Reflection On The Book The Civil War, Weapons Of War By Gail B. Stewart
The book I chose for the second semester was The Civil War, Weapons of War By, Gail B. Stewart because I wanted to learn about what guns they used during the Civil War. The book talks about the different guns they use during the civil war. It talks about soldiers without guns in the civil war, the big guns of the artillery, war on water, the war on horseback. During the war the guns did not always work they sometimes jam up and they will not let you shot it and the enemy will start shooting at you, and you would die. It also tells me how the guns were used in the american civil war. Here is more about what the book talks about more in detail.
The first part of the book talks about soldiers without guns. The gun that most of the soldiers used during the civil war was called the long arms. Most of the men that went to war guns jam. It mostly happen in the rain because the rain mix in with the power. It took the soldiers a long time to reload the guns and while they are reloading there guns the enemy are coming closer to they and they were being shot at while reloading there guns. The union and the confederates both did not have that many guns to give out to the soldiers. Some of the soldiers went into war empty handed.
The north did not have that many guns so the north started so make more guns. After the fall of Harpers Ferry in April 1861 president lincoln did order another federal arms factory built in Rock Island, Illinois. It was hard to set up the plan and get the shop built. For the being time there was only one factory was in Springfield. It took them along time to build a gun and they were a lot of money back then. They could not find any workers to work for that made a slow process and they could not get the guns fast enough for war. They did not have the machinery like today the had to do everything by hand, that made a slow process. The south began to open shops too like the north. They made the same rifles as the north. They both had the same rifles but the north had better cloths and medication to help them out.
The big guns of artillery where the guns that they could not move from place to place to get in the next spot to start shooting at the enemy. The big artillery made up of huge siege guns and mortars fortress artillery and the gigantic ship killers. The ship killers guns where made to that sat along the seacoast and could lob thousands pounds shells at targets miles aways from land. The big guns where no that accurate they were made to sink ships and to take out groups of people and to take out tanks.
Another big gun that got a great deal of use was the parrott gun it was named after its designer Robert Parrott. The gun was rifled in the same way muskets were grooved to increase their range. During the way many soldiers distrusted rifled cannon because the grooving often weakened the bore, sometimes causing the gun to make a big explosion. His idea was to make the team stronger but something's it weakened them because it would kill people that was on there on side. That was about the gun that was called the parrot how useful it was.
The war on water was used by ships. At the beginning of the war union general Winfield Scott developed a strategy for the north to win. The plan was called the Anaconda plan, and the plan had to deal with water and ships. The war on the water was fought in the mississippi river and the ships had cannons all over it so if the other ship came to it the ship would be ready in all ways. While the war on the water went on the people did not have that much food while they were on the ships. Many diseases were on the ship and the people started to die and it started to spread all over the ship. A lot of people died and they just left them lay all over the ship and it make the ship smell.
The war on horseback was done in the civil war. Although the clear majority of fighting in the civil war was done by the infantries of both armies another type of soldier was involved in the fighting. The soldiers who rode the horse were the general because if they had to get out of the area fast they could ride and get out of there. The north had way more horse than the south during the american civil war. The only thing that was bad with the horse that they were a big target for the enemy. When the horse would get shot down they would just fall in their tracks and leave the soldier that was riding in there and die. Another bad thing about the horse was that you had to feed it and give it water and take care of it or it would die. There was some good and bad thing about horse.
At the end of the book it talks about the shadows of the future wars. The civil war marked the end of a certain kind of warfare. A most offensive weapon was the mysterious Greek fire it was a weapon that both the north and the south attempt to use it but it did not work. Really the plans that both sides had did not work. Unlike the controversial greek fire the idea of a machine gun was not thought of as “ungentlemanly” . most of the soldiers wanted repeating rifles so he did not have to reload every time they would shoot. At the end of the book it talks about who won the war and it was the north that is why we speak english today in life.
My thoughts on this book were pretty good. I thought is was a good book because I wanted to learn about the guns that they used in the american civil war. Also i like how the book was set up from the beginning to the end. Also i like how they did not just tell me about the weapons they taught me how they were used in the war and what side used it. I would give the book a A because i thought that it was good, because they explained everything in what i knew it was.
