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THE FIRST MODERN WAR
Why is the Civil War called
the“first modern war”?
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Technological advancements in weaponry
Improved communication techniques
Faster transportation methods
Improved medical and sanitation techniques
BATTLEFIELD TACTICS
• Although weapons had improved battle
tactic had not changed in hundreds of years.
• Large armies were massed on opposite sides
of a field. The advancing army moved
across the field when they got close enough
they charged (ran at) the enemy.
• Usually, the battle ended with bayonets and
hand-to-hand combat.
BATTLEFIELD TACTICS (con’t)
Because weapons advanced and tactics
did not the Civil War was the deadliest
war in American History.
•More Americans died in the Civil War than
all other wars combined.
•More Americans died in the first day at the
battle of Antietam than in all previous US
wars.
ADVANCES IN WEAPONRY:
The minnie ball
• The standard bullet
used by troops during
the Civil War
• It is .57 caliber and
made of soft lead
• in combination with a
rifled-musket it made
traditional battlefield
techniques obsolete
The single most deadly
advance in weapons
Artillery: smoothbore
vs. rifling
• As with shoulder weapons, smoothbore cannons
were not as accurate and could not shoot as far as
rifled artillery.
The three types of artillery
• Cannons
• Howitzers
• Mortars
Cannons
• Cannons or guns, as they were sometimes called
were fired in a relatively flat trajectory.
• These were generally used as anti-personnel
weapons.
Howitzers
• Howitzers were used against both personnel and
field fortifications
Mortars
• Mortars came in sizes from small (2-man unit) to so
large that they needed to be mounted on rail cars
and could fire shells weighing more than 200
pounds. The high trajectory allowed these to shoot
over field fortifications
Other innovations in weapons…
The first “Air Force”???
• Balloons were used by
the North to spot enemy
troops movements and to
spot for artillery.
• At a height of a mile of
more, the balloonists
“talked” to the ground via
a light telegraph wire.
Other innovations in weapons...
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hand grenade
flame thrower
machine gun
anti-aircraft fire (see
balloons)
• land mines
• railroad artillery
• repeating rifles
• Rotating gun turrets
• use of periscopes
• telescopic sight for
rifles
• Torpedoes
• Portable bridges
Other innovations in weapons…
The Ketchum (left) and Excelsior hand grenades
Other innovations in weapons...
A Civil War “torpedo”
(we would call them
sea mines)
The Gatling gunthe first workable
machine gun
Improvements in battlefield
techniques…..
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Aerial reconnaissance
field trenches on a grand scale
military telegraph
coded battle signals
wire and spear entanglements
Portable bridges
The NEW Navy:
The battle of the ironclads
• Confederate engineers bolted on iron plates to the
Merrimack, building a warship more powerful than
anything the North had. Union cannon shells
simply bounced off the Merrimack.
• News of this monster quickly spread to the North.
• The North responded by building the Monitor.
• On March 8, the Merrimack attack and sunk or
disabled three Union ships.
• For one day, the Confederate navy ruled the seas.
Battle of the ironclads (cont’d)
• The next morning the Monitor appeared.
• The two ships hammered away at each other, hull
to hull, fighting at such close range that the two
ships collided five times.
• After four and a half hours , the Merrimack drew
off.
Battle of the ironclads (cont’d)
• It was to be the Merrimack’s only fight. The
Confederates blew her up two months later
when the were forced out of Norfolk.
• The Union set to building more Monitorlike ships while Europe watched in worried
fascination.
• From the moment the two ships opened fire
that Sunday morning, every other navy in
the world was obsolete.
Battle of the ironclads (cont’d)
• In London, Henry Adams cheered the
Union triumph, but also saw in it an
ominous fore-shadowing of things to
come…”About a week ago, The British
discovered that their whole wooden navy
was useless…These are great
times…Before many centuries
more..science may have mankind in its
power, and the human race commit suicide
by blowing up the world.”
The NEW Navy:
Submarines
• Naval attacks using a “submarine” had been
attempted before.
• The CSS Huntley was the first submarine to
“successfully” sink an enemy ship.
Care for the wounded……
• Generally speaking, if a soldier took a solid
hit in an arm or a leg it was amputated.
• “Gut shot” wounds were nearly always
fatal.
• The Civil War took place in what has been
called “the medical middle ages”.
• Physicians did not understand the germ
theory as we know it today
Care for the wounded…...
• Surgeons would simply rinse their operating
instruments off in cold water or wipe them
off on their coats before moving on to the
next patient.
• A good surgeon could amputate an arm or a
leg in about 10 minutes…one right after
another…hour after hour.
• Sometimes the pile of discarded limbs
reached four to five feet high.
Care for the wounded…...
• Despite the crude medical care used, the
Civil War is also credited with several
“firsts” in battlefield medicine…
• army ambulance corps
• hospital ships
• organized medical and nursing care
• widespread use of anesthetics for battlefield
wounded
“Firsts” on the home front…...
• Draft laws
• photography of battle (brought the horror of
the war home to the civilians)
• a wide-ranging press corps in battlefield
areas
• American breadlines
• American president assassinated
Civil War Casualties……
• A casualty is when a soldier or sailor is lost
for the duration of the war through death,
wounds, injury or sickness. It does not
include soldiers who were treated for
wounds, etc. and then sent back to continue
fighting.
Civil War Casualties…...
• Union dead 364,511 • Confederate dead 260,000
• Union
• Confederate
wounded
281,881
wounded
194,000
• Total Union
• Total Confederate
loss
646,392
Losses
454,000
A Civil War soldier’s chance of NOT surviving the war
was about one in four
Civil War Casualties…
A quick comparison
• 4,435 died in the
American Revolution
• 2,260 died in the War
of 1812
• 13,283 died in the
Mexican War
• 2,246 in the Spanish
American War
• 116,516 died in WWI
• 403,399 died in WWII
• 33,746 died in Korea
• 58,512 died in
Vietnam
• Up until the Vietnam
War, the number
killed in the Civil War
surpassed all other
wars COMBINED!!!
CONCLUSIONS…...
• The Civil War saw the beginnings of many
methods of warfare that are still in use
today almost 150 years later.
• Although we would consider these
innovations crude by today’s standards they
proved deadly on the battlefield because
technology was far ahead of tactics and care
for the wounded.