Between the rifle and carbine versions, about 48,000 of these weapons were in use by 1865. The carbine was a shorter version of the Spencer 7-shot repeating rifle and was introduced primarily for cavalry use in 1864. The effective range (about 500 yards) was the same as the longer "rifle", but it was more difficult to aim because of the shorter distance between the sights. Rest assured that very few marksman with the unaided eye could or can reliably hit a man-sized target at more than 200 yards, regardless of the effective range of the weapon.

Click to enlarge image.

Confederates captured some of these weapons, but the South's armament industry was unable to manufacture the ammunition due to a shortage of copper. It is only a small exaggeration to state that this cartridge decided the outcome of the Civil War. Col. John T. Wilder said of them:"Hoover's Gap was the first battle where the Spencer repeating rifle had ever been used, and in my estimation they were better weapons that has yet taken their place, being strong and not easily injured by the rough usage of army movements, and carrying a projectile that disabled any man who was unlucky enough to be hit by it." One of his soldiers wrote about the Spencer that it "never got out of repair. It would shoot a mile just as accurately as the finest rifle in the world. It was the easiest gun to handle in the manual of arms drill I have ever seen. It could be taken all to pieces to clean, and hence was little trouble to keep in order -- quite an item to lazy soldiers." According to Smith Aktins, a colonel in Wilder's regiment, it was "the best arm for service in the field ever invented, better than any other arm in the world then or now, so simple in its mechanism that it never got out of order, and was always ready for instant service.". Major-General James H. Wilson, who was instrumental in crushing Hood at Nashville (15-16 Dec. 1864) and defeated Forrest at Selma (2 April 1865), wrote the following about them: "There is no doubt that the Spencer carbine is the best fire-arm yet put into the hands of the soldier, both for economy of ammunition and maximum effect, physical and moral. Our best officers estimate one man armed with it [is] equivalent to three with any other arm. I have never seen anything else like the confidence inspired by it in the regiments or brigades which have it. A common belief amongst them is if their flanks are covered they can go anywhere. I have seen a large number of dismounted charges made with them against cavalry, infantry, and breast-works, and never knew one to fail.

.32 cal. rimfire 6-shot Smith & Wesson Model 2

* This cartidge is equivalent to today's .44 caliber special which has more powder and a heavier bullet. The force of the bullet upon arrival, measured in foot-pounds, is about the same. That means that you can go out and buy for around $300 a modern Henry made by Rossi (actually a copy of an 1892 Winchester), model 44 magnum, load up to eleven .44 special cartridges in the magazine under the barrel) and relive the shooting experience of a rich or lucky Civil War soldier, or of a normal post-war settler or Indian.

**The effective range is difficult to establish since so much depended upon the skill and training of the marksman. In general the longer barrels of the "rifles" made sighting easier, thus improving accuracy. However, with the unaided eye, very few people can hit anything beyond 200 yards anyway. The other question is lethal range, i.e. how far could the weapon throw a bullet with enough energy left in it to do damage? This depended mostly on the powder charge and the weight of the bullet.

Burnside went to become a well-known Union general who pioneered amphibious landing techniques on Roanoke Island, NC in Feb. 1862.  However, his reputation is tarnished by a loss to Lee and Longstreet at Fredericksburg, VA (13 Dec. 1862) and an undistinguished performance under McClellan at Antietam (17 Sept. 1863). To be sure, at Fredericksburg Burnside had been very poorly served by the War Department (which delayed consignment of the necessary pontoon boats) and at Antietam by McClellan who, not even present on the field, withheld an entire corps from the battle. Burnside then did very good work at Knoxville, defeating a larger force under Longstreet on 29 Nov. 1863. After the disaster of the mine explosion at Petersburg in May 1864, a failure probably caused by Meade's and Grant's last minute intervention to change the battle plan, Burnside was removed from active command. After the war he served as governor of Rhode Island and then as US senator from Rhode Island.
 
 

During the Civil War, the Sharps rifles, with their fast breech reloading, high firepower, and reputation for accuracy, were in high demand. Col. Hiram Berdan issued them to his notorious "Sharpshooters" who wore green "camouflage" uniforms and were trained to fight behind cover. The maximum effective range was about 1000 yards, less than that of the muzzleloading Springfields and Enfields, but its breechloading mechanism allowed up to 10 shots a minute (as opposed to twice a minute with the muzzleloaders), and the soldier could easily reload the Sharps in a prone, i.e. protected position.
 
 

Another feature of the Henry was the forked firing pin which struck the cartridge in 2 places, thus decreasing the possibility of misfires. A disadvantage of the Henry was the relatively small powder charge (only 25 grains) which limited the Henry's range and penetration force. The magazine at first was not a separate tube, as with the later Winchesters, but rather machined together with the barrel out of one piece. Due to this machining the Henry was also more expensive than the Spencer and more complicated, and its frame and internal parts were made of brass which made them subject to corrosion, and less robust and durable than the parts of the Spencer. All of these factors limited the Henry's usefulness under battle conditions, and about 10,000 of them were produced during the war. In fact, it really came into its own after the war when it became the weapon of choice of both settlers and Indians. The Army itself put it into the hands of the Indians when it cleared out stocks preparatory to introducing a new version with a steel body. The battle of Little Big Horn took place in the meantime, and for once the Indians were better armed than the US cavalry under Custer.
 
 

The Colt revolving rifle
The .56 caliber 5-shot Colt revolving rifle came on the market in 1855. Before the Tullahoma campaign (24 June to 3 July 1863), Rosecrans had equipped about 1600 of his men with such rifles. It was not properly a breechloader, but once loaded, its rate of fire was considerably faster than that of a muzzle loader. However, the loading procedure was cumbersome for a soldier under fire. The cylinder had to be removed, powder packed into each of the chambers, a bullet packed on top of the powder, the chambers sealed with wax, and finally the whole covered with grease in order to protect against the possibility of loose powder igniting all of the chambers at once, a phenomenon called chain fire. Given the size of the powder charge, this could be lethal to the bearer. The soldiers therefore loaded spare cylinders in advance, and in battle someone normally did the loading for the ones shooting, and this reduced the risk attendant with hurried loading. In addition, the arm which normally supported the weapon was right beside the cylinder and was thus exposed to the powder flash which escapes from the gap between the rear end of the barrel and the forward face of the cylinders of all revolvers. To avoid being burned the soldier had to either hold his elbow very far away from the cylinder or support the weapon on some object. Nevertheless it did good service for some Federal units on Snodgrass Hill at the battle of Chickamauga. For example, on the afternoon of 20 Sept. 1863, the second day of the battle, the 535 men of the 21st regiment of Ohio commanded by Lieut. Col. Dwella Stoughton of Sirwell’s brigade of Negley's division, posted on the far right of Thomas' line, expended 43,550 rounds along with some Enfield bullets (.57 caliber, but could be made to fit), and they repulsed 5 charges by much greater numbers of Confederates under Hindman. The second photo below shows the shorter carbine version for cavalry.

Enfield rifle musket
During the Civil War about 400,000 .57 caliber rifled Enfield Lock muzzleloaders firing minié balls were imported from England by the Confederacy during the war. About an equal number of them was imported by the Union. They were manufactured by London Armory in England, or rather under contract for London Armory (to avoid accusations of departure from neutrality), and were generally of very high quality. However, since the Confederacy paid with cotton bonds which
became worthless, London Armory went bankrupt after the war.

The illustration shows a "trapdoor" breech, a modification of a muzzle loader designed to turn it into a breech loader or, more accurately put, a rear-barrel loader. Due to the expense, this was not a common feature of Civil War infantry rifles. This is what Custer's soldiers had at Little Big Horn. Some of the Indians had Henry repeaters which the U.S. Army had sold them in a clearance sale.

Springfield rifle musket
During the Civil War about 2 million .58 rifled muzzleloaders firing minié balls were manufactured in the Springfield, Mass. armory (established by George Washington) or elsewhere under contract. The design was based on that of the Enfield. Many of them were captured by Confederate soldiers who then used them (as the ammunition was interchangeable with that of the Enfield). This weapon was first introduced into the U.S. army by Jefferson Davis when he was Secretary of War under Pierce. A practiced marksman could hit a man with aimed fire at about 350 yards. Its large bullet was capable of reaching 1500 yards with lethal force. Except in the minds of many generals on both sides, this revolutionized warfare and should have made mass frontal attacks, cavalry charges, and cannon placement in the front line obsolete, but didn't.
 
 

About 90% of all battle wounds of the Civil War were caused by the small arms projectile known as the minnie ball. Together with the rifled bore, it changed the face of warfare forever. For the first time in history, infantrymen could aim their weapons at a target a fair distance away and actually have a good chance of hitting it. The days of successful frontal assaults by infantry and cavalry should have been over, and defenders armed with the new rifle-musket could fire from a safe place and knock down attacker after attacker before they got close enough to return the damage. Unfortunately most generals, including many famous ones, were slow learners, so the days of unsuccessful frontal assaults by infantry were not over, but that is another story.

The rifle-musket and minié bullet drastically altered the tactical balance between an attacking army and a defending one. Frontal assaults by infantry on a waiting enemy suddenly became suicidal. During the Napoleonic era, attacking infantry could safely approach to within 100 yards of an enemy line with little danger of being shot down. During the Civil War, however, because of the rifle-musket's accuracy at long ranges, stationary defenders could load, fire, and hit their advancing attackers more quickly than they could fire back.

The combination of the rifle-musket and minié bullet also made the bayonet obsolete. In earlier years, the bayonet was often the most decisive infantry assault weapon, because the smoothbore flintlock musket's short range allowed attackers to approach close enough for hand-to-hand fighting. In the Civil War, however, firepower almost always decided an assault's outcome before charging troops came within stabbing distance. In fact, Civil War surgeons reported very few bayonet wounds.

The rifle-musket and minié bullet also forced a change in the employment of field artillery. In the early 1800s, Napoleon often placed the artillery forward in his battle lines, even during advances, to provide direct fire in support of the infantry. This same tactic was used very successfully by US forces during the Mexican War. During the Civil War, however, it was too easy to shoot down an exposed cannon crew and/or its horses operating in the front lines. The artillery thus had to be placed further to the rear and protected. This made it more difficult to hit enemy targets without endangering friendly troops in the front, but imaginative commanders were able to solve the problem by careful placement on heights. In any case, the "flying" artillery batteries had their wings clipped in the Civil War, at least where well-schooled commanders were at work.

The role of the cavalry was similarly changed by the rifle-musket and minié ball. Napoleon often used his cavalry as a surprise offensive weapon, sending his horsemen on charges to trample infantrymen armed with smoothbore flintlock muskets. But the Civil War soldier armed with a rifle-musket and minié bullets could reliably hit a man at 200 or more yards, while a horse and rider made an even easier target. As a result, the colorful cavalry charges of the Napoleonic era became all but obsolete. In fact, as the war continued, more and more cavalrymen fought as mounted infantry, using their horses for mobility and then dismounting to fight on foot. In effect, they became the forerunners of today's mechanized infantry.

Unfortunately, it took most Civil War generals very long to realize that some of the tactics they had learned at West Point or from military manuals were obsolete, particularly the frontal assault. Some never learned, and Generals on both sides continued to send their men on suicidal charges right up to the end of the war. Notable exceptions to this rule were the Union generals Don Carlos Buell, William S. Rosecrans, and George H. Thomas of the Army of the Cumberland. Some generals, such as Grant, perhaps realized that the old tactics were no longer effective, but they apparently didn't care, as long as they could count on a fresh supply of men. All the more reason for you to study history, so as to be able to help choose those leaders who will protect your interests.