, research, and fishing. Ships are generally distinguished ...

* Ships of the Confederate Navy

Submarines

* USS ''Alligator'' * CSS ''Hunley'' * CSS ''Pioneer'' * CSS ''Pioneer II'' (Also known as CSS ''American diver'') * CSS ''Bayou Saint John''

Aircraft

Air balloons

Union Army Balloon Corps The Union Army Balloon Corps was a branch of the Union Army during the American Civil War, established by presidential appointee Thaddeus S. C. Lowe. It was organized as a civilian operation, which employed a group of prominent American aeronau ...

* Confederate Army Balloon Corps

Airships

* Andrews Aereon airship

References

Bibliography

* *
List of contracts made with the approval or by the direction of the Secretary of War between April 12, 1861 and January 31, 1862

External links

Small Arms of the Civil WarField Artillery of the Civil War
National Park Service. Accessed 14 July 2008.
Weapon: Burnside Carbine
Antietam on the web. Accessed 15 July 2008. {{Weapons American Civil War weapons

Weapons A weapon, arm or armament is any implement or device that can be used to deter, threaten, inflict physical damage, harm, or kill. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of activities such as hunting, crime, law enforcement, s ...