When first used
in battle, the rifle was not much use due to a
slow loading and firing rate. In 1848, however,
a French officer named Captain Claude Etienne
Minie, invented a practical musket with a much
easier loading "minnie-ball" cylindrical bullet.
Not many major wars were fought with or against
these weapons before the Civil War, and as a
result, classical tactics of getting in close
before firing were still in practice. The longer
range of these innovative new rifles made
retreat very costly and caused casualties to be
extremely high at the start of the war. As more
and more rifles were issued to the troops,
self-preservation overpowered honor, and defense
tactics were changed. Troops began to take cover
and send skirmishers out from the front lines.
In response to
the new rifles, the grooved-bores were soon
applied to field canons. The long ranges of the
rifles were presenting a brand new threat to
canon crews, making artillery almost entirely
useless. When the canons were rifled, they could
greatly increase their distance and precision.
One of the first innovations into a faster
reload was the single-shot breechloading rifle.
The main advantage was that the gun did not have
to be turned around and have the charge rammed
down the musket. The barrel could simply be
dropped, and the charge and paper could simply
be placed directly to the back of the barrel
where they needed to be.
Soon after breechloaders became available, a
repeating rifle was produced. The Spencer 7-shot
and the Henry 16-shot breechloading repeaters
were the most common. The third was the Colt
revolving rifle. The weapon was considered a
superior weapon and was released to select
units. The new rifle may have looked good in
reports, but many soldiers feared using it. They
claimed that after being shot a reasonable
amount of times for a skirmish, the chamber
would heat up, exploding all six shells at once.
This often shot off the soldier's hand used for
aiming the rifle.
Confederates
were desperate for these faster loading weapons,
yet the Union was much more conservative in the
arming of its troops.
