How Did New Technology Affect The Civil War

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Some of the technological inventions that impacted the civil war were things such as the repeating rifle a.k.a the Spencer repeating rifle, the ironclad, and the Gatling gun. The Spencer repeating rifle was used during the American civil war but didn’t replace the standard muzzle-loading rifled muskets in use at that time. However, these weapons could fire more than one bullet before needing to reload. That made these guns were more efficient and dangerous. Like many other Civil War technologies, these weapons were available to Northern troops but not Southern ones because southern factories had neither the equipment nor the know-how to produce them which shows just how vital these technological advances were in winning the war. Iron-clad …show more content…

Once again, the Union had the advantage. When the war began, there were 22,000 miles of railroad track in the North and just 9,000 in the South. The telegraph made it so that Abraham Lincoln could communicate on the spot with his officers on the battlefield, an advantage that the south did not have. The Gatling gun had more of an impact after the civil war despite having been made during the war. The Gatling gun was the first firearm to solve the problems of loading, reliability, and the firing of sustained bursts. The Gatling gun played a significant role after the Civil War. This gun gave small numbers of U.S. troops enormous advantages in firepower over the western …show more content…

Army, Jr. argues that engineers in the north had a better education than those in the south and that’s why the Union won. The first part of Engineering Victory looks at school reform and science education in the North during the period immediately before the war, focusing on the role of mechanic’s institutes and agricultural fairs in the transmission of knowledge. The rest of the book provides detailed case studies of installations, the construction and repair of roads, trains, and bridges, and specific military fronts and battles such as Fort Henry, the Peninsula Campaign of 1862, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, as well as the Red River. He makes a solid case that northern attitudes played a significant role in giving the Union the “masters and mechanics” with the educational and technical background to meet the engineering demands that radically transformed and modernized the Union