During the four years of the Civil War more than four million small arms and some one billion copper percussion caps for those weapons were made for the Union Army. The Confederacy, not able to compete with the North's industrial might, as well as being outnumbered, invented and experimented with new weapons - the first ironclad ramming ship, a multi-manned submarine, torpedoes and landmines - in attempts to even the odds. Soldiers on both sides, having come from the literate masses, were far better educated than soldiers of past wars. As a result, the Civil War was the birthplace of many "firsts":

1. First practical machine gun
2. First repeating rifle used in combat
3. First long-range rifle
4. First telescopic sights for rifles
5. First naval mines ("torpedoes")
6. First extensive use of trenches and field fortifications
7. First use of the railroads as a major means of transporting troops and supplies
8. First mobile seige artillery on rail cars
9. First widespread use of rails for hospital trains
10. First organized and systematic care of wounded on the battlefield
11. First use of hospital ships
12. First armored ("ironclad") ships in combat
13. First multi-manned submarine
14. First large-scale use of "subterranean shells", now called landmines
15. First organized military signal service
16. First use of portable telegraph units on the battlefield
17. First visual signaling by flags and torches during combat
18. First airborne reconnaissance using manned balloons
19. First antiaircraft fire
20. First draft in the United States
21. First organized use of Negro troops in combat
22. First income tax - used to finance the war
23. First photographs taken in combat
24. First Medal of Honor awarded to an American soldier
25. First to provide the means to allow soldiers, in the field, to vote in national elections
26. First war in which most of the troops were literate
27. First war in which music and poetry played an integral part
28. First commissioned American army chaplains

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Last Modified: July, 2005