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Weapons - Civil War

During the 1850s, in a technological revolution of major proportions, the rifle-musket began to replace the relatively inaccurate smoothbore musket in ever-increasing numbers, both in Eurape and America. This process, accelerated by the Civil War, ensured that the rifled shoulder weapon would be the basic weapon used by infantrymen in both the Federal and Confederate Armies. A musket is a muzzle-loaded, smoothbore long gun, which is meant to be fired from the shoulder.

In the Civil War, the tactical defense dominated the tactical offense because assault formations proved inferior to the defender’s firepower. The rifle-musket, in its many forms, provided this firepower and caused a number of specific alterations in tactics during the war:

• It required the attacker, in his initial dispositions, to deploy farther away fram the defender, thereby increasing the distance over which the attacker had to pass.
• It increased the number of defenders who could engage attackers (with the addition of effective enfilading fire).
• It reduced the density of both attacking and defending formations.
• It created a shift of emphasis in infantry battles toward fire-fights rather than shock attacks.
• It caused battles to last longer, because units could not close with each other for decisive shock action.
• It encouraged the widespread use of field fortifications. The habitual use of field fortifications by armies was a major American innovation in nineteenth-century warfare.
• It forced cavalry to the battlefield‘s fringes until cavalrymen acquired equivalent weapons and tactics.
• It forced artillery to abandon its basic offensive maneuver: that of moving forward to within canister range of defending infantry.

All told, the United States purchased about 1,165,000 European rifles and muskets during the war, nearly all within the first two years. Of these, 110,853 were smoothbores. The remainder were primarily the French Mini4 rifles (442501, Austrian Model 1854s (226,294), Prussian rifles (59,918), Austrian Jagers (29&X0), and Austrian Bokers (187,533). Estimates of total Confederate purchases range from 340,000 to 400,000. In addition to the Enfields delivered to the Confederacy (mentioned above), 27,000 Austrian rifles, 21,040 British muskets, and 2,020 Brunswick rifles were also purchased, with 30,000 Austrian rifles awaiting shipment.