Download Exhibit A - Madison Public Schools

Exhibit A
Rifled Musket
Rifling is the act of making grooves in a gun barrel so that the
bullet will come out in a spiral, giving it greater accuracy and
distance (like a spiraling football). Without these grooves,
previous muskets were not likely to hit their targets. In fact,
firing one of these guns would be similar to shooting a marble
from a modern shotgun. At 40 yards a soldier could usually
hit a target measuring 1 square foot, but at 300 yards, only 1
shot in 20 would hit a target of 18 square feet. A British
officer, who fought in the American Revolution, wrote in 1814:
A soldier's musket…will strike the figure of a man at 80 yards,
perhaps even at 100; but as for firing at a man at 200 yards
with a common musket, you might just as well fire at the moon
and have the same hope of hitting your object. I do maintain
and will prove, whenever called on, that no man was ever killed
at 200 yards by a common soldier's musket by the person who
aimed at him.
But armed with a rifled musket, a competent shooter could hit
a 27-inch bull's-eye at 500 yards. A trained marksman could
consistently hit a 4-inch target at 200 yards and a 6-by-6-foot
target at 500 yards. At 1,000 yards, he could even hit an 8-by8-foot target half of the time.
Studies done by weapons analysts from the U.S. Department
of Defense proved that the rifle-musket was three times more
deadly than any other gun up to that point in history.
Rifled Gun Barrel
Rifled Musket
Exhibit B
Minié Ball
The Minié Ball was not really a ball, but a cone-shaped bullet
and it caused a great deal of damage. It was made of soft lead
and on impact would flatten out and create an enormous
wound inside and out. Abdominal wounds (stomach) and
head wounds were almost always fatal. A wound to an
extremity (arms or legs) usually shattered any bone
encountered. Those shattered limbs often had to be
amputated.
Surgical tents following a major battle were a nightmare. One
witness wrote:
"Tables about five feet high had been built upon which the
screaming victims were having legs and arms cut off. The
surgeons and their assistants, stripped to the waist and
bespattered with blood, stood around, some holding the poor
fellows while others, armed with long, bloody knives and saws,
cut and sawed away with frightful rapidity, throwing the
mangled limbs on a pile nearby as soon as removed."
The deadly effectiveness of the rifle-musket loaded with a
Minié Ball was largely to blame for the Civil War's appalling
casualty rates. During the nearly 10,500 skirmishes and
battles of the war, more than 110,000 Union soldiers were
killed and 275,000 were wounded. On the Confederate side
94,000 soldiers were killed and an additional and 194,000
were injured. Rifle bullets, primarily the Minié Ball, caused 90
percent of all these casualties.
Minié Ball vs. Normal Musket Bullet
Minié Ball Monument
Exhibit C
Repeating Rifles
Though the rifled musket and Minié Ball were leaps and
bounds above previous war-time weapons, the military was
still looking for a weapon that could be fired repeatedly
without the hassle of reloading. A soldier with a typical rifle
could load and fire up to 3 shots per minute. The first
repeating rifle to be successfully made was the Henry rifle. It
could fire as many as 60 shots in a minute and soldiers often
claimed it was “the gun you loaded on Sunday and shot all
week.”
Unfortunately it cost too much money to make and couldn’t be
mass-produced effectively. But new and more affordable
repeaters were on the way like the Spencer rifle, which was
used primarily by the Union army. Said Brigadier General
George Armstrong Custer…
“I am firmly of the opinion that 1,500 men armed with the
Spencer rifle are more than a match for 2,500 armed with any
other firearm.”
The Spencer rifle had another distinct advantage. The bullets
were encased in copper, and while Confederate soldiers
captured many Spencer rifles, the CSA did not have the
technology to make ammunition to fire in the Spencer rifle.
The Spencer rifle gained its fame at the Battle of Hoover’s Gap
on June 24, 1863. One Union regiment was able to push back
five Confederate regiments thanks to the superior firepower of
the Spencer.
*The average soldier carried a rifle that shot three bullets per
minute.
Spencer Rifle
Exhibit D
Napoleon Cannon
Developed in France during the reign of Napoleon, it became
the most widely used cannon of the Civil War. Napoleons were
manufactured in both the North and the South. The North
made more than 1,000 and the South somewhere between 500
and 600.
The inside of the barrel was not rifled, so it was incredibly
inaccurate, but it was extremely deadly. Besides shooting
traditional cannon balls, this weapon would shoot a canister
filled with lead shot (pellets), iron bolts, or rusty nails. Once
fired, the canister blew apart, spraying deadly hail of flying
metal over a wide area. This was known as canister shot.
Though the speed of the projectile was slower than some other
artillery, canisters still traveled out of the gun barrel at 1,485
feet per second (1,012.5 miles per hour). Because of the
devastating effectiveness, more casualties were caused by
canisters than all other artillery projectiles combined.
Napoleon Cannon
Canister
Exhibit E
Gatling Gun
Richard J. Gatling took a patent out on his gun in 1862 and
while it became the model for future machine guns it was far
from perfect. The guns were very heavy, had a tendency to jam
and continued firing created a great deal of smoke which
sometimes made it difficult to see. However, it still provided
the Union with superior firepower.
Other large, rapid-fire guns had problems overheating because
they only had one gun barrel. The Gatling Gun solved this by
having projectiles fired from six rotating gun barrels, lessening
the chance for overheating. The additional gun barrels also
allowed the weapon to shoot between 200-400 shots per
minute (or three to six bullets every second).
Despite its destructive power, Gatling couldn’t convince the
Union to buy his gun. Instead, General Benjamin Butler
decided to use his own money to buy 12 Gatling Guns for his
company and used them during the nine-month Siege of
Petersburg. This weapon proved useful and helped the North
capture Petersburg and the Confederate capitol Richmond.
The use of the Gatling gun directly led to the surrender of the
South.
Below is an excerpt of a letter written by Galting citing the
reasons he invented the gun.
It may be interesting to you to know how I came to invent the
gun which bears my name… It occurred to me if I could invent a
machine--a gun-- which could by its rapidity of fire, enable one
man to do as much battle duty as a hundred, that it supersede
the necessity of large armies, and consequently, exposure to
battle and disease be greatly diminished.
Yours truly,
R.J. Gatling
Gatling Gun
http://science.howstuffworks.com/machinegun4.htm
Exhibit F
Poor Medical Technology
One of the biggest problems of the war was the lack of quality
doctors. When the conflict began, the U.S. Army medical staff
consisted of only the Surgeon General, 30 surgeons and 83
assistant surgeons. Of these, 24 left to work for the South.
Besides the lack of trained physicians, there was also a lack of
technology. For instance, Harvard University did not own a
single stethoscope or microscope until after the war.
While some 110,000 Union and 94,000 Confederate men died
of wounds inflicted during battle, disease was actually the
biggest killer during the Civil War. Infection caused by bullets
carrying dirt, fabric, and germs into a wound was just part of
the problem.
The lack of advanced medical techniques also played a role in
who was treated. Wounds to the head, neck, chest and belly
were considered fatal and doctors did not treat the wounds of
these soldiers till all of the other injuries were dealt with.
Therefore, gunshots to the extremities (arms and legs) were
handled first. Seventy-one percent of all gunshots hit soldiers
in the arms or legs and since doctors didn’t have cutting edge
technology; most limbs had to be amputated.
Civil War Amputation Kit
Amputation in Progress
Exhibit G
Bad Diet and Hygiene
It may be surprising to learn that for every man killed in
battle, two died from disease. Many of these diseases dysentery, diarrhea, typhoid and malaria, were caused by
overcrowded and unsanitary conditions in the field.
One problem that soldiers had to deal with was the lack of
proper sanitation. Each company in the army was supposed to
have a place to put their waste in-- an eight feet deep by two
feet wide trench called a sink. It was to be covered every day
by at least six inches of dirt. But some companies dug no
sinks. That caused an infestation of flies that spread to the
soldier’s rations.
Often the rations themselves were part of the problem. The
food was high in calories but low in vitamins. There were few
fruits and vegetables available, and the bulk of the ration was
fresh or preserved beef, salt pork, navy beans, coffee, and
hardtack (large, thick crackers that were often inhabited by
worms-- soldiers nicknamed them “worm castles).
Sometimes they were able to supplement their diet with fruit
found growing in the countryside. In fact, during General
Sherman’s famous march from Atlanta to Savannah, it was
part of his plan to forage for food to supplement his company’s
diet.
The following is an excerpt from his field orders...
The army will forage liberally on the country...each brigade
commander will organize a good and sufficient foraging
party...who will gather...corn, or forage of any kind, meat of any
kind, vegetables, corn-meal, or whatever is needed by his
command.
During this time, Sherman’s men had never been healthier.
Hardtack
Civil War
Rations