How Did The Minie Ball Influence The Civil War

The Minie ball greatly influenced the Civil War, causing many people to die, and changes in many other areas. Like all the wars before it, during the Civil War many large technological breakthroughs occurred. One of the biggest, and most influential changes for personal weapons was the evolution from the smoothbore muskets to rifles, and even more so, the Minie ball that allowed the rifling to realistically be used in a battle situation. The bullets also had another plus: causing huge damage to anyone they hit. Blood and screams were heard all around the battlefield from the Minie ball tearing through flesh and shattering bone.

The Minie ball greatly increased the accuracy of guns and the distance that they could fire. According to the article about Smallarms on civilwar.org, a smoothbore musket with a lead ball could generally be accurate up to 75 yards, but with a rifle and a Minie ball, it was possible to have an effective range of 300 yards, where it was still accurate. Even more than that, the total firing range was was only 200 yards with the smoothbore musket, but ½ a mile with the rifle, about nine times the distance. With this increased range, it was much easier for the soldier to pick off
attackers before they could do any damage, especially if they were in large groups. They could fire into these groups from much farther away and still make contact, making rigid formations a strategy that had to be discarded.

The Minie ball was much faster to load. The only problem with the rifling itself was that it was not effective to use. It was extremely difficult to ram a lead ball that barely fit down a barrel with grooves in it, but the Minie ball solved this problem. According to the book Arms and Equipment of the Confederacy, the Minie ball was an elongated soft lead projectile with a hollow, cone shaped base that was slightly smaller than the barrel’s diameter. It only expanded when shot, so while loading, the bullet was small and didn’t touch the rifling. Somebody could load and shoot three shots per minute, which was the same, or even better, than just the plain smoothbore musket. It was much easier to load a lot faster with these bullets, and they still also had the added benefits of distance and accuracy. Being able to load quickly meant that it was much less likely to die, because there was less time when you were defenseless, loading your gun. People who had the Minie ball could kill more people while staying alive, and could defend themselves from return shots faster, making them have the advantage in war.

Lastly, the Minie ball inflicted greater damage to opponent than ever before.
According to the Minie Ball article on historynet.com, the soft lead that the bullets were made out of flattened on impact and could splinter. Some soldiers even notched bullets to ensure that this would happen. It easily tore tissue and shattered bones, causing anybody hit to need to be amputated. They caused the same degree of damage as an exploding bullet, eventually forcing them to be banned. 90% of the people who died in battles were killed by the Minie ball. The degree of damage meant that people were extremely injured when shot. They hurt people so much that they had to be amputated, making them unable to fight, and leaving the other side to have more soldiers, and the
advantage.

Overall, the Minie ball increased accuracy, distance, was fast to load, and inflicted a lot of damage. This small change in technology made a huge difference in the Civil War. Just having this type of ammunition caused that side to gain the upper hand, able to kill many more people. It made changes in battle tactics and treatment on the battlefield necessary. It was one of the most influential technology changes of the war.