Introduction
The Civil War is remembered as a period of great political and social upheaval. In addition, it is a period of change in technology. Military men and inventors devised new kinds of war equipment’s like the submarine, and the repeating rifle, that brought massive change on how the world military fought wars. There were also circumstances where technology was developed and had nothing in relation to war, such as the telegraph and the railroad (Blattman & Miguel, 2010). This kind of technologies and innovations did not only change the fighting styles of the people but also changed their living styles. Some of the innovations and technologies that took place in the civil war and their effects are as follows
New types of weapons
Technology in civil war led historians to rename the civil war in America as the first modern war because of the new technology used. This new technology ranged from telegraphs, cameras, weapons to tin cans (Crozier, 2010). The new weapons enabled the soldiers to be more effective, although it leads to death of many soldiers.
In the past, even before the civil war, soldiers used to carry muskets that could hold only one bullet in one shot. The musket range was estimated by almost 250 yards. This meant that for a soldier to target and takes a shot with accuracy, they had to be at a close range to the aim, and this is because the effective range of the weapon was only 80 yards. This made armies to fight wars at a closer range (Collier & Sambanis 2002).
In contrast, rifles that were invented during the civil war had there range been greater than the muskets since they could shoot a target 1,000 yards away with accuracy. However, it was not that possible to fight with these guns until 1850s because, since the bullet of the rifle had almost similar size in diameter like its barrel, much time was used to load (Crozier, 2010).
Ironclads
Ironclad warships were first used in civil war when CSS Virginia met USS monitor at the Battle of Hampton Roads, in Virginia. This monitor, invented in an amazingly short time in Brooklyn, New York, was among the most magnificent machines in that era. This machine was made of iron plates riveted together, and had a revolving turret, and this was the representation of the future of naval warfare. The ironclad Confederate had been constructed on the hull of a captured and abandoned Union warship, USS Merrimac (Blattman & Miguel, 2010). Although it had no revolving turret, its heavy iron plating almost made it impervious to cannon balls.
In 1848, Claude Minie, who was an officer in the French army came up with a bullet that was conical in shape and that had a smaller diameter as compared to its rifle barrel. This enabled faster loading of the bullets without the help of mallets or ramrods. The bullets in rifles termed to be more deadly and accurate than the muskets, hence making the infantries use other tactics while fighting (Crozier, 2010). The officer fighting far from the front line had to defend themselves from the bullets by digging trenches.
Repeaters
Guns that used minie bullets were quick and easy to load, although the soldiers had to reload and pause after every shot of a bullet. This was termed as dangerous and inefficient. However, in 1863, there was the invention of another option named repeating rifles, also known as the guns capable of firing several bullets before reloading could be done (Harvey, 2012). One of the well-known guns was known as the Spencer carbine, which was able to release only seven rounds in 30 seconds. Just like any other technologies in the civil war, repeaters were only provided to troops of the Northern, but not to the south. This is because the southern factories were not sure on how to manufacture them and they had no equipment’s.
The Gatling Gun
This was the ancestry of the modern machine gun, and was one of the most successful inventions of the several rapid fire guns that were invented before the civil war. The main intention of Richard Gatling in inventing this gun was in the hopes that a catastrophic weapon in its damage would enable men to stop waging war (Crozier, 2010). The challenge with this gun was in its efficiency in killing which made wars to be more deadly. This gun was not used extensively in the civil war.
Torpedoes and Naval mines
The Confederates developed the naval mines with the hopes of counteracting the blockades Unions of the southern ports. These mines and later torpedoes were very successful in sinking 40 Union ships (Collier &Sambanis 2002). The use of these mines led to the invention of grenades and land mines that were used in later wars.
Submarines and Balloons
There were other kinds of weapons that were used in the air. In this regard, the Union balloons floated over the battle lines and encampments of the Confederate in hydrogen balloons, while sending the necessary reports to the commanding officers through telegraph. In the coast line of the country, the Iron-clad moving in all directions in all regions, while ensuring that Union blockade is maintained in the ports of confederate. (Blattman & Miguel, 2010).
However, on their part, the Confederate were trying to make the ironclads to sink by using submarines. Confederate’s first submarine “Hunley” was made from 4 feet metal tube across, and 40 feet long and carried only 8 soldiers (Harvey, 2012). The Union ship was sank by the Hunley along the in 1864, and due to this, it was wrecked.
The Railroad
When the civil war erupted in America, the railroad was at the time the new technology. The North came into the civil war with a railroad track of almost 22,000 miles, and most of it in a standardized gauge and therefore allowing the transfer of cars instead of reloading and unloading the freight (Blattman & Miguel, 2010). However, the south had a rail track of only about 9,000 miles, and it was not on standardized gauge.
In addition, the North had manufactured facilities, such as making more locomotives and rails which consumed prodigious amounts of iron. A large percentage of the locomotive production in the southern prewar was by Perkins & Smith of Alexandria, Virginia, which was seized on the ground immediately for the protection of Washington by the Federal Army. By the end of the civil war, the roads of the Southern were in bad conditions due to lack of maintenance supplies (Collier &Sambanis 2002).
The effect of the railroad network on the civil war was the ability to supply vast armies. The civil war armies of America were the largest ever seen and they were kept in the field year round. The railroad moved large numbers of troops and more quickly, like shifting confederates Longstreet together with corps from Virginia to Kentucky to surprise the Federals, and return again even before the Federals could react in Virginia. However, the biggest effect of railroad was to haul supplies such as food in long distances (Crozier, 2010). The ammunitions used in the civil war were very heavy and they are not as perishable as food. In the summer heat, the huge armies at Gettysburg marched from Virginia in order to get there, but the Federal armies were sustained by the railroad in the south.
The train operations were organized by the North as the U.S. Military Railroads. The army became adept especially in bridge replacement that had been burned by southern partisans that used to operate behind Federal lines. Just to bend a rail was not good enough. In order to ruin a rail, it had to be heated to red hot over a fire and then bent pretzel around a tree (Harvey, 2012). Because of what was happening, large number of soldiers had to be left behind near Virginia, in order to protect the railroads. The last guards of the railroad were not withdrawn from the B&O in Maryland near Virginia and Potomac River until the end of the civil war in 1865.
The vast tonnages that were carried by the railroads of the civil war were all small cars that had been pulled by small locomotives that travelled at a lower speed of 25 miles per hour or even less. This invention gave way to bigger and faster locomotives that came fifty years after the civil war. In 1866, the first significant invention was done to increase the speed of the locomotives when the flexible beam truck was brought to keep the locomotive on truck (Crozier, 2010). This decade was even before lubricants and bearings were developed for increasing operating speeds and weighs.
Army ambulance corps
A medical director of the army known as Jonathan Letterman, of the Potomac, was responsible in creating the organized transport of the wounded. The ambulance units consisted of groups of soldiers who were unfit for fighting. Letterman was the first to innovate and regiment this process. The ambulances of a certain division moved as a group under the direction of a line sergeant, with one driver and two stretcher-bearers per ambulance (Blattman & Miguel, 2010). They used to go in the battle field, pick the wounded soldiers and deliver them to dressing stations then later to field hospitals. Up to today, the military bases its ambulance system on the ideas of Letterman.
Telegraph
The first American president to use the telegraph was Abraham Lincoln who was able to speak with his commanders while in war. This was by the use of the office in the white house with telegraph that made sure that he was following what was happening what was happening in the battle field, issuing of orders to his troops, and lead real time strategy meetings. In this area, the army of the Confederate was disadvantaged since they had no the industrial and technological man power of conducting this kind of communication campaigns (Collier & Sambanis 2002). The U.S. Military Telegraph Corps was developed in 1861, by the Union Army that was headed by a railroad man known as Andrew Carnegie. In the following year alone, 1,200 operators were trained by U.S.M.T.C., placed more than 4,000 miles cables of telegraph and were able to send thousands if not millions of messages from and to the battlefield.
Photography in Civil War
Photography was first employed in the civil war by the use of a camera. The challenge was that the photographs of the era could not be compared with the digital pictures of the new age. The process of developing and taking photos by the use of wet plate technique that was a multi-step and meticulous procedure that needed several operators of the camera and other many equipment’s and chemicals (Harvey, 2012). Due to this, images of the war were not action pictures, but rather landscapes and portraits.
Conclusion
In conclusion, technological innovation and advancement was impacted on how the war was fought and how it is being remembered. Most of the technologies invented at this era have contributed a key role in both civilians and military life ever since.
References
Blattman, C., & Miguel, E. (2010).Civil war. Journal of Economic Literature, 3-57.
Collier, P., & Sambanis, N. (2002). Understanding civil war: a new agenda. The Journal of
Conflict Resolution, 46(1), 3-12.
Crozier, A. (2010).Technology and the Civil War. Pelham, NY: Benchmark Education Co.
Ennis, E. (2008). The American Civil War. Monterey, CA: Evan-Moor Corp.
Harvey, A. D. (2012). Was the American Civil War the First Modern War? History, 97(326),
272-280.
