Ahh! I've been hit! It ripped through my bone and my stomach! It was a Minie Ball!
Ha Ha! Got Him!
Weapons of the Civil War: The Gatling Gun
Ha, Look at them run. This thang's better than a whole squad of men!
Man, those rotating barrels sure provide a lot of needed firepower!
Its too strong! Fall Back!!!
Weapons of the Civil War: The Springfield Rifle
And to think every soldier gets one too!
I love how smooth and shiny this rifle is!
Wish it could reload faster though. Its slow reload time has cost many of our men on the battlefield.
The Minie Ball was a bullet with curves in it, and these curves made it easier to shatter bones and break the tissue of the person it was shot at. The Minie Ball was used by both the Union and the Confederacy in most of the battles of the Civil War. The reason the Minnie Ball was used by both sides is that it was easy to mass produce and they caused devastating damage to a persons body.
The original Gatling Gun was a machine gun that had multiple rotating barrels for which bullets to travel through, and could be fired at a rapid rate. This weapon was only used in major battle in the Civil War by the Union (Battle of Petersburg, 1864), but the U.S. military began to use it much more after the war and it is still in use today. The Gatling Gun was effective because it fired much faster than a rifle and teared through enemy soldiers with ease.
The Springfield Rifle/Musket was easy to mass produce and was an effective rifle, making it the standard weapon of choice for the Union. The Springfield was created in 1861 in Springfield, Massachusetts. It was inconvenient in battle however, because it had a slow reload time and it was easy to spot at night from Confederates because of how shiny it was. However, even these inconveniences did not stop the Union from using this rifle in almost all of their battles.