@@jetsons101 the Henry was made by winchester, he named it after the the foreman who altered the volcanic repeating pistol into the rifle you see. His name was Tyler B Henry. Winchester did not know if the gun would sell and he did not want he name attached to a failure. Before that, Oliver Winchester sold shirts.
@@imjusttoodissgusted5620 Hi, did the New Haven Arms Company make both the Henry and Winchester? "Shirts??" How did somebody go from shirts to rifles?? LOL
@@jetsons101 Well the Winchester repeating arms company did. (Winchester has been sold and renamed a couple of times) the 1866 Winchester is a modified henry with a loading gate and a wood forearm. Oliver Winchester himself was not a gun designer, he was a salesman, and was involved in several enterprises before he got into the gun business. A brilliant man named John Browning designed most of Winchester's rifles in the last half of the 1800's
That certainly would not happen especially given January 6!! The current administration is definitely not 2A!! I do not thing any of them has placed their hands on a real battle gun!
Simon, Your eloquence is entertaining, taking us along the chosen path smoothly and with dry humour. Your fluid talking without "er" or "you know" is also appreciated.
I can only imagine the fight between the Monitor and Virginia ended because neither side's sailors could hear a single order from their officers after hours of all that banging and clanging!
actually funnily enough, i heard the monitor withdrew from the battle for some technical problems, and the virgina though they were retreating so they left the battlefield thinking they had defeated the monitor and won, but when the monitor returned to the battlefield they thought the Virginia was retreating, so they thought they had won. and so both ended up withdrawing thinking they had won.
Well, a battle between ships of the line could take ten hours or more so I hardly think that the fact that there was iron on the sides changed that much. If you have been under artillery fire or a something representing artillery fire you know you can't hear shit anyway. It's all gesticulation and body language at that point.
Being in the Monitor's turret was reportedly absolutely hellish because both firing the 11-inch cannon as well as projectile strikes on the turret were so loud that many who crewed it ended up permanently deaf.
@@Gjoufi Kidding, right? You think these were just ships-of-the-line with a bit of metal here and there? There are steamships made entirely from metal, IRONCLADS. They cannot by obvious nature fight like ships of the line.
Medical practice during that time was primitive. Medicine and Surgery was hit and miss, mostly miss. If you compare stats regarding morbidity and mortality from time of War of Northern Aggression to WW1, WWII, Vietnam and today the chance of survival and subsequent rehabilitation is amazing. Embalming during that war came into its own! Very interesting story!
@@markreynolds3087 i am familiar my degree in history is focused on the American civil war, but I always find the idea that Lincoln was the first united states president to be embalmed. My family are all funeral directors down in Savannah Ga, and we even had a victorian era embalming machine, and I had hoped that Simon could speak on the advances in both death services and medicine and show how they continue to influence attitudes on the subjects right through the present day
@@markreynolds3087 Everyone loves to repeat the things they learned in history class, but actually, given that 9/10 patients survived, what you said is objectionable.
@@markreynolds3087 medicine during that time wasn't a primitive as we make it out to be. The minie ball left devastating injuries by shattering and obliterating bone, muscle, nerves, and blood vessels. So did things like grape and canister shot, and solid round balls. The development of exploding fragmentation shells and case shot took its toll too. Case shot is like grape or canister shot but can be fired from a distance where the shell filled with metal balls explodes, whereas canister and grape shot are fired at close range. Doctors knew about anesthesia and disinfectants and had they only have a few patients with several days to help them more soldiers would've survived. However when you have 20,000 casualties to treat in a day supplies run out or are saved for the most dire cases, and those soldiers with survivable wounds were treated first (much in the way of today's triage care). Limbs were so mangled and damaged that there was no way to save the limb, or by the time the doctor got to the solider the limb was already dead. The best way to save the soldier's life was to amputate that limb and bandage it up and send him on his way. There were probably 7 doctors for an entire Army group that were treating those 20,000 casualties. The Napoleonic Wars saw the development of battlefield triage and evacuation. WWI saw the development of steel helmets to combat head injuries from air burst shells and survival rates increase with things like leg splints. The biggest jump in survivability happened between WWII/Korean War and Vietnam. That was due to more soldiers were wearing fragmentation vests and the development of helicopters and medevac tactics. Fragmentation vests (or flak jackets) reduce fatal injures from fragmentation grenades and artillery shells. The speed and mobility of helicopters were able to get wounded soldiers back to rear echelon hospitals during the "golden hour" where they were more likely to survive.
I was reading the other day about a Union Nurse who went acros lines to help Confederate injured. I believe she won thw MOH and is the first (or only) woman to do so. Anyway, she described a medic tent in the most graphic manner possible with surgeons cutting off limbs and stacking them like cord wood out side the tents. I cannot imagine seeing something like that, but imagine being wheeled out of the tent and seeing all those limbs and thinking, "That one's mine!"
Gatling guns were used pretty extensively in Vietnam. The m134 was adopted in 1963, and saw use in gunships (both fixed and rotory) and as door guns in helos. Also fighter jets in the early 60s had vulcans too.
The modern rotary cannon was more or less pioneered by the US Navy in the 1890s. Some mad genius got the idea of hooking an electric motor up to one of the obsolete Gatlings still in Navy inventory and absolutely made jaws drop. The rate of fire was so ludicrous that the mechanics of the original Gatling simply couldn't keep up and broke down. Everybody was extremely impressed with the blistering firepower a motor-driven Gatling could lay down, but the experiments were considered inconclusive because for the life of them nobody could think of a single circumstance where a rate of fire that high would be an advantage. Also, the original feed methods of the original Gatlings were not robust or fast enough to feed the electric Gatlings. So the reports were stored away and a conceivable use for the gun didn't come about until the age of jet fighters. Considering two fast fighter jets, they move so fast that any potential engagement window you get in which to fire your gun is so minuscule (frequently just fractions of a second) that a conventional gas or recoil driven gun might only get off four or five rounds. At jet engagement speeds conventional machine guns quickly became obsolete. However, a rotary cannon with a really powerful motor might get off forty or fifty rounds in the same time period, thus filling the "engagement window" with so many projectiles that the chance of the enemy plane going through it unscathed was very low. It's the same principle that the Phalanx close-in weapon system uses to shoot down guided missiles. Pick a window that the missile will fly through, then saturate that window with a huge number of projectiles. Job finished.
Went to see the raised hull of ironclad CSS Neuse several times when I was younger. They’ve since built a replica of it open for touring, haven’t been to see it yet. It launched with 4” of casemate armor and no deck plating. Crazy stuff.
The Monitor-Merrimack (Virginia) battle rendered all of the ships in all of the world's navies obsolete overnight. Also, the turret on the Monitor was a similarly major advance in military technology in that it allowed the guns to be reaimed without having to turn the entire ship, seriously simplifying the use of warships and allowing the later development of land based tanks and other mechanized armor. They are also standard equipment on many military aircraft.
The Nauticus Naval Museum in Norfolk has some great history on the battle, including lots of detailed models. Oh, and the Iowa-class USS Wisconsin is there, if you are in to that sort of thing. :P
The guy who designed the Monitor re-imagined the warship from the keel up. So many new things were incorporated. And he tried to sell his plans to the US Navy for 10 years before the American Civil War convinced the Navy to try something new.
Not at all true. Monitor and Merrimack were both behind European navies in both technology and capabilities at the time they were launched. Warrior, Black Prince and Gloire were all in service at the time Monitor was launched and all significantly more capable. Warrior mounted a 20 gun broadside and out gunned Monitor with its chase guns. Had thicker armour (a 4.5 inch belt compared to 3 on Monitor) and significantly this was in a single piece unlike the laminated armour on Monitor meaning the difference in thickness understates the difference in protection offered. Warrior could penetrate Monitor’s armour at a range of few 100 yards, Monitor couldn’t penetrate Warriors armour at all. Warrior could steam 2000 miles at 11 knots with a top speed of 14 knots and a full rig giving 12 knots under sail in a moderate gale and thus true global range. Monitor could make 6 knots in a flat calm, nearly foundered under tow on the trip from the Hudson to Norfolk and did founder on the trip down to Charleston. Warrior wouldn’t have needed to open fire to sink Monitor sailing within 200 yards at full speed would have been enough. Even the turret wasn’t really innovative. The Royal Navy had experimented with turreted ships before and was well aware of the advantages they offered but knew the disadvantages outweighed them. At the time a turret housing 2 guns weighed more than the guns themselves so it was better to mount more guns to cover the missing arcs than add turrets that made the ship unstable (HMS Captain capsized in a storm). Also you had the problem that turrets aren’t compatible with a full rigged ship as you can’t elevate the guns, fire on a lot of arcs or even rotate the turret freely. It needed more powerful engines, bigger ships and heavier guns before turrets became a sensible solution to the problems which weren’t solved until the launch of HMS Devastation in 1871 a decade latter. Monitor’s real innovation was in placing the machinery and buoyancy below the waterline and using water as armour. It’s true descendants were the submarines not the battleships. The problem was that Monitors were unseaworthy and just unable to keep the sea in rough weather. Russia used some in the Baltic but otherwise they were a dead end.
Not necessarily. The Monitor and Virginia were green water boats-meant for riverine and littoral warfare. They couldn’t police the world’s oceans if tried, nor would anyone want to. In fact, the entire reason why the Monitor was lost has to do with it being swamped at sea due to having minimal freeboard
The American Civil War is commonly considered the worlds first “modern war“. This video certainly touched on all of the high points but left a lot out as well.
@@Sideprojects thank you for reading and responding. Please don’t take my comment as any sort of criticism. The formula that you and your team has put together is spectacular. I eagerly await to see what you come up with every day. Thank you so much for what you do.
Yes, the trent Severn waterway is sweet but let's face it, it was finished in 1920... almost a hundred years after it started.. and its not that historically significant
Loved this video. I knew most of it anyway, but your work is always interesting. A note or two on your presentation: The Gatling gun was never used "on the front lines". It was relegated to the artillery as it looked like an artillery piece and had to be horse drawn. As for the ammo, the ones I have seen used a 3" long, 1 and 1/4" diameter machined steel tube drilled with a blind hole that had a nipple on the back end for holding a percussion cap. The tube was filled with powder and a .50cal (or so) ball was placed on top. I believe it was then sealed into the tube with bee's wax. These tube/casings were loaded into a vertical, gravity-fed magazine. When the barrels were rotated the hammer struck a single barrel at a time. When that barrel reached the bottom of it's cycle the empty tube/casing simply fell out onto the ground. These spent casings were then collected to be re-loaded again. It was an elegant system, with no brass casings used.
Most Confederate infantry regiments and Union infantry regiments used primarily smoothbore muskets. The state armories in the South had muskets nearly all converted with the percussion cap from the Revolutionary war, the War of 1812 and the Mexican war. The Union had the smoothbore 1842 musket with percussion cap. Union troops had imported smoothbore muskets too purchased on the European markets. Grant's Illinois regiments had percussion cap Austrian muskets. Most of these smoothbore muskets were .69 caliber capable of shooting a round ball out to 200 yard but best at under 150 yards. These smoothbore muskets were the primary weapons for both sides in the first year of the war. The units in the west had only some rifled muskets. These generally went to the skirmishers who were infantry trained to fight in open order working in pairs using all cover available. These skirmishers had to be able to judge distances to the enemy target and know the correct aiming point. Rifled muskets had parabolic trajectories that at 250 meters or so would rise above level line of sight to go over a man's head. Few Union or Confederate regiments were properly trained in judging distance and adjusting their rifled sights. Also, the dense smoke from blackpowder weaponry left a fog cloudl over the two lines of opposing infantry shooting at each other. This dense smoke pretty much nullified any advantage the rifled musket and Minie ball had on the battlefield. Many battlefields had brush, forests/groves of trees, high hills/mountains, dense riverbanks with thick vegetation or fields with crops meant visibility was greatly reduced on most battlefield. Undulations of the ground with the smoke on the battlefield often hid opposing forces from few after a few volleys with dense clouds of blackpowder smoke. The end result here is most Confederate and Union troops still fired smoothbore muskets with buck and ball rounds and buckshot rounds at about a hundred yards. Buck and ball was on .69 caliber ball with three .30 caliber buckshot rounds rolled with powder for one round for a smoothbore musket. A regimental volley fired with buck and ball rounds at under a hundred yards was a mass casualty producing events. Most combat was a close affair at about 100 to 120 yards or less even with the rifled musket. This range was only about 40 yards more than the roughly 80 yards between opposing infantry lines during the Napoleonic warfare. The smoothbore muskets were quite effective at a hundreds yards or less with buck and ball rounds. Buckshot rounds were commonly used too for close range at 50 yards or less. Buckshot rounds could be made by soldiers or were issued usually with twelve .30 caliber rounds in a paper cartridge with powder. So no disrespect intended to the presenter in this video but historians have been overstating the impact of the rifled musket on the battlefield. The most lethal weapons of the Civil War were the railroad train and steam riverboat. These logistical weapons allowed the opposing armies to stay in the field for extended periods of time, almost indefinitely with resupply and reinforcements. Fodder, water and ammunition were the most important items shipped forward to the armies. Napoleonic battles were about as bad in terms of casualties produced per number of rounds fired but Napoleonic era armies could only concentrate for one or two battles per campaign season. The teams of animals ate all the grass and grain in the area denuding it of all fodder. These vital pack animals had to be fed or else the entire concentrated army would collapse from starving animals. The logistical genius of the train and railway allowed Civil War era armies to stay in the field indefinitely. The opportunities for more skirmishing battles were almost daily with large battles happening almost monthly or more frequently. So the enormous casualties were produced by the railroad train and the steam riverboat that kept those Civil war armies concentated for continuous fighting year after year.
Nope, some Confederate did, using buck and ball (generally) but the got rid of the smoothbores as quickly as they could. Union used rifled muskets almost universally.
@@johncarpenter1756 No you are totally incorrect. The Union Army had very few Springfield rifled muskets. It took close to two years to for manufacturing of rifled muskets to catch up with demand so in the middle of 1863 most regiments had a MIXTURE of rifled muskets and smoothbore muskets. Nearly all state armories in both the North and South had percussion cap smoothbore muskets like the 1842 Springfield muskets but lots of smoothbore muskets from the War of 1812. America in the 1860's was a poor place based on an agricultural/subsistence society on the frontier states. The northeast and Midwestern states had industry but even many of these were still agricultural. So nobody could afford to get rid of old muskets from the War of 1812. Grant's Armies at Vicksburg had old Austrian smoothbore muskets purchased by the state of Illinois but other states had old European muskets or muskets from the War of 1812, frontier Indian wars, or Mexican wars. Rifled muskets were just NOT widely in supply for most volunteer regiments. Many Southerners went to war with their shotguns and squirrel rifles or old state armory weapons from their militia. These were converted to percussion caps but this was about all that was modern on them. Stop assuming the Civil War started and everyone had the Enfield or Springfield rifled muskets. Many Southern regiments had smoothbore weapons well into 1864. Many Union regiments had smoothbore muskets into 1863. The rifled musket changed little in Civil war combat. Most rifled musket casualties were at a 80 to 100 yards about the same distance of Napoleonic battles with all the blackpowder smoke no one could see their enemy to aim at 500 yards to hit an enemy target. Few soldiers were trained either in distance shooting. So everyone was trained to wait until their enemies were within about 100 yards then the double lines starting blasting each other. Go read about the battle of Shiloh where many dead Southern soldiers were found with old Brown Bess muskets, shotguns and old muskets from the War of 1812 and Mexican wars. Few had rifles in the first year of the Civil War. Rifled muskets were expensive and took time to manufacture. So those old state armory smoothbores really got heavy use in the first two years of the Civil war.
Just a quick point on the gating gun . The us government never purchased the gating till after the war a couple were purchased by individual units and officers . They did puchase the Agar "coffee mill" gun which were issued and saw action . Both gun did not utilize cartridges like we know today but used a steel case which acted as a cartridge and firing chamber . The gating would eventually win out due to the Agar only using a single barrel which limited it's rate of fire to around 120 rpm . Both systems are still in use today gatlin represented by weapons like the Vulcan and the a10 thunderbolts cannon and the Agar by the AH64 Apache's 30mm "chaingun"
I have a peculiar idea... the greatest rescue missions in history. The successful recovery of every single person from the sinking ship Oceanos, the Thai Cave Rescue from a few years ago, 'Baby Jessica' in the well, etc. Cheers to you and your team Simon! Great work.
I was hoping at least a mention of the Whitworth muzzleloading "sniper" rifle, since it was far and away the most accurate and unusual muzzleloader used in the Civil War. Hexagonal bullets and bore meant that the bullet couldn't be overpowered by an inaccurate powder charge, it'd still fly true as long as the charge wasn't large enough to blow up the rifle. There are documented hits beyond 500 yards, on up to nearly 1,000 yards with the Whitworth. That was a system far ahead of the other muzzleloaders used ever.
The most impressive part of the Hunley to me is how a writer created a character from a nonexistant private company that found and raised the Hunley, and then proceeded to actually create NUMA from his book, and raised the Hunley. LEGEND.
@@dyveira "Sahara" is my favorite of his works. The move PALES in comparrison to the epicness of Sam and Dirk in the original book. Three words: Dune buggy+ VULCAN.
Simon you need an SME to review your photos. Example 06:02 you show a Hotchkiss revolving cannon from the 1880s when talking about Civil War Gatling guns. I could go on but with others but your graphic guy really dropped many balls....
It's deceiving to talk about a gatling gun with a .308 bore in a civil war context because those cartridges and therefore those models weren't in use until 30 years later.
Some people have such delicate feelings. I'm so sorry that Simon's DECEPTION hurt your delicate widdle feelings so badly. There now baby. Mommy's going to make everything better for you. Go to sleep, go to sleep....
The Gatling guns of the Civil War didn't actually use brass cartriges. The crew actually had to devote considerable time to taking apart paper cartriges, pouring the powder into a reusable metal cylinder, pressing the bullet into the open end, then placing a percussion cap onto a nipple on the back. Most of the ordered guns were destroyed in a fire before they could see service. More common was the coffee grinder, which used a similar crank mechanism, but was single barreled.
Smoothbore muskets were actually very quick to load especially for an experienced user. The problem comes when you add rifling. The ball has to be closer to the size of the bore to get it to engage the rifling. Thus, it required more time to ram the ball down to the breach. That is why the Minie ball's design was revolutionary when combined with rifling.
So many errors for anyone who knows the subject. Not bad but a very basic overview, i guess it is the rate he cranks these out. The photos are a mess too. I guess the graphics person can't be an expert on everything
It's interesting that many historians consider the US Civil War to be the first "modern" war, setting the stage for the technologies and tactics used in WW1.
@@SStupendous true, but the Prussians were rushing their troops to the front lines via railroads and invested heavily in rifled artillery, just like the Union troops did in the American Civil War. The French troops still marched to the front or took horse drawn wagons which greatly slowed down resupplies and reinforcements. The one thing the French had was a much better battle rifle. However, the investment the Prussians made in their artillery was used to devastating effect and they were able to rush fresh troops and supplies to the front via their railroad system overwhelming the beleaguered French troops.
That's the common name, but the Merrimack was recommissioned under the name CSS Virginia after the ironclad retrofit. Even the tunnel under the Chesapeake Bay is called the Monitor Merrimack Tunnel.
@@anydaynow01 I'm pretty sure that's the official reasoning behind the name disparity. I actually think one of my Basic Training instructors told us that during one of our Naval History lessons. That was 20 years ago though, and getting old isn't great for the memory...
I think what is missed in this video is an analysis of what effect this technology had on tactics. Prior to rifled weapons and Gatling guns, battles were meeting engagements where two armies came together and maneuvered for advantage until a critical part of the line was overwhelmed and the line collapsed. In these Napoleon era battles the offense had an advantage because of the ability to focus forces on weak points. By the end of the Civil War this had changed as maneuver across open ground against accurate long range weapons became impossible. When the war ended there was a trench system stretching for hundreds of miles across the Virginia countryside predicting the events of WWI.
The weapons of the war did not lead to those trenches, the way the generals were fighting the war did. From 1861 to 1863, the south was trying to get one, large, decisive victory over the north. That was something that had to be done in an open battle. This changed after costly battles like Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and chickamauga. In 1864, the south realized that they had to hold out until the north lost too much to continue. Also, There were never hundreds of miles of trenchs in Virginia, or anywhere during the war. And Gattling guns were used so little, they had no effect on the war.
@@Otto_Bismarck1871 Your opinion is at odds with the views of the tour guides at Antietam and Gettysburg, the Army War College guide that walked us around the battlefields as well as the mainstream historians who have studied the war. You are absolutely wrong about the miles of trenches. Not sure where you got your information, but you can still see the evidence of trench lines running for mile after mile in Virginia. In addition, as a 30 year artillery officer, I can tell you after extensive study of the war and its artillery that your comment about the Generals fighting the war differently, not the weapons causing the change is terribly inaccurate. I won't take the time to go through the month by month progression of artillery weapons(IE introduction of the Parrott Gun) and tactics that made crossing large open fields an impossibility by the end of the war. I would recommend reading Battle Tactics of the Civil War by Paddy Griffith, Civil War Artillery by Eugene Canfield or Civil War Tactics:... by Earl Hess. Each of these agree with my point, and not yours.
@@thecellulontriptometer4166 There were trench systems in Virginia that were several miles long near the end of the war, but not the hundreds of miles you said. Most civil war battles with trenchs, were when the confederates were outnumbered 2 to 1. In Virginia, Lee was using trenches to maximize union losses, and to keep his army from an open field battle, where Grant could easily crush him. Now, Lee was outnumbered 2 to 1 at Chancellorsville, and that wasn't predominantly a trench battle, though Hooker pretty much lost that battle to himself, compared to the cool headed Grant. One of the books you mentioned is about 35 years old, so I can't be sure of its accuracy. And, the description of the book by Earl Hess talks about how linear formations were the correct way to fight the war, and the rifled musket had little impact. Which agrees with me.
@@Otto_Bismarck1871 You didn't read the entire book. You picked a couple of lines and that's it. You'd never heard of these works until I sent them, and now you are an authority on them. Come on. You don't know the subject so stop trying to sound authoritative. Oh, and when talking about 150 year old history, 35 years old has no bearing on accuracy. I'm done. I spent my entire adult life studying this stuff in one form or another, and you are simply not well educated on the subject.
@@thecellulontriptometer4166 I said the description of the book, not what the book is fully about. How was I authoritative on them? I wrote about 3 sentences, And I have heard of some of these books before. 35 years doesn't really have a bearing on accuracy, considering that the lost cause myth started almost instantly after the war. Unless of course your a lost causer. It's also about 160 years, not 150. You have also been completely ignoring the fact that you said there were hundreds of miles of trenches in Virginia. That is just a lie, never happened. The trenches at cold harbor were only about 7 miles long. Oh yeah, and all the smoke made by rifles made it so hard to see, the range of the rifle was only a bit farther than a smoothbore.
This is really cool. My students would love it but when you drop GD and certain language it's impossible to share your content. But I personally enjoy the knowledge you provide.
I used to own an 1853 Enfield, made at yhe Enfield government works and ex British Army issue. Still worked a treat as a rifle and although I sold it 20 years ago, it's still being used today. These rifled muskets, the Springfield and the Enfield were the real killers in the Civil War, line tactics designed for muskets with rifles firing minie balls was carnage.
What about the whitworth sniper rifle used by confederate sharpshooters? One of those was used to make a longer shot than any in World War 2, and another scored the highest ranking union casualty of the war, John Sedgwick.
@@Sideprojects could even fit it into a business blaze compilation of times businesses killed people with gross negligence. Just learned about a disaster in 1978 in spain when a truck loaded with propelene started leaking and exploded. It was called The Los Alfaques disaster
Suggestion: Star Trek tech that's become reality, i.e., The Original Series communicator that bears a strong resemblance to the cellphone. Also scanners used by Bones McCoy and other doctors are similar to modern thermometers. Last but not least, the ship's communication systems. Lt. Uhura could dial up vessels thousands of space miles away.
Also, all-digital electronic music was predicted in a holodeck simulation in a TNG episode before the storage capacity and random access ability of hard drives made that use practical in computers without using any other sound inputs. A few years later high quality .mp3 players and streaming services were available.
Fun Trivia: The Gatling as you said saw limited but actual action in the war, also before they spat more modern centerfire brass/copper rounds (They still used copper and was reason Custer's men had their guns jam at Little Big Horn), they had a different way to use the cartridges of the day. It was a likely iron tube with an open end for the powder and ball, and a nipple with a pistol cap on the back, so from the start they technically fired a metallic cartridge and yes it had issues but was a promising start. I have seen modern made versions at reenactments and of course the looked like milled steel version, I have no doubt they will work but the Gatling we get is a modern cartridge firing model for expenses and ease of use and cleaning.
Actually Smoothbores could fire Buck & Ball and it was extremely effective at 100 yards so much so that many units didn't want to give up their 1842s , Just how effective ask Iverson's Brigade at Gettysburg when Baxters men put a couple of volleys of buck & ball into one of their regiments all but destroying it as a fighting force.
i am from lookout mountain georgia the battle of lookout mountain was fought here in the civil war it is a nice place google battle of lookout mountain
Oh, good grief. As most scholars have done in the past, you focused on the Monitor and the Merrimack and completely ignored the Union's more impactful (and built EARLIER) City class ironclads, also known as "Pook's Turtles." Sure, their designs were influential, but the service lives of both the Monitor and Merrimack/Virginia were very short. The City class ironclads, by contrast, were completed a few months before both ships and were vital parts of the Union's efforts to retake Southern cities and defenses along the Mississippi River between 1861 and 1863. The Western Theater of the Civil War was arguably more important than the Eastern Theater, as the former ultimately cut the Confederacy in two while the latter was still bogged down in a stalemate.
Actually sir, smooth bore muskets typically used way undersized bullet in pre made paper cartridges, which alowed quite a few shots before bore fowling made loading difficult. For example the British army used .675 - 680 round balls in their 75 calibef Brown Bess muskets. The French Chareville a 69 caliber musket as used mostly by the American Colonial army used under sized round balls as well. It made it possible to load up to four shots per minute for a well trained soldier. Typically after just a few volleys the infantry would fix bayonets and charge their opposing force. PS: minie balls cannot be loaded faster than a smooth bore musket. The rate of fire of a well trained Civil War era soldier was only three rounds per minute vs the smooth bores four rounds per minute. The advantage of the minie is far greater range, increased accuracy and more rounds fired before fowling restricts the loading process.
The telegraph was a DIGITAL device. (It used "ON" and "OFF" electrical signals, today notated as "1" and "0". ) So, Yeah, digital electrical communications existed for more than two DECADES BEFORE electrical analog voice communications (telephone). 🤔😲
I saw a YT video a couple of years ago, might have even been one of yours, that they estimated over 800,000 killed based on population growth trends and census data iirc.
One cam only imagine how much higher the casualties would have been had both sides had lever action rifles in mass numbers. They DID exist, but were much more expensive than the 1861 Springfield was and so was not widely used.
better weapons do not equal higher casualties. Had repeaters been the norm, the war would have been over in a year, since the south did not have the ability to produce metal cartridges.
Yo It blew my mind when I learned about the even earlier telegraph towers used in france when I read The Count of Monte Cristo. Literally just towers with flags on them spaced out along the countryside with people living in them 24-7
> His videos are one of only a few where I don't do something else while listening to the Audio (only)! >> The only complaint I have is that I wish he would talk slower!
Always love watching your episodes Simon! Thoughts for another episode for Civil War Side projects : Hot Air Balloons (They were used for scouting), Submarines (Breifly touched on), Medicine, and Troop Transport (Railway and such)
First person to answer how many subscribers, The Legend also know as Simon Whistler, has over all his channels. Will get a personal video from The Legend Simon himself, of how much The Whistler really cares
I think you'll find Gatling guns in Vietnam on aircraft gunships like the AC-47, AC-119, and AC-130 all of which carried M134 miniguns (the main armament of the M163 shown) for use against ground targets. And of course, the M61 Vulcan 20mm cannon also was a 6 barreled Gatling-style gun carried by fighter jets as internal guns and in externally mounted pods, as well as the defensive armament of bombers.
Late in the war the Union Army of the Potomac would string telegraph behind the lines all along the front to enable near instantaneous communication between frontline troops and army headquarters.
Your set looks better with the red lamp... not to mention your ubiquitous red (beer pong/Solo cup) Let Danny out of the basement and give him a project, OK OK a “side project”, Now can we all just get along ??
Actually developement of the M61 Vulcan Gatling gun started in the 1950's. The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter was the first plane to use it, well before American involvement in Vietnam.
I thought I remembered from my school days, being told people died mostly from infections from their wounds, not outright from the battles. Perhaps this is not true, I am not sure.
Surprised the flat bed train mounted long range cannons used by Sherman to flatten southern towns weren't mentioned. These cannons were in a sense the first aerial bombardments of whole towns and cities used much later in WWII, albeit without planes.
Great vid as always. But rifles had been around for ages by the 1840s. Frontiersmen used them before the revolution, and they were used in the Napoleonic wars. Not saying there wasn’t progress in the field during the civil war, of course.
You show a chart of the International code (AKA the continental code) while our telegraph used the American Morse code. The International code took over radio (as a ham that is what I use to communicate) but both versions can be found among hobbyists. Charts with both are available online
The 3 bridges crossing the forth river. 1800's rail bridge still in use, forth road bridge from mid 1900's and the brand new Queensferry crossing would maybe be a good subject. Nit quite mega, but impressive nonetheless
It's always puzzled me how low to the water line the Monitor sat. While I'm sure it made hitting it more difficult, I have to wonder if the threat of swamping was not even considered in its design?
Look up HMVS Cerberus, an ironclad monitor built in a similar style in the late 1860's and steamed from the UK to Australia. That would've been nerve wracking.
The gatling gun was at the battle of Shiloh with it actually allowing the union to hold a position for hours longer that the other areas around the three gatling guns positions.
That is not at all true. Gatling gun saw no use at the Shiloh, wasn't fielded yet. About three dozen max saw use at Cold Harbor and Petersburg in 1864 though.
@@SStupendous the gatling gun was used, it was the original hand cranked version. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatling_gun from the hornets nest area of the battlefield.
@@automechs360 That is all on the Civil War that the link, which obviously I'd seen before, says. It says NOWHERE anything about it's use prior to a few dozen from 1864 earliest. NOWHERE is Shiloh mentioned. Did you expect me to be so unintelligent as to just see a link and take your word for it? Sources on Wikipedia say that the first six were destroyed in an accidental fire, 13 more were produced shortly after, 12 were bought by General Benjamin Butler, 1 by Admiral Porter and 8 were used on ships. Total amount of Gatling guns were 40 in the war, not very many at all. "The Gatling gun was first used in warfare during the American Civil War. Twelve of the guns were purchased personally by Union commanders and used in the trenches during the Siege of Petersburg, Virginia (June 1864-April 1865).[38] Eight other Gatling guns were fitted on gunboats.[39] The gun was not accepted by the American Army until 1866 when a sales representative of the manufacturing company demonstrated it in combat.[29] On July 17, 1863, Gatling guns were purportedly used to overawe New York anti-draft rioters.[40] Two were brought by a Pennsylvania National Guard unit from Philadelphia to use against strikers in Pittsburgh."
And the term “4F” described unqualified draftees referred to men missing their 2 upper and 2 lower front teeth necessary to tear open the paper cartridges for muzzle-loading muskets.
Great video! For real! I'd say all Americans born before 1960 know 'The Battle of Hampton Roads' was between the 'Monitor and the Merrimac'. You didn't mention canned foods or the use of heliograph using Morse Code.
A .308 Gatling gun? I think not. at least not until the 1960's, 45-70 was the Gatling cartridge after it was adopted as the army rifle and carbine cartridge, which they adopted after the 50-70 which was the first cartridge of the trapdoor Springfield.
You forgot the "Air Force" i.e. the balloon corps which actually carried the telegraph into the air for observations with near real time information value. Lincoln was the first President to get such messages.
This is not relevant to this video, although this video is "Certified legend" status, keep up the good work.... But, you should have Danny do a bio on you and you do one one him, maybe he can include some poems.... they just need to be done......JUST DO IT !!!
Minie balls are a misconception. yes Minie came out with the original bullet but with thick walls and used a plug inside the base to expand the wall of the bullet the person who came up with the improved version (the version we use today)is a man called James Burton
@@hazcat640 Berdan had the sharpshooters in the civil war also created a type o f primer for centerfire cartridges(most countries use this primer but not the USA. USA uses a Boxer primer invented by a British officer
The HENRY was "The gun you load on Sunday and shoot all week". The Spencer held 7 rounds while the Henry held 16 rounds.
You should write their marketing copy ;)
@@Sideprojects HENRY is still in business....
@@jetsons101 the Henry was made by winchester, he named it after the the foreman who altered the volcanic repeating pistol into the rifle you see. His name was Tyler B Henry. Winchester did not know if the gun would sell and he did not want he name attached to a failure. Before that, Oliver Winchester sold shirts.
@@imjusttoodissgusted5620 Hi, did the New Haven Arms Company make both the Henry and Winchester? "Shirts??" How did somebody go from shirts to rifles?? LOL
@@jetsons101 Well the Winchester repeating arms company did. (Winchester has been sold and renamed a couple of times) the 1866 Winchester is a modified henry with a loading gate and a wood forearm. Oliver Winchester himself was not a gun designer, he was a salesman, and was involved in several enterprises before he got into the gun business. A brilliant man named John Browning designed most of Winchester's rifles in the last half of the 1800's
Just casually walking in to the White House with your new rifile and asks the president to come outside to test it😂
Couldn’t do that nowadays
That certainly would not happen especially given January 6!! The current administration is definitely not 2A!! I do not thing any of them has placed their hands on a real battle gun!
@@markreynolds3087 last time Biden probably touched a gun was when most of these were first manufactured, he is that old
@@JaelaOrdo he cud be so old like he cud have been thwere when 2A was made lol. hey maybe he knows it better.
@@markreynolds3087 real battle guns of the future will think that this is funny
0:50 - Chapter 1 - Muskets & rifles
3:15 - Chapter 2 - Repeaters
5:05 - Chapter 3 - Gatling guns
8:50 - Chapter 4 - The telegraph
11:15 - Chapter 5 - Ironclads
Thank you, more organized
Simon, Your eloquence is entertaining, taking us along the chosen path smoothly and with dry humour. Your fluid talking without "er" or "you know" is also appreciated.
You haven't checked out Business Blaze yet, have you? That's Simon unleashed.
Like, totally, you know ;D
" I LIKE THE WAY YOU TALK "
@@MR525MAG "I like a way you walk, I like a way you talk.. Susie-Q" !!! :-)
@@steeljawX Indeed!
I can only imagine the fight between the Monitor and Virginia ended because neither side's sailors could hear a single order from their officers after hours of all that banging and clanging!
actually funnily enough, i heard the monitor withdrew from the battle for some technical problems, and the virgina though they were retreating so they left the battlefield thinking they had defeated the monitor and won, but when the monitor returned to the battlefield they thought the Virginia was retreating, so they thought they had won.
and so both ended up withdrawing thinking they had won.
Not quite true, but the most frequent claim by Ironclad Veterans was for being Deaf!!!
Well, a battle between ships of the line could take ten hours or more so I hardly think that the fact that there was iron on the sides changed that much. If you have been under artillery fire or a something representing artillery fire you know you can't hear shit anyway. It's all gesticulation and body language at that point.
Being in the Monitor's turret was reportedly absolutely hellish because both firing the 11-inch cannon as well as projectile strikes on the turret were so loud that many who crewed it ended up permanently deaf.
@@Gjoufi Kidding, right? You think these were just ships-of-the-line with a bit of metal here and there? There are steamships made entirely from metal, IRONCLADS. They cannot by obvious nature fight like ships of the line.
Kinda was hoping he'd note that this was the first war of "Modern Trench Combat".
He mentioned it briefly but didn't elaborate.
this may seem odd but the advancement in embalming and medical practices should be discussed if you ever wish to make a part 2 video on this subject
Medical practice during that time was primitive. Medicine and Surgery was hit and miss, mostly miss. If you compare stats regarding morbidity and mortality from time of War of Northern Aggression to WW1, WWII, Vietnam and today the chance of survival and subsequent rehabilitation is amazing. Embalming during that war came into its own! Very interesting story!
@@markreynolds3087 i am familiar my degree in history is focused on the American civil war, but I always find the idea that Lincoln was the first united states president to be embalmed. My family are all funeral directors down in Savannah Ga, and we even had a victorian era embalming machine, and I had hoped that Simon could speak on the advances in both death services and medicine and show how they continue to influence attitudes on the subjects right through the present day
@@markreynolds3087 Everyone loves to repeat the things they learned in history class, but actually, given that 9/10 patients survived, what you said is objectionable.
@@markreynolds3087 medicine during that time wasn't a primitive as we make it out to be. The minie ball left devastating injuries by shattering and obliterating bone, muscle, nerves, and blood vessels. So did things like grape and canister shot, and solid round balls. The development of exploding fragmentation shells and case shot took its toll too. Case shot is like grape or canister shot but can be fired from a distance where the shell filled with metal balls explodes, whereas canister and grape shot are fired at close range. Doctors knew about anesthesia and disinfectants and had they only have a few patients with several days to help them more soldiers would've survived. However when you have 20,000 casualties to treat in a day supplies run out or are saved for the most dire cases, and those soldiers with survivable wounds were treated first (much in the way of today's triage care). Limbs were so mangled and damaged that there was no way to save the limb, or by the time the doctor got to the solider the limb was already dead. The best way to save the soldier's life was to amputate that limb and bandage it up and send him on his way. There were probably 7 doctors for an entire Army group that were treating those 20,000 casualties. The Napoleonic Wars saw the development of battlefield triage and evacuation. WWI saw the development of steel helmets to combat head injuries from air burst shells and survival rates increase with things like leg splints. The biggest jump in survivability happened between WWII/Korean War and Vietnam. That was due to more soldiers were wearing fragmentation vests and the development of helicopters and medevac tactics. Fragmentation vests (or flak jackets) reduce fatal injures from fragmentation grenades and artillery shells. The speed and mobility of helicopters were able to get wounded soldiers back to rear echelon hospitals during the "golden hour" where they were more likely to survive.
I was reading the other day about a Union Nurse who went acros lines to help Confederate injured. I believe she won thw MOH and is the first (or only) woman to do so.
Anyway, she described a medic tent in the most graphic manner possible with surgeons cutting off limbs and stacking them like cord wood out side the tents.
I cannot imagine seeing something like that, but imagine being wheeled out of the tent and seeing all those limbs and thinking, "That one's mine!"
Gatling guns were used pretty extensively in Vietnam. The m134 was adopted in 1963, and saw use in gunships (both fixed and rotory) and as door guns in helos. Also fighter jets in the early 60s had vulcans too.
The modern rotary cannon was more or less pioneered by the US Navy in the 1890s. Some mad genius got the idea of hooking an electric motor up to one of the obsolete Gatlings still in Navy inventory and absolutely made jaws drop. The rate of fire was so ludicrous that the mechanics of the original Gatling simply couldn't keep up and broke down. Everybody was extremely impressed with the blistering firepower a motor-driven Gatling could lay down, but the experiments were considered inconclusive because for the life of them nobody could think of a single circumstance where a rate of fire that high would be an advantage. Also, the original feed methods of the original Gatlings were not robust or fast enough to feed the electric Gatlings. So the reports were stored away and a conceivable use for the gun didn't come about until the age of jet fighters. Considering two fast fighter jets, they move so fast that any potential engagement window you get in which to fire your gun is so minuscule (frequently just fractions of a second) that a conventional gas or recoil driven gun might only get off four or five rounds. At jet engagement speeds conventional machine guns quickly became obsolete. However, a rotary cannon with a really powerful motor might get off forty or fifty rounds in the same time period, thus filling the "engagement window" with so many projectiles that the chance of the enemy plane going through it unscathed was very low. It's the same principle that the Phalanx close-in weapon system uses to shoot down guided missiles. Pick a window that the missile will fly through, then saturate that window with a huge number of projectiles. Job finished.
Completely different, though.
Me: How did they build a transatlantic Telegraph line?
CZcams: Mega Projects
Always there for you.
@@Sideprojects It's been discovered in recent decades that about 820k-1M died in the Civil War, the 620k number is from 1867.
Went to see the raised hull of ironclad CSS Neuse several times when I was younger. They’ve since built a replica of it open for touring, haven’t been to see it yet. It launched with 4” of casemate armor and no deck plating. Crazy stuff.
Necessity is the mother of invention, and when the need to kill arises, the inventions start flowing... :P
True. Always, apparently.
yeah, just look at the cold war, half of simon's channels exist because of all the insane technology that came from the US and USSR duking it out.
“Humanity is doomed” bias intensifies
@@watch50er Don't know if that view is biased. All things end
The repeating rifles are beautiful firearms. And classic in there clocks and feels
The Monitor-Merrimack (Virginia) battle rendered all of the ships in all of the world's navies obsolete overnight.
Also, the turret on the Monitor was a similarly major advance in military technology in that it allowed the guns to be reaimed without having to turn the entire ship, seriously simplifying the use of warships and allowing the later development of land based tanks and other mechanized armor. They are also standard equipment on many military aircraft.
The Nauticus Naval Museum in Norfolk has some great history on the battle, including lots of detailed models.
Oh, and the Iowa-class USS Wisconsin is there, if you are in to that sort of thing. :P
The guy who designed the Monitor re-imagined the warship from the keel up. So many new things were incorporated. And he tried to sell his plans to the US Navy for 10 years before the American Civil War convinced the Navy to try something new.
Nope, aimable weapons were available before the monitor. The protection was a great improvement since before rotating guns had none.
Not at all true. Monitor and Merrimack were both behind European navies in both technology and capabilities at the time they were launched.
Warrior, Black Prince and Gloire were all in service at the time Monitor was launched and all significantly more capable. Warrior mounted a 20 gun broadside and out gunned Monitor with its chase guns. Had thicker armour (a 4.5 inch belt compared to 3 on Monitor) and significantly this was in a single piece unlike the laminated armour on Monitor meaning the difference in thickness understates the difference in protection offered. Warrior could penetrate Monitor’s armour at a range of few 100 yards, Monitor couldn’t penetrate Warriors armour at all. Warrior could steam 2000 miles at 11 knots with a top speed of 14 knots and a full rig giving 12 knots under sail in a moderate gale and thus true global range. Monitor could make 6 knots in a flat calm, nearly foundered under tow on the trip from the Hudson to Norfolk and did founder on the trip down to Charleston. Warrior wouldn’t have needed to open fire to sink Monitor sailing within 200 yards at full speed would have been enough.
Even the turret wasn’t really innovative. The Royal Navy had experimented with turreted ships before and was well aware of the advantages they offered but knew the disadvantages outweighed them. At the time a turret housing 2 guns weighed more than the guns themselves so it was better to mount more guns to cover the missing arcs than add turrets that made the ship unstable (HMS Captain capsized in a storm). Also you had the problem that turrets aren’t compatible with a full rigged ship as you can’t elevate the guns, fire on a lot of arcs or even rotate the turret freely.
It needed more powerful engines, bigger ships and heavier guns before turrets became a sensible solution to the problems which weren’t solved until the launch of HMS Devastation in 1871 a decade latter.
Monitor’s real innovation was in placing the machinery and buoyancy below the waterline and using water as armour. It’s true descendants were the submarines not the battleships. The problem was that Monitors were unseaworthy and just unable to keep the sea in rough weather. Russia used some in the Baltic but otherwise they were a dead end.
Not necessarily. The Monitor and Virginia were green water boats-meant for riverine and littoral warfare. They couldn’t police the world’s oceans if tried, nor would anyone want to. In fact, the entire reason why the Monitor was lost has to do with it being swamped at sea due to having minimal freeboard
I'm from Charleston. I was there on the boat that lifted the Hunley when I was a boy.
Armies required soldiers have at least 2 teeth, upper and lower, to tear open paper cartridges.
actually they required good teeth, hardtack is literally hard and an important part of a soldier's diet.
The American Civil War is commonly considered the worlds first “modern war“.
This video certainly touched on all of the high points but left a lot out as well.
Plenty of scope to follow up. I'm sure we'll return to the subject :)
@@Sideprojects thank you for reading and responding. Please don’t take my comment as any sort of criticism. The formula that you and your team has put together is spectacular. I eagerly await to see what you come up with every day. Thank you so much for what you do.
The Rideau Canal and river system! Let's vote Canada!
How about the Trent river and canal system?
Let's make him an honourary hoser, eh. 🇨🇦
Yes, the trent Severn waterway is sweet but let's face it, it was finished in 1920... almost a hundred years after it started.. and its not that historically significant
the Rideau joined Kingston and Ottawa both are hugely significant to our history here in Ontario and Canada overall
I just went and skated the canal. Go Canada
Thanks Simon. We love you in a quarantine type of way. No touchie
1892 Gatling had plans to attach an electric motor but the motor needed big powerplants to power them so only put on warships or forts
How about a puff the magic dragon? Have you seen John Wayne in Green Berets?!
@@markreynolds3087 yup by that time the motors were smaller but more powerful and thje gun was chained fed like a machine gun
Loved this video. I knew most of it anyway, but your work is always interesting. A note or two on your presentation: The Gatling gun was never used "on the front lines". It was relegated to the artillery as it looked like an artillery piece and had to be horse drawn. As for the ammo, the ones I have seen used a 3" long, 1 and 1/4" diameter machined steel tube drilled with a blind hole that had a nipple on the back end for holding a percussion cap. The tube was filled with powder and a .50cal (or so) ball was placed on top. I believe it was then sealed into the tube with bee's wax. These tube/casings were loaded into a vertical, gravity-fed magazine. When the barrels were rotated the hammer struck a single barrel at a time. When that barrel reached the bottom of it's cycle the empty tube/casing simply fell out onto the ground. These spent casings were then collected to be re-loaded again. It was an elegant system, with no brass casings used.
Most Confederate infantry regiments and Union infantry regiments used primarily smoothbore muskets. The state armories in the South had muskets nearly all converted with the percussion cap from the Revolutionary war, the War of 1812 and the Mexican war. The Union had the smoothbore 1842 musket with percussion cap. Union troops had imported smoothbore muskets too purchased on the European markets. Grant's Illinois regiments had percussion cap Austrian muskets. Most of these smoothbore muskets were .69 caliber capable of shooting a round ball out to 200 yard but best at under 150 yards.
These smoothbore muskets were the primary weapons for both sides in the first year of the war. The units in the west had only some rifled muskets. These generally went to the skirmishers who were infantry trained to fight in open order working in pairs using all cover available. These skirmishers had to be able to judge distances to the enemy target and know the correct aiming point. Rifled muskets had parabolic trajectories that at 250 meters or so would rise above level line of sight to go over a man's head. Few Union or Confederate regiments were properly trained in judging distance and adjusting their rifled sights. Also, the dense smoke from blackpowder weaponry left a fog cloudl over the two lines of opposing infantry shooting at each other. This dense smoke pretty much nullified any advantage the rifled musket and Minie ball had on the battlefield. Many battlefields had brush, forests/groves of trees, high hills/mountains, dense riverbanks with thick vegetation or fields with crops meant visibility was greatly reduced on most battlefield. Undulations of the ground with the smoke on the battlefield often hid opposing forces from few after a few volleys with dense clouds of blackpowder smoke.
The end result here is most Confederate and Union troops still fired smoothbore muskets with buck and ball rounds and buckshot rounds at about a hundred yards. Buck and ball was on .69 caliber ball with three .30 caliber buckshot rounds rolled with powder for one round for a smoothbore musket. A regimental volley fired with buck and ball rounds at under a hundred yards was a mass casualty producing events. Most combat was a close affair at about 100 to 120 yards or less even with the rifled musket. This range was only about 40 yards more than the roughly 80 yards between opposing infantry lines during the Napoleonic warfare. The smoothbore muskets were quite effective at a hundreds yards or less with buck and ball rounds. Buckshot rounds were commonly used too for close range at 50 yards or less. Buckshot rounds could be made by soldiers or were issued usually with twelve .30 caliber rounds in a paper cartridge with powder.
So no disrespect intended to the presenter in this video but historians have been overstating the impact of the rifled musket on the battlefield. The most lethal weapons of the Civil War were the railroad train and steam riverboat. These logistical weapons allowed the opposing armies to stay in the field for extended periods of time, almost indefinitely with resupply and reinforcements. Fodder, water and ammunition were the most important items shipped forward to the armies. Napoleonic battles were about as bad in terms of casualties produced per number of rounds fired but Napoleonic era armies could only concentrate for one or two battles per campaign season. The teams of animals ate all the grass and grain in the area denuding it of all fodder. These vital pack animals had to be fed or else the entire concentrated army would collapse from starving animals. The logistical genius of the train and railway allowed Civil War era armies to stay in the field indefinitely. The opportunities for more skirmishing battles were almost daily with large battles happening almost monthly or more frequently. So the enormous casualties were produced by the railroad train and the steam riverboat that kept those Civil war armies concentated for continuous fighting year after year.
Nope, some Confederate did, using buck and ball (generally) but the got rid of the smoothbores as quickly as they could. Union used rifled muskets almost universally.
@@johncarpenter1756 No you are totally incorrect. The Union Army had very few Springfield rifled muskets. It took close to two years to for manufacturing of rifled muskets to catch up with demand so in the middle of 1863 most regiments had a MIXTURE of rifled muskets and smoothbore muskets. Nearly all state armories in both the North and South had percussion cap smoothbore muskets like the 1842 Springfield muskets but lots of smoothbore muskets from the War of 1812. America in the 1860's was a poor place based on an agricultural/subsistence society on the frontier states. The northeast and Midwestern states had industry but even many of these were still agricultural. So nobody could afford to get rid of old muskets from the War of 1812. Grant's Armies at Vicksburg had old Austrian smoothbore muskets purchased by the state of Illinois but other states had old European muskets or muskets from the War of 1812, frontier Indian wars, or Mexican wars. Rifled muskets were just NOT widely in supply for most volunteer regiments. Many Southerners went to war with their shotguns and squirrel rifles or old state armory weapons from their militia. These were converted to percussion caps but this was about all that was modern on them. Stop assuming the Civil War started and everyone had the Enfield or Springfield rifled muskets.
Many Southern regiments had smoothbore weapons well into 1864. Many Union regiments had smoothbore muskets into 1863. The rifled musket changed little in Civil war combat. Most rifled musket casualties were at a 80 to 100 yards about the same distance of Napoleonic battles with all the blackpowder smoke no one could see their enemy to aim at 500 yards to hit an enemy target. Few soldiers were trained either in distance shooting. So everyone was trained to wait until their enemies were within about 100 yards then the double lines starting blasting each other. Go read about the battle of Shiloh where many dead Southern soldiers were found with old Brown Bess muskets, shotguns and old muskets from the War of 1812 and Mexican wars. Few had rifles in the first year of the Civil War. Rifled muskets were expensive and took time to manufacture. So those old state armory smoothbores really got heavy use in the first two years of the Civil war.
Side projects please do a video about English electric lighting fighter jet
Just a quick point on the gating gun . The us government never purchased the gating till after the war a couple were purchased by individual units and officers . They did puchase the Agar "coffee mill" gun which were issued and saw action . Both gun did not utilize cartridges like we know today but used a steel case which acted as a cartridge and firing chamber . The gating would eventually win out due to the Agar only using a single barrel which limited it's rate of fire to around 120 rpm . Both systems are still in use today gatlin represented by weapons like the Vulcan and the a10 thunderbolts cannon and the Agar by the AH64 Apache's 30mm "chaingun"
I have a peculiar idea... the greatest rescue missions in history. The successful recovery of every single person from the sinking ship Oceanos, the Thai Cave Rescue from a few years ago, 'Baby Jessica' in the well, etc. Cheers to you and your team Simon! Great work.
I was hoping at least a mention of the Whitworth muzzleloading "sniper" rifle, since it was far and away the most accurate and unusual muzzleloader used in the Civil War. Hexagonal bullets and bore meant that the bullet couldn't be overpowered by an inaccurate powder charge, it'd still fly true as long as the charge wasn't large enough to blow up the rifle. There are documented hits beyond 500 yards, on up to nearly 1,000 yards with the Whitworth. That was a system far ahead of the other muzzleloaders used ever.
The Whitworth gives modern rifles a run for their money at 500 yards... extraordinary for a muzzle loading black powder rifle.
Just finished black holes and now on to this. Both uploaded within the last hour. Does Simon ever sleep?
Nope he doesn’t
The most impressive part of the Hunley to me is how a writer created a character from a nonexistant private company that found and raised the Hunley, and then proceeded to actually create NUMA from his book, and raised the Hunley. LEGEND.
The show "The Sea Hunters" that NUMA was a part of is a great watch if you love shipwrecks. I loved Clive Cussler as a kid.
@@dyveira "Sahara" is my favorite of his works. The move PALES in comparrison to the epicness of Sam and Dirk in the original book. Three words: Dune buggy+ VULCAN.
The late great Clive Cussler. I have read every one of his amazing books.
@@garylyman4922 I didn't know he died...RIP
New York City aqueduct system!!
The North also used balloons to survey enemy positions. I'm not sure if this was used much beyond the experimental stage.
I feel like I made a video about this somewhere else.
Believe the south was 1st
Simon you need an SME to review your photos. Example 06:02 you show a Hotchkiss revolving cannon from the 1880s when talking about Civil War Gatling guns. I could go on but with others but your graphic guy really dropped many balls....
It's deceiving to talk about a gatling gun with a .308 bore in a civil war context because those cartridges and therefore those models weren't in use until 30 years later.
Not deceiving. It's not deliberate. Just an error, apologies.
Some people have such delicate feelings. I'm so sorry that Simon's DECEPTION hurt your delicate widdle feelings so badly. There now baby. Mommy's going to make everything better for you. Go to sleep, go to sleep....
Most important war in American history. Thank you for making this video 🙏🏽
That'll be the one where it stopped being British.
@@ABrit-bt6ce The one that ended slavery is a bit more important imo, maybe I’m biased though.
The Gatling guns of the Civil War didn't actually use brass cartriges. The crew actually had to devote considerable time to taking apart paper cartriges, pouring the powder into a reusable metal cylinder, pressing the bullet into the open end, then placing a percussion cap onto a nipple on the back.
Most of the ordered guns were destroyed in a fire before they could see service. More common was the coffee grinder, which used a similar crank mechanism, but was single barreled.
Smoothbore muskets were actually very quick to load especially for an experienced user. The problem comes when you add rifling. The ball has to be closer to the size of the bore to get it to engage the rifling. Thus, it required more time to ram the ball down to the breach. That is why the Minie ball's design was revolutionary when combined with rifling.
So many errors for anyone who knows the subject. Not bad but a very basic overview, i guess it is the rate he cranks these out. The photos are a mess too. I guess the graphics person can't be an expert on everything
It's interesting that many historians consider the US Civil War to be the first "modern" war, setting the stage for the technologies and tactics used in WW1.
The lessons European observers brought back with them after the Civil War can be seen implemented in the Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s.
@@joshuasill1141 Yes and no, I mean uniforms, tactics etc. of the Franco-Prussian War are closer to Napoleon than the Civil War.
@@SStupendous true, but the Prussians were rushing their troops to the front lines via railroads and invested heavily in rifled artillery, just like the Union troops did in the American Civil War. The French troops still marched to the front or took horse drawn wagons which greatly slowed down resupplies and reinforcements. The one thing the French had was a much better battle rifle. However, the investment the Prussians made in their artillery was used to devastating effect and they were able to rush fresh troops and supplies to the front via their railroad system overwhelming the beleaguered French troops.
Is it just me or do other people refer to the naval battle as the Monitor and Merrimack?
"Duel of the Iron Clads" or "The battle of Hampton Roads Virginia"
That's the common name, but the Merrimack was recommissioned under the name CSS Virginia after the ironclad retrofit. Even the tunnel under the Chesapeake Bay is called the Monitor Merrimack Tunnel.
The only thing I can think of is the victor gets to write the history books, and since it was one Union again it readopted its Union name.
@@anydaynow01 I'm pretty sure that's the official reasoning behind the name disparity. I actually think one of my Basic Training instructors told us that during one of our Naval History lessons. That was 20 years ago though, and getting old isn't great for the memory...
@@SkunkApe407 Ha! Small world! I was in RTC Great Lakes in 01' as well (pre 9/11)
Cape hadherass, nice place to vacation
I think what is missed in this video is an analysis of what effect this technology had on tactics. Prior to rifled weapons and Gatling guns, battles were meeting engagements where two armies came together and maneuvered for advantage until a critical part of the line was overwhelmed and the line collapsed. In these Napoleon era battles the offense had an advantage because of the ability to focus forces on weak points. By the end of the Civil War this had changed as maneuver across open ground against accurate long range weapons became impossible. When the war ended there was a trench system stretching for hundreds of miles across the Virginia countryside predicting the events of WWI.
The weapons of the war did not lead to those trenches, the way the generals were fighting the war did. From 1861 to 1863, the south was trying to get one, large, decisive victory over the north. That was something that had to be done in an open battle. This changed after costly battles like Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and chickamauga. In 1864, the south realized that they had to hold out until the north lost too much to continue.
Also, There were never hundreds of miles of trenchs in Virginia, or anywhere during the war. And Gattling guns were used so little, they had no effect on the war.
@@Otto_Bismarck1871 Your opinion is at odds with the views of the tour guides at Antietam and Gettysburg, the Army War College guide that walked us around the battlefields as well as the mainstream historians who have studied the war. You are absolutely wrong about the miles of trenches. Not sure where you got your information, but you can still see the evidence of trench lines running for mile after mile in Virginia. In addition, as a 30 year artillery officer, I can tell you after extensive study of the war and its artillery that your comment about the Generals fighting the war differently, not the weapons causing the change is terribly inaccurate. I won't take the time to go through the month by month progression of artillery weapons(IE introduction of the Parrott Gun) and tactics that made crossing large open fields an impossibility by the end of the war. I would recommend reading Battle Tactics of the Civil War by Paddy Griffith, Civil War Artillery by Eugene Canfield or Civil War Tactics:... by Earl Hess. Each of these agree with my point, and not yours.
@@thecellulontriptometer4166 There were trench systems in Virginia that were several miles long near the end of the war, but not the hundreds of miles you said. Most civil war battles with trenchs, were when the confederates were outnumbered 2 to 1. In Virginia, Lee was using trenches to maximize union losses, and to keep his army from an open field battle, where Grant could easily crush him. Now, Lee was outnumbered 2 to 1 at Chancellorsville, and that wasn't predominantly a trench battle, though Hooker pretty much lost that battle to himself, compared to the cool headed Grant.
One of the books you mentioned is about 35 years old, so I can't be sure of its accuracy. And, the description of the book by Earl Hess talks about how linear formations were the correct way to fight the war, and the rifled musket had little impact. Which agrees with me.
@@Otto_Bismarck1871 You didn't read the entire book. You picked a couple of lines and that's it. You'd never heard of these works until I sent them, and now you are an authority on them. Come on. You don't know the subject so stop trying to sound authoritative. Oh, and when talking about 150 year old history, 35 years old has no bearing on accuracy. I'm done. I spent my entire adult life studying this stuff in one form or another, and you are simply not well educated on the subject.
@@thecellulontriptometer4166 I said the description of the book, not what the book is fully about. How was I authoritative on them? I wrote about 3 sentences, And I have heard of some of these books before. 35 years doesn't really have a bearing on accuracy, considering that the lost cause myth started almost instantly after the war. Unless of course your a lost causer. It's also about 160 years, not 150. You have also been completely ignoring the fact that you said there were hundreds of miles of trenches in Virginia. That is just a lie, never happened. The trenches at cold harbor were only about 7 miles long. Oh yeah, and all the smoke made by rifles made it so hard to see, the range of the rifle was only a bit farther than a smoothbore.
This is really cool. My students would love it but when you drop GD and certain language it's impossible to share your content. But I personally enjoy the knowledge you provide.
I used to own an 1853 Enfield, made at yhe Enfield government works and ex British Army issue. Still worked a treat as a rifle and although I sold it 20 years ago, it's still being used today.
These rifled muskets, the Springfield and the Enfield were the real killers in the Civil War, line tactics designed for muskets with rifles firing minie balls was carnage.
What about the whitworth sniper rifle used by confederate sharpshooters? One of those was used to make a longer shot than any in World War 2, and another scored the highest ranking union casualty of the war, John Sedgwick.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire would be a good subject. Negligence, greed, and rich assholes getting away with murder.
Will check it out.
@@Sideprojects could even fit it into a business blaze compilation of times businesses killed people with gross negligence. Just learned about a disaster in 1978 in spain when a truck loaded with propelene started leaking and exploded. It was called The Los Alfaques disaster
Interesting summary with supporting facts and figures.
Another one of Simon’s channels added to my subscription list 😁
Simon how do you run sooo many different accounts? You have to be the hardest working CZcamsr!
Suggestion: Star Trek tech that's become reality, i.e., The Original Series communicator that bears a strong resemblance to the cellphone.
Also scanners used by Bones McCoy and other doctors are similar to modern thermometers. Last but not least, the ship's communication systems. Lt. Uhura could dial up vessels thousands of space miles away.
That sounds like it would be an awesome video
Also, all-digital electronic music was predicted in a holodeck simulation in a TNG episode before the storage capacity and random access ability of hard drives made that use practical in computers without using any other sound inputs. A few years later high quality .mp3 players and streaming services were available.
The modern implementation of WiFi was also predicted
Finally a civil war video wish we'd get as many civil war movies and shows as we do world war 2.
Fun Trivia: The Gatling as you said saw limited but actual action in the war, also before they spat more modern centerfire brass/copper rounds (They still used copper and was reason Custer's men had their guns jam at Little Big Horn), they had a different way to use the cartridges of the day.
It was a likely iron tube with an open end for the powder and ball, and a nipple with a pistol cap on the back, so from the start they technically fired a metallic cartridge and yes it had issues but was a promising start.
I have seen modern made versions at reenactments and of course the looked like milled steel version, I have no doubt they will work but the Gatling we get is a modern cartridge firing model for expenses and ease of use and cleaning.
Kinda weird one, the AK-47. Most popular weapon in the world, is on several nation-state flags and is really fun to shoot.
Actually Smoothbores could fire Buck & Ball and it was extremely effective at 100 yards so much so that many units didn't want to give up their 1842s , Just how effective ask Iverson's Brigade at Gettysburg when Baxters men put a couple of volleys of buck & ball into one of their regiments all but destroying it as a fighting force.
Thanks for distilling this into an easily digestable explanation. Nice1. Like button smashed!
i am from lookout mountain georgia the battle of lookout mountain was fought here in the civil war it is a nice place google battle of lookout mountain
Can't believe I missed this one. I've been obsessively shopping for a repro of the guns my forefathers carried.
Do another video like this on iconic weapons of the American Revolution
Ah, the trauma of the civil war, aoc remembers
I did a whole long form essay on this topic in highschool!
Good one keep them coming
Oh, good grief. As most scholars have done in the past, you focused on the Monitor and the Merrimack and completely ignored the Union's more impactful (and built EARLIER) City class ironclads, also known as "Pook's Turtles." Sure, their designs were influential, but the service lives of both the Monitor and Merrimack/Virginia were very short. The City class ironclads, by contrast, were completed a few months before both ships and were vital parts of the Union's efforts to retake Southern cities and defenses along the Mississippi River between 1861 and 1863. The Western Theater of the Civil War was arguably more important than the Eastern Theater, as the former ultimately cut the Confederacy in two while the latter was still bogged down in a stalemate.
Actually sir, smooth bore muskets typically used way undersized bullet in pre made paper cartridges, which alowed quite a few shots before bore fowling made loading difficult. For example the British army used .675 - 680 round balls in their 75 calibef Brown Bess muskets.
The French Chareville a 69 caliber musket as used mostly by the American Colonial army used under sized round balls as well. It made it possible to load up to four shots per minute for a well trained soldier. Typically after just a few volleys the infantry would fix bayonets and charge their opposing force.
PS: minie balls cannot be loaded faster than a smooth bore musket. The rate of fire of a well trained Civil War era soldier was only three rounds per minute vs the smooth bores four rounds per minute.
The advantage of the minie is far greater range, increased accuracy and more rounds fired before fowling restricts the loading process.
expect that fouling was a way bigger issue with rifle muskets than smoothbores during the civil war... thanks to the use of undersized bullets.
Simon can we get a Mega or Side Projects video on the floating buildings in Venice? Like in Casino Royale. Thanks
Thanks very much....!
The telegraph was a DIGITAL device. (It used "ON" and "OFF" electrical signals, today notated as "1" and "0". ) So, Yeah, digital electrical communications existed for more than two DECADES BEFORE electrical analog voice communications (telephone). 🤔😲
I saw a YT video a couple of years ago, might have even been one of yours, that they estimated over 800,000 killed based on population growth trends and census data iirc.
One cam only imagine how much higher the casualties would have been had both sides had lever action rifles in mass numbers. They DID exist, but were much more expensive than the 1861 Springfield was and so was not widely used.
better weapons do not equal higher casualties.
Had repeaters been the norm, the war would have been over in a year, since the south did not have the ability to produce metal cartridges.
Yo It blew my mind when I learned about the even earlier telegraph towers used in france when I read The Count of Monte Cristo. Literally just towers with flags on them spaced out along the countryside with people living in them 24-7
> His videos are one of only a few where I don't do something else while listening to the Audio (only)!
>> The only complaint I have is that I wish he would talk slower!
The US Patent Office received more patent applications during the 5 years of the war than it had during the entire time before the war.
Always love watching your episodes Simon! Thoughts for another episode for Civil War Side projects : Hot Air Balloons (They were used for scouting), Submarines (Breifly touched on), Medicine, and Troop Transport (Railway and such)
First person to answer how many subscribers, The Legend also know as Simon Whistler, has over all his channels. Will get a personal video from The Legend Simon himself, of how much The Whistler really cares
I think you'll find Gatling guns in Vietnam on aircraft gunships like the AC-47, AC-119, and AC-130 all of which carried M134 miniguns (the main armament of the M163 shown) for use against ground targets. And of course, the M61 Vulcan 20mm cannon also was a 6 barreled Gatling-style gun carried by fighter jets as internal guns and in externally mounted pods, as well as the defensive armament of bombers.
Late in the war the Union Army of the Potomac would string telegraph behind the lines all along the front to enable near instantaneous communication between frontline troops and army headquarters.
You could do one about the Pook Turtles of the Mississippi River during the Civil War.
Your set looks better with the
red lamp... not to mention your ubiquitous red (beer pong/Solo cup) Let Danny out of the basement and give him a project, OK OK a “side project”,
Now can we all just get along ??
Actually developement of the M61 Vulcan Gatling gun started in the 1950's.
The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter was the first plane to use it, well before American involvement in Vietnam.
Great video
Around 63% of the military fatalities during the American civil war were non-combat.
I thought I remembered from my school days, being told people died mostly from infections from their wounds, not outright from the battles. Perhaps this is not true, I am not sure.
Surprised the flat bed train mounted long range cannons used by Sherman to flatten southern towns weren't mentioned.
These cannons were in a sense the first aerial bombardments of whole towns and cities used much later in WWII, albeit without planes.
It was the Henry rifle that was said, "You load on Sundays and shoot the rest of the week".
Seems to have skipped the rocket technology used during the war.
Great vid as always. But rifles had been around for ages by the 1840s. Frontiersmen used them before the revolution, and they were used in the Napoleonic wars. Not saying there wasn’t progress in the field during the civil war, of course.
You show a chart of the International code (AKA the continental code) while our telegraph used the American Morse code. The International code took over radio (as a ham that is what I use to communicate) but both versions can be found among hobbyists. Charts with both are available online
Charles Napier : BLAZE AWAY
The 3 bridges crossing the forth river. 1800's rail bridge still in use, forth road bridge from mid 1900's and the brand new Queensferry crossing would maybe be a good subject. Nit quite mega, but impressive nonetheless
It's always puzzled me how low to the water line the Monitor sat. While I'm sure it made hitting it more difficult, I have to wonder if the threat of swamping was not even considered in its design?
Look up HMVS Cerberus, an ironclad monitor built in a similar style in the late 1860's and steamed from the UK to Australia. That would've been nerve wracking.
The gatling gun was at the battle of Shiloh with it actually allowing the union to hold a position for hours longer that the other areas around the three gatling guns positions.
That is not at all true. Gatling gun saw no use at the Shiloh, wasn't fielded yet. About three dozen max saw use at Cold Harbor and Petersburg in 1864 though.
@@SStupendous the gatling gun was used, it was the original hand cranked version. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatling_gun from the hornets nest area of the battlefield.
@@automechs360
That is all on the Civil War that the link, which obviously I'd seen before, says. It says NOWHERE anything about it's use prior to a few dozen from 1864 earliest. NOWHERE is Shiloh mentioned. Did you expect me to be so unintelligent as to just see a link and take your word for it?
Sources on Wikipedia say that the first six were destroyed in an accidental fire, 13 more were produced shortly after, 12 were bought by General Benjamin Butler, 1 by Admiral Porter and 8 were used on ships. Total amount of Gatling guns were 40 in the war, not very many at all.
"The Gatling gun was first used in warfare during the American Civil War. Twelve of the guns were purchased personally by Union commanders and used in the trenches during the Siege of Petersburg, Virginia (June 1864-April 1865).[38] Eight other Gatling guns were fitted on gunboats.[39] The gun was not accepted by the American Army until 1866 when a sales representative of the manufacturing company demonstrated it in combat.[29]
On July 17, 1863, Gatling guns were purportedly used to overawe New York anti-draft rioters.[40] Two were brought by a Pennsylvania National Guard unit from Philadelphia to use against strikers in Pittsburgh."
And the term “4F” described unqualified draftees referred to men missing their 2 upper and 2 lower front teeth necessary to tear open the paper cartridges for muzzle-loading muskets.
In the Civil War, as was not uncommon back then, more soldiers died from disease then from any contact with the enemy
Great video! For real! I'd say all Americans born before 1960 know 'The Battle of Hampton Roads' was between the 'Monitor and the Merrimac'. You didn't mention canned foods or the use of heliograph using Morse Code.
I love when not-American people describe American stuff. We're a pretty ridiculous country.
Ja!
But don't worry, you're still a toddler in most regards...
Yet everyone wants to come here or our aid
Let's remember that 60% of those casualties were from DISEASE not shot from other soldiers.
Came here to say that. Statement on fatalities at the beginning is misleading.
A .308 Gatling gun? I think not. at least not until the 1960's, 45-70 was the Gatling cartridge after it was adopted as the army rifle and carbine cartridge, which they adopted after the 50-70 which was the first cartridge of the trapdoor Springfield.
You forgot the "Air Force" i.e. the balloon corps which actually carried the telegraph into the air for observations with near real time information value. Lincoln was the first President to get such messages.
This is not relevant to this video, although this video is "Certified legend" status, keep up the good work.... But, you should have Danny do a bio on you and you do one one him, maybe he can include some poems.... they just need to be done......JUST DO IT !!!
Excellent video
Nice video idea
Minie balls are a misconception. yes Minie came out with the original bullet but with thick walls and used a plug inside the base to expand the wall of the bullet the person who came up with the improved version (the version we use today)is a man called James Burton
Berdan I thought. Was it Burton? Also Williams bullets were used as well (though much less common).
@@hazcat640 Berdan had the sharpshooters in the civil war also created a type o f primer for centerfire cartridges(most countries use this primer but not the USA. USA uses a Boxer primer invented by a British officer
The total casualties of the civil war have been recalculated upwards to about 750,000
Holy shit now I know the backstory of “Lincoln’s Repeater” in fallout 3
First mistake ive seen Simon make. Wasn't the Spencer the Confederate troops said that of. Was the Henry lever avtion
Another channel? Gotta sub to this one too!