Rifle-Musket

American Firepower and Tactics
1861-1865

Introduction

By Ed McDonald
Wayne Praeder
Mike Bianchi-Rossi
Soldier figure drawings by E. Schweig

Peering out from the bombproof bunkers one could see the opposing armies stretched out for miles along two zigzagging trench lines. Between the two armies was a no man's land of wire, sharpened stakes and jagged, deep ditches. Within the trenches soldiers of both armies crouched behind the parapets in an effort to avoid the deafening screams of the incoming shells. No one seemed able to leave the protective trenches. They knew certain death awaited the next soldier bold enough to expose himself. Under these conditions even the generals had to admit that an assault was suicidal. Everyone seemed motionless except the steady stream of wounded limping to the rear. This was not a war of military pagentry or dramatic clashes of arms. It was a grinding war of survival.

The description of Petersburg could easily pass for a view of a World War I battlefield. The similarity between the two is hardly coincidental. Indeed, the two were both under the influence of a sudden increase in firepower which began in the U. S. Civil War of 1861-1865.

The problem of the late nineteenth century armies was that the range, rates of fire and accuracy of the new weapons were increasing at an astonishing rate between 1860 and 1915. However, the mobility in battle was to remain relatively unchanged. With such an increasing difference, fire, not mobility, was beginning to dominate the battlefield. The armies were becoming paralyzed by a firepower crisis that was to drive them below ground at Petersburg and in France.

At the core of the emerging crisis in the 1860's was the muzzle-loading percussion-lock rifle commonly known as the rifle-musket. The first widespread use of the rifle-musket and other new rifled arms was to profoundly influence the tactics of infantry, cavalry, artillery and the combined arms in battle. The rifle-musket and the other weapons were to strengthen the power of all arms while operating on defense. The massed attacking columns of Napoleon's time were to give way under the increasing defensive fire. A new kind of war fought more with the "spade" and "bullet" was to emerge. The days of the bayonet were ending in the Civil War and the day of the "bullet" was at hand.

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© Copyright 1974 by Dana Lombardy
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