New Weapons, Old Tactics - Fulton Co., GA - Georgia Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

New Weapons, Old Tactics


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For centuries, common battle tactics included moving large groups of men against each other into close, hand-to-hand combat. Civil War commanders continued this practice, with disastrous results, as armies began using newly designed weapons.

Pointed bullets and artillery shells were shot from gun barrels with spiral grooves. These” rifles” shot further and hit targets more often. Mechanical repeating guns shot more rounds, and more rapidly, then could a line of soldiers.

Upper left – map of trench lines
The remains of union trenches at the love it school, which protected paces ferry in the Chattahoochee River. Chief engineer William Ludlow of the union twentieth Army Corps, Army of the Cumberland, designed and oversaw all their construction. The “pioneer units” of soldiers which dug them included slaves and former slaves.

Lower left
Chest-high trenches dug into hillsides and in open fields were designed to protect soldiers from rifle fire. Earthworks, breastworks, and rifle pits were hastily dug with hand shovels and picks.

Some trenches were jagged lines for soldiers to shoot attackers from different angles. Logs and large piles of dirt strength of the walls.

Upper right
the new weapons heavily damaged buildings, bridges, and fortifications, and were also more dangerous for soldiers.

Terrible wounds, loss of limbs, in large numbers of casualties resulted as minie’ balls, grapeshot, and artillery shells tore through lines of troops. Disease, infection, and unsanitary medical care added to their deaths.
Harper’s Weekly, April 9, 1864