Civil War Advancement

Angels on the Battlefield In the Battle of Gettysburg that took place on July 1, 1863, and ended on July 3, many casualties and injuries resulted from the fighting between those few days, leading to the victory of the Union Army. It is roughly estimated that 620,000 men lost their lives fighting, many for liberty and freedom, others for new opportunities. The Civil War was considered the deadliest and bloodiest battle. Medicine has come a long way now, in comparison to the 19th century, although many lives were lost on the way.

The most popular version of Napoleon Cannon was the 12 pounder. During this era designers or inventor’s name, year of major advancement in the weapon, the weight of the charge the weapon could safely fire was how people referred to most artillery weapons. The Napoleon Cannon was the cannon of choice because its safety, reliable and having devastating effects on enemy soldiers at close range. The Napoleon Cannon remained in service by both the Union and Confederate Armies throughout the war, although it began received modifications shortly after the war had begun. Modifications to the Napoleon Cannon included reinforcing the tube and adding rifling.

These muskets had a smooth bore, the inner barrel was smooth, and used musket balls as projectiles. Musket balls were made of lead and had an effective range of about 300 feet. This caused armies to fight closer to each other due to the limited range of their weaponry. The musket also only held one bullet before a soldier had to take the time to reload. This reload involved loading the barrel with gunpowder and a musket ball before taking a ram rod and packing both as tightly down as the soldier could.

As soon as the Civil War started, injuries increased and diseases spread at a rapid pace. Sickness spread to millions. In fact, disease caused 65% of deaths, while war injuries caused up to 100% (“Disease”). Abundant amounts of medical issues caused medical procedures to evolve at a rapid speed. The medical advancements during the Civil War led to future medical technologies and procedures.

The Civil War was America’s bloodiest war. Soldiers were not only dying from battle itself, but from the daily practices the military had in place. Medical care and response was lacking organization resulting in many preventable deaths. In 1862 this all changed with the appointment of Medical Director Jonathan Letterman, who focused on how soldiers were being treated both on and off the battlefield. Jonathan Letterman was crucial to the Union’s victory because he advanced civil war medicine and made it more accessible hence why his gravestone describes a man “who brought order and efficiency into the Medical Service and who was the originator of modern methods of medical organization in armies" (Arlington National Cemetery).

As history progressed through time, war has evolved but from the first conflict between man to current engagements, war will always be based around military logistics. As defined in history.com, logistics is the supply, movement and maintenance of an armed force both in peacetime and under operational conditions. Unlike any war up to the 1861, the Civil War introduced the first infantry regiment of sharpshooters. As a sharpshooter you were assign the mission to kill enemy target of importance. According to Infantry Bugler, Hiram Berdan, founder of the Sharpshooters, was appointed as the colonel of the 1st United States Sharpshooter Regiment.

These calls helped to organize orders within each branch of the military and ensured that each unit understood what was expected of them during

From such a outdated method of fighting, on such a large scale, only a large amount of destruction and death could come from the conflicts in which the armies found themselves entangled enough to fight. The style of Civil War battles created an environment that presented an even more hazerdous environment to those soldiers who fought the battle and, combined with poor medical knowledge, the soldiers were exposed to a level of lethality that supports the argument of the Civil War being the most painful and taxing war of American

Before the war occurred, there were an estimated 2,000 hospital beds and by the end, nearly 135,000 more were produced. The Civil War created a new solution for wounded soldiers called anesthetics. They were plastic limbs used for when soldiers got a limb amputated and could no longer use them anymore (“Civil War Medicine”). The knife used for amputation was very dirty and unsterilized, due to the fact they had no idea that germs caused disease. It was a small long knife that was very sharp to get far into the bodies of the wounded soldiers without having to touch much of their flesh (“Object Record- Knife”).

The Burnside carbine, Springfield rifle, Colt revolver rifle, Lorenz rifle, Smith carbine, Tarpley carbine, Spencer repeating rifle, and Whitworth rifle were rifles all used in the war between the North and South. A rifle musket used by both the Union and the Confederates was the 1853 Enfield Rifle Musket (or .577 Enfield) which was the standard-issue for British troops. Imported from England,

In the years following the Revolutionary War the United States would begin to expand, although not popular among all citizens, it helped shape the country into what we know today. The first acquisition of territory would be as a result of the Treaty of Paris with Great Britain ending the Revolutionary War. This treaty marked the boundaries between the British colonies still located in North America and ceded the thirteen American colonies to a newly recognized country known as the United States of America. This would not be the only acquisition of territory that the United States would complete between the years of 1789 and 1815 but it would be the initial acquisition of territory that would develop this newly formed nation.

The era of medicine before the Civil War wasn’t beneficial. They had just started common practices and having few uneducated nurses. When entering the Civil War diseases and hygiene became a huge problem for the soldiers on the front lines since doctors had little knowledge about medicine. Amputation, Lewis Sayre, and diseases aided the construct of modern medicine from the Civil War. Amputation was a familiar use during the Civil War.

The decades prior to the Civil War was a time of innovation in gun making. The standard military arm the flintlock smoothbore musket had been replaced

Especially for the south that did not have a lot of factories to produce these items. The most common weapon at this time was the smooth-bore

To say the time period following the Civil War in the United States involved a lot of change would be a understatement. Between the years 1870 and 1900 the people of the United States lived through a period of great change. Not only did they witness technological advances that would change their daily lives, they also saw new laws and organizations formed. All of this was done in hopes of improving the country. Many of these changes came about because of the type of businesses that were formed.