When the Civil War broke out in 1861, neither the North nor the South was prepared to engage in a major war. Decades of relative peace had left limited stockpiles of small arms--the rifles and handguns carried by individual soldiers. As tens of thousands of men volunteered to fight alongside their friends and neighbors, those arms stockpiles were quickly exhausted.

Purchasing agents for the Union and Confederacy began buying up every European rifle they could find and shipping them back to American ports. As a result, many volunteers during the first two years of the Civil War found themselves using a wide variety of rifles, including antiquated weapons dating back to the War of 1812. Meanwhile, American rifle and gun manufacturers--Sharps, Colt, Remington, and the United States armory at Springfield--quickly expanded rifle production. The 1855 invention of the rifled barrel--which had grooves running down the barrel that caused the bullet to spin as it fired out of the end--quickly made all smoothbore rifles obsolete.

Springfield Rifle Musket
The most frequently used rifle of the Civil War was the American-made Springfield rifle musket (above)--a single-shot, muzzle-loading gun detonated with a percussion cap. Not only did it have the rifled barrel, which dramatically increased accuracy over a smoothbore musket, but it also was the first rifle to fire the famous .58 cal. Minié ball--an inch-long, bullet-shaped projectile, rather than a round ball as used in older muskets. The 39-inch-long rifled barrel made it possible to hit a target with a Minié ball as far away as 500 yards. By the end of the war, approximately 1.5 million Springfield rifle muskets had been produced by the Springfield Armory and 20 subcontractors. Since the South lacked sufficient manufacturing capability, most of the Springfields in Southern hands were captured on the battlefields during the early part of the war.

Enfield Rifle Musket
The second most widely used weapon of the Civil War was the British Enfield three-band, single-shot, muzzle-loading musket (above). It was also the standard weapon for the British army between 1853-1867. American soldiers liked it because its .577 cal. barrel allowed the use of .58 cal. ammunition used by both Union and Confederate armies. Originally produced at the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield, England, approximately 900,000 of these muskets were imported during 1861-1865. Many officers, however, preferred the Springfield muskets over the Enfield muskets--largely due to the interchangeability of parts that the machine-made Springfields offered.

Loading a Musket
A muzzle-loading rifle required 10 specific movements to prepare it to fire: (1) lower musket to ground, (2) handle cartridge, (3) tear cartridge, (4) charge cartridge, (5) draw rammer, (6) ram cartridge twice, (7) return rammer, (8) cast-about [return gun to firing position], (9) prime [insert primer cap], (10) cock the hammer and point the rifle. Trained soldiers were expected to complete these steps in 20 seconds and be able to fire three aimed bullets per minute.

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