How Did The War Change The Psychology Of The American Civil War

The American Civil War occurred in a time when weapons and tactics revolutionarily changed and evolved the way wars were fought. From traditional lines like those seen in the 18th century and prior, to a more modern way of fighting like using trenches and using cover to protect yourself. Changing the psychology of war, seen in Sherman’s march, and also in the battle of Cold harbor and creating new weapons used like the Gatling-gun and ironclad ships. Before the Civil War, infantry soldiers typically carried muskets that held just one bullet at a time. The range of these muskets was about 250 yards. A soldier trying to aim and shoot with any accuracy would have to stand much closer to his target, since the weapon’s effective range was only about 80 yards. Therefore, armies typically fought battles at a relatively close range.”Rifles, had a much greater range than muskets did. A rifle could shoot a bullet up to 1,000 yards, and were much more accurate. Until the
1850s it was impractical to use these guns in battle because the rifle’s bullet had roughly the same diameter as its barrel, so they took too long to load. “Soldiers sometimes had to pound the bullet into the barrel with a mallet.” In 1848, a French army officer named Claude Minié invented a cone shaped lead bullet with a diameter smaller than that of the rifle barrel. Soldiers could load these quickly, without the aid of ramrods or mallets. Rifles with Minie bullets were more accurate, and more deadly, than muskets were, which forced infantries to change the way they fought. Rifles with Minie bullets were easy and quick to load, but soldiers still had to pause and reload after each shot. By 1863, there was another new option. Repeating rifles, weapons that could fire more than one bullet before needing a reload. The most famous of these guns, the Spencer carbine, could fire seven to eight shots in 30 seconds. Like many other Civil War technologies, these weapons were available to Northern troops but not Southern ones. Southern factories had neither the equipment nor the knowledge to produce them. One Union soldier wrote. “They say we are not fair, that we have guns that we load up on Sunday and shoot all the rest of the week.”

General Grant arranged two campaigns in 1864 one under his own immediate direction, was for the seizure of Richmond, and the other was for the seizure of Atlanta, Georgia. The focus of several converging railways. The expedition to Atlanta was led by General Sherman. His army was of 100,000 men. On May 6, 1864, Sherman began to move south of Chattanooga, his army was confronted by a Confederate force of 55,000 men, led by confederate General Joseph E. Johnston. Sherman began flanking movements to attack the front. When he flanked the line of the railway between Chattanooga and Atlanta. Joseph Johnston took his next position at Allatoona Pass, and Sherman sent his troops at Dallas, west of that position, where a severe battle was fought May 25. Johnston finally moved on to Atlanta, where he was beaten.

When he decided to march through Georgia from Atlanta to the sea, he gave control to General Thomas over all the troops under his command except four corps. He also gave him command of two divisions of AJ Smith's, then returning from the removal of Price from Missouri. General Wilson had just arrived from Petersburg to take command of the cavalry of the army. He was sent to Nashville to gather up all the Union cavalry in Kentucky and Tennessee, and to report to Thomas. On November 1, Hood was laying a pontoon bridge over the Tennessee river at Florence for the invasion of Tennessee. Sherman turned his forces towards Atlanta. His troops destroying all the mills and foundries at Rome, and dismantling the railway from the Etowah River to the Chattahoochee. The railways around Atlanta were destroyed, and on November 14 the forces destined for the great march were concentrated around the city. Sherman's entire force numbered 60,000 infantry and about 6 thousand cavalry. On November 11th, Sherman cut the telegraph wires that connected Atlanta with Washington, and his army became an “isolated column in the heart of an enemy's country.” He officially began his “March for the Sea” on the morning of the 14th after the entire city of Atlanta was up in flames. Sherman believed that the Confederacy derived its strength not only from its fighting forces but mostly from the material and moral support of the Southerners. Factories, farms and railroads provided Confederate troops with the things they needed, so he figured that if he could destroy those things, the Confederate war effort would be destroyed. Meanwhile, his troops could decrease Southern morale by making life so unpleasant for Georgia’s civilians that they would demand an end to the war. Sherman’s troops marched south toward Savannah in two wings, about 30 miles apart from each other. On November 22, the Confederate cavalry started a skirmish with the Union soldiers at Griswoldville. 650 Confederate soldiers were killed or wounded, and only 62 Yankee casualties. This made the Confederates initiate no more battles with Sherman’s armies. Instead, they fled South ahead of Sherman’s troops. “The confederates were wreaking their own havoc as they went. They wrecked bridges, chopped down trees and burned barns filled with provisions before the Union army could reach them.” The Union soldiers were just as unsparing.
They raided farms and plantations, stealing and slaughtering cows, chickens, turkeys, sheep and hogs and taking as much other food especially bread and potatoes. These groups of foraging soldiers were nicknamed bummers, and they burned whatever they could not carry. The Yankees needed the supplies, but they also wanted to teach Georgians a lesson. One soldier wrote in a letter home, “it isn’t so sweet to secede as they thought it would be.” Sherman’s troops arrived in Savannah on December 21, 1864, about three weeks after they left Atlanta. The city was undefended when they got there. About 10,000 Confederates who were supposed to be guarding it had already fled. Sherman presented the city of Savannah and its 24,000 bales of cotton to President Lincoln as a Christmas gift. Early in 1865, Sherman and his men left Savannah and pillaged and burned their way through South Carolina to Charleston. In April, the Confederacy surrendered and the war was
over. The battle of Cold Harbor were two Civil War battles that took place about 10 miles northeast of Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital. The First Battle of Cold Harbor, also known as the Battle of Gaines Mill, was part of the Peninsula campaign of 1862 and resulted in a Union defeat, as Major General George McClellan was forced to abandon plans to march on Richmond. Confederate General Robert E. Lee secured another victory two years later, in June 1864, at the Second Battle of Cold Harbor, one of the most lopsided engagements of the war.