Equipment

Civil War soldiers on both sides of the conflict carried much of the same gear in their packs. Standard accouterments included such essential items as mess kits (plate, knife, fork, and spoon), cups and tin cans for drinking and grinding coffee, sewing kits (called housewives by Union troops), pocketknives, wool blankets, oilcloth groundsheets (which were much more common in Northern regiments than Southern ones), canteens, firearms, cartridge boxes, and bayonets. Rations were carried in the soldier's haverpack. Other commonplace but nonessential items toted by infantry soldiers in both the Union and Confederate armies included pipes and tobacco pouches, straight razors, Bibles, writing kits, family portraits, harmonicas and other small musical instruments, matchsafes, handkerchiefs, change purses, combs, towels, and soap. These personal items were supplemented by wagon-drawn supplies used by entire companies or regiments, like cooking materials, spades, tents, and the like.

Troops received staple items from federal or state authorities, but other supplies were either brought from home upon enlistment, delivered to grateful soldiers from home via mail service, lifted from the battlefield or civilian residences, or procured—usually at exorbitant rates—from civilian merchants known as sutlers. Soldiers also occasionally raided sutlers' tents late at night and helped themselves to what they needed.

As was the case with shoes and uniforms, both the North and South grappled with shoddy workmanship and perennial supply shortages in many equipment categories. Some Union blankets, for example, were so poorly made that they provided little warmth and quickly fell apart (Shannon 2002, p. 97). Confederate supply shortages were further exacerbated by a tendency on the part of many state authorities to hoard uniforms, blankets, and other supplies manufactured within their borders for the exclusive use of their own troops.

The North was able to use its vastly superior industrial capacity to address many of its supply shortages over time, but Southern problems with equipment quality and shortfalls became more acute as the war progressed. These problems—due to losses of territory (and hence manufacturing productivity), an inadequate transportation network, and severe shortfalls in raw materials for factory production—finally became so great that the Confederate Army became starved for many necessary types of equipment.

The Rifle: The Soldier's Most Important Piece of Equipment

The most valuable piece of equipment possessed by Rebel and Yankee soldiers was the rifle. At the war's outset, soldiers on both sides were almost exclusively armed with various types of smoothbore muskets that were accurate to no more than 100 yards or so (many weapons had an effective range that was considerably less than this). This assortment of armaments included squirrel rifles, shotguns, muskets dating back to the War of 1812, so-called Mississippi Rifles (also known as the U.S. Army Model 1841 Rifle or the Whitney Rifle), and other privately owned firearms toted to the front by enlistees.

Aerial Reconnaissance in the Civil War: The Union Army Balloon Corps

The Civil War saw the formation of the first organization for aerial reconnaissance, the Union Army Balloon Corps. Although the corps was considered a branch of the Union Army, it was organized and staffed by civilians, headed by the Chief Aeronaut, Thaddeus S. C. Lowe (1831–1913), appointed to that position by Abraham Lincoln in the summer of 1861. Lincoln became interested in employing balloons for military reconnaissance after hearing about their use by the French Army.

Lowe was an experienced balloonist who had financed his education in chemistry and meteorology by giving people rides in a balloon he had built himself as a teenager. He had become a noted weather expert by the time of the Civil War and was making plans for a transatlantic balloon crossing when the war broke out. Lowe brought his own balloon, the Enterprise, to Washington in June 1861 to demonstrate its potential to the president. Lowe's balloon contained a telegraph key and was connected by a telegraph wire to the White House. From a height of 500 feet above a nearby armory, Lowe sent a telegraph message to Lincoln:

Balloon Enterprise

Washington, DC

June 18, 1861

To the President of the United States:

Sir: This point of observation commands an area nearly fifty miles in diameter. The City with its girdle of encampments presents a superb scene. I have pleasure in sending you this first dispatch from an aerial station, and in acknowledging indebtedness for your encouragement for the opportunity of demonstrating the availability of the science of aeronautics in the service of the country.

Yours respectfully,

T. S. C. Lowe. (Abbott 1864, p. 108)

Lowe selected a team of aeronauts who assisted him in observing battlefields around the Potomac River and the peninsula from 1861 through 1863, when the corps disbanded due to problems with military oversight of the civilian aeronauts. In those two years, however, the balloon corps demonstrated its ability to assist Union gunners in improving the accuracy of their artillery fire.

In addition to carrying out the first successful aerial reconnaissance during a major war, Lowe was also responsible for the invention of the aircraft carrier. Lowe had an old coal barge, the General Washington Parke Custis, converted for river transport of his balloons and a generator he had invented to produce the hydrogen gas used to inflate the balloons. The deck of the Parke Custis was cleared of everything that might entangle the ropes used to tether the balloons. From November 1861 through the spring of 1862 Lowe's barge was towed by a Navy gunboat, the U.S.S. Coeur de Lion, up and down the Potomac River so that Lowe and the other aeronauts could observe the movements of Confederate troops during the Peninsula Campaign.

Although the Union Army Balloon Corps was in operation for only two years, it was successful enough that the Confederate Army attempted to copy it, but failed because of the lack of skilled pilots and suitable materials for constructing balloons. Lowe's use of balloons for military purposes was revived by the U.S. Army Signal Corps during the Spanish-American War (1898) and by a balloon school operated by the Army at Fort Omaha in Nebraska during World War I.

rebecca j. frey

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abbott, John Stevens Cabot. The History of the Civil War in America. New York: Henry Bill, 1864.

Hoehling, Mary Duprey Thaddeus Lowe, America's One-Man Air Corps. New York: Messner, 1958.

Around the same time that the Civil War broke out, however, a revolution in rifle technology was taking place. A new kind of bullet called the Minié ball was introduced; this new type of ammunition enabled the rapid and efficient loading of a muzzle-loading rifle, dramatically increasing range and accuracy. The Minié ball could also be loaded fairly quickly, which was another important consideration. Within a matter of months, this new firearms technology—which at the war's outset was limited primarily to sniper squads and other specialized regiments—was spreading like wildfire through the ranks of both the Federal and Confederate armies. It was not until 1863, however, that gun manufacturers in the North and South were finally able to catch up with the feverish demand for the new rifled weapons.

The two most popular rifle types to use the new Minie ball were the American-made Springfield rifle and the British-made Enfield rifle. The Springfield became the "workhorse weapon" of the Union army in particular, but even at war's end Springfields and Enfields accounted for only about 40 percent of all the shoulder arms used by the two governments (Davis 1991, pp. 54, 58). In 1863, in fact, the Union War Department officially recognized 121 different models of rifles, muskets, carbines, pistols, and revolvers and the Confederacy was even less discriminating. For both governments, however, this created logistical headaches, as a huge variety of types of ammunition had to be made available to troops (Davis 1991, p. 58).

Besides the Enfield and Springfield rifles, other specific models that were extensively used included breech-loading rifles such as the Sharps, Maynard, Burnside, Morse, and Star guns, the sixteen-shot Henry repeaters, and various short-barreled carbines (the latter were often used by cavalry). In addition, the Union Army purchased approximately 106,000 Spencer carbines and rifles. The Spencer repeating rifle fired a magazine of seven cartridges and could be reloaded in thirty seconds, even by a soldier on horseback. These weapons were so potent that Federal forces thus armed came to view themselves as virtually invincible on the field of battle—a belief that was substantiated by battlefield results at places like Gettysburg, Chickamauga, Atlanta, and Petersburg.

Changing the Face of War

The advent of new rifle technology during the Civil War might not have been so devastating had field commanders been quicker to adjust to the evolving tactical landscape. Soldiers armed with Springfield, Enfield, Spencer, and Henry rifles were transformed into deadly foes that could pick enemy soldiers off with far greater accuracy—and at far greater distances—than ever before. Close combat became a thing of the past; out of 245,000 wounds treated by surgeons in Federal hospitals during the course of the war, for example, fewer than 1,000 were saber or bayonet wounds (Hummel 1996, p. 188). Many generals preferred flank attacks, but these were not always possible. Instead, they were bound to keep using frontal attacks until a better way could be found of achieving results. And these attacks did sometimes prove effective, albeit at a high casualty rate.

As the months passed, however, army commanders and their lieutenants gradually adapted to the new reality and adjusted their infantry tactics. They abandoned frontal assaults over open terrain, made greater use of forest and other natural cover, and made much more extensive use of man-made entrenchments.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Davis, William C. Rebels and Yankees: The Fighting Men of the Civil War. New York: Smithmark Publishers, 1991.

Hagerman, Edward. The American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1988.

Hummel, Jeffrey Rogers. Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War. Chicago: Open Court, 1996.

Robertson, James I., Jr. Soldiers Blue and Gray. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1988.

Shannon, Fred A. "The Life of the Common Soldier in the Union Army, 1861–1865." In The Civil War Soldier: A Historical Reader, ed. Michael Barton and Larry M. Logue. New York: New York University Press, 2002.

Wiley, Bell Irvin. The Common Soldier of the Civil War. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973.

Kevin Hillstrom