The First Modern War

Samuel Santiuste Ms. Engelken US muniment I Honors May 13, 2011 The origin redbrick warfare While reading history, we typically see that wars were typically fought with soldiers in close- order formations with a musket that would be fired in unison on command. Everything changed after the American civil War, a conflict to determine the spate of slaves in the Union, erupted. Today legion(predicate) historians consider the cultivated War as the first modern war because it dep conclusioned on enceinte manufacturing, fast converse and transportation.But this time all of these new technologies were apply to its full potential. As a result new weapon technology was mass produced which inflicted heavy losses on both the Union and the ally sides and resulted in ameliorate battlefield medicine. Years before the Civil War, soldiers would normally carry muskets that had a fire range of ab out(p) 250 yards. But although this weapon had an amazing range, the musket totally held and fired one punch at a time and it dash random targets.The accuracy of the musket was from about 80 yards and this caused some(prenominal) of the battles to be fought at a close range. Then, in 1848 the French stumbleicer designd Claude-Etienne Minie took the design of a bullet that expanded upon fired and simplified and improve on rather designsincluding those developed by Britains Captain John Norton (1818) and William Greener (1836) to make the bullet that bears its name the Minie ball (Minie Ball). This new bullet combined with the rifle do a terrific duo because the range of the weapon was from 200-250 yards with a terrific accuracy.To test the bullets power alone, during the Crimean War of 1853-56 the bullet so improved the effectiveness of infantry troops that 150 soldiers using the Minie ball could allude the firing power of to a greater extent than 500 with a traditional musket and ammunition (Minie Ball). When this weapon was introduced to the Civil War, the old mo del of warfare became obsolete remedy away because the infantry along with the cavalry could not charge against the adversary as they used to.Other weapons that came into action in the Civil War were not as deadly as the Minie ball but had a big impact on surviving. Despite the fact that the Minie ball was at large(p) to load, soldiers cool off had to pause in the middle of the action to reload their guns, and this made them easy targets. By 1863, there was a new weapon that lick this problem called repeating rifle because it could fired more than one bullet before the needing of a reload. The most famous type was the Spencer carbine.But equal many other technology, this weapon was totally available to the Northerners. Many Southerners eyeshot that this weapon was unfair and one Union soldier once wrote they opine we are not fair, that we have guns that we load up on sunlight and shoot all the rest of the week (Civil War Technology). At the end of the war, the statistics showed that the Minie ball combined with the rifle did the most damage because with more than 200,000 soldiers killed and more than 400,000 wounded, 90 percent of these causalities were caused by these weapons (Minie Ball).On the same year that the Civil War started, President capital of Nebraska ordered a blockade on the Confederates to stop their cotton trade and split the confederacy. So to counter rape the Union, many advances in naval warfare were flourishing which led to the reinforced of the H. L. Hunley, which was the first ever effective submarine developed by the Confederates. This Confederate submarine was created to annihilate the Union blockade wooden ships with the use of torpedoes that were attached along a long steak that exploded upon contact or by a timer.But before the submarine was ready to attack, it sank three propagation and on the fourth tried it was sent out to attack the U. S. S. Housatonic, and detonated its torpedo, sink the Housatonic and thereby b ecoming the first submarine to ever sink an rival vessel (Dutch). Despite the best efforts the submarine sank with the blast. Another incredible artifice that changed the nature of warfare in the seas was when the ironclad warships came into action. This time both sides had their consume version of the ironclad which was powered by a steam railway locomotive Union had the U. S. S. reminder and the Confederates the C.S. S. Virginia or Merrimack. Once again the Confederates tried to destroy the Union ships using an ironclad built upon the charred remains of a burned-out wooden warship, clad completely in iron plating conquer to the waterline and bristling with cannons (W photographe). This warship just went straight for the blockade in Virginia, and although it was hit by explosives and other heavy artillery the damage was minimal. And this is just a brief view of what might the battle would have been like by Professor J Rickard with the Virginia On 8 March 1862 she steamed out of Norfolk to attack the Union blockading fleet.Her ten guns were opposed to 219 Union guns on five ships, but the Union ships didnt stand a chance. original to go was the U. S. S. Cumberland (24 guns), rammed and sunk. The only serious damage inflicted to the Virginia was that her ram broke off and remained stuck in the Cumberland. All of this meant that the Union needed reinforcement, so they sent the Monitor to save the day. These ships battled for several hours as their shells and shot bounced off each others abstruse armor plating and the match might have ended in a tie as there were no records telling who kick upstairs (White).As the iron-clad demonstrated their power, the old wooden ships became obsolete. Even though there was fascinating technology being used in the Civil War, the only two weapons that President Lincoln that used the most were the train and the telegraph. Although the railroads were calm a new concept because they were not used much for armed services p urposes, they were still used to attack the enemy and replenish troops. The Union owned about 21,000 miles of railroad tracks while the Confederates only owned about 9,000 miles.Since the seed of the war both sides used trains to transport ammunition and soldiers to the front lines smart than ever before. Because the trains played a very important role in the war, the enemy used rail twisters and devices to blow up railroad tie and other infrastructure and withal some troops specialized in destroying railroad equipment as their sole-role in the war (AE Aeragon) . Most of the time trains were used for transportation, but on special occasions they were used as rams.sometimes troops would send trains at full speed to damage an enemy train or railroad facilities, or to attack troops and even to destroy bridges (Koenig). This experienced Confederates soldiers when they saw a train on flames aiming straight for them. Now, the telegraph was located along the railroad tracks and this m eant that the North had the swiftness hand because they have the most railroad miles. The telegraph helped President Lincoln from the White House to monitor battlefield reports, lead real-time scheme meetings and deliver orders to his men (Civil War Technology).This turn out to be a great advantage for the North because they still required the technology and industry to carry out communication tasks. And by 1862 the U. S. Military Telegraph corps trained 1,200 operators, strung 4,000 miles telegraph wire and had sent more than 1,000,000 messages rump and for (Koenig). This alone can tell that during this war that the president was actually come to more than in past wars. Throughout the entire Civil War, diseases were cleanup more people than weapons because people had little knowledge about the dim killers called germs.Since the beginning of the Civil War in the spring of 1861 medical examilanded estately, the United States was woefully prepared and scientists, meanwhile, had yet to come up with the theory that germs cause diseases (Sohn). This meant that doctors did not know that they should always wash their instruments before operating and the hospital hygienics was very poor which led to disease breakouts. But problems led to many medical advances such as the protocol to treat the injuries.This system was created by Jonathan Letterman, a Union surgeon, who created a well-organized system of care that began with triage close to the initiation of harm and was followed by rapid transportation to a series of clinics, hospitals and specialists (Sohn). This medical protocol is still essential today. While there medical advancements, many improvements on neurology came about. Physicians began the study of phantom limbs, the perception of a miss arm or leg as present and painful (White). The American physician S. Weir Mitchell discovered phenomenon such as the shell shock and posttraumatic vehemence syndrome. unitary of the ways that physicians noticed t hese problems were when soldiers would freeze or started to shake wildly and many thought it was because that person was a coward. So Mitchell and his colleague, Jacob da Costa, came into a conclusion which was that the soldiers were suffering from mental problems, stress and heart diseases (White). To treat these problems, they utter it was necessary the removal and rest from the source causing the stress. The Civil War, an result that could have or could have not being avoided, shaped the early of the entire world. The war had a great impact on anything that ranged from weapons to medicine.It also leaded to the creation of new technology such as the squall and the improvement on the medical field. Although the war brought many innovations to the United Sates, it is still the bloodiest one in the American history because people from the same nation were being killed and it is similar to what the British Novelists Agatha Christie said about war One is left with the horrible fee ling now that war settles nothing that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one. kit and boodle Cited Civil War Technology. 2011. The History Channel website. Apr. 27 2011, 1104 .Dutch, Steven. The First modern font War and the Last Ancient War. University of Wisconsin Green Bay. N. p. , 02 Jun 2010. Web. 27 Apr 2011. . Koenig, Alan R. Railroads critical Role in the Civil War. Americas Civil War 1996 n. pag. Web. 27 Apr 2011. . Minie Ball. 2011. The History Channel website. Apr. 27 2011, 1103 . Rickard, J (1 May 2006), American Civil War The Blockade and the War at Sea, . Sohn, Emily. How the Civil War Changed Modern Medicine. Discovery News. N. p. , 08 Apr. 2011. Web. 27 Apr 2011. . Stevens, Anthony. Roots of War and Terror. New York Cromwell Press Ltd, 2044. 212. eBook. The US Civil War, the First Modern War. AE Aeragon. N. p. , n. d. Web. 27 Apr 2011. . White, David. Born in the ground forces A New World of War. History Today 60. 6 (2010) 12. Points of regard Refe rence Center. EBSCO. Web. 27 Apr. 2011.