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New Technology During The Civil War

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New ideas were constantly coming forward during the Civil War, and this time period played an enormous role in developing new technology. Both the invention of the telegraph and the railroads were very important. With the ability to send someone a message within seconds, people in the White House were able to transmit battle strategies directly to the front line. Railroads allowed them to send huge amounts of supplies to the military. Both of these state-of-the-art creations made supplying the troops more productive and less complicated. These influential innovations changed the course of the war. However, the more important technology advances belonged somewhere else- on the battlefield. New technology was springing forth everywhere, including the front lines. Inventors like Dr. Richard Jordan Gatling …show more content…
Gabriel J. Rains is credited with being the first to use fully functional torpedoes in the Battle of Yorktown in 1862. They were used by the Confederacy to protect forts and cities for the remainder of the war (“Gabriel J. Rains”, 2013). Though they were effective, they were not popular among the Confederate or Union Armies. George McClellan, a Union General, described the torpedoes as “barbarous”, and Confederate General James Longstreet went so far as banning their use for a brief period of time. Though they played a significant role in many other battles, their effects may have been the biggest during Sherman’s March to the Sea. Sherman says that the use of mines is “not warfare, but murder,” (“8 Unusual Civil…”, 2015). He was extremely strongly opinionated on the use of land mines because, with the organization of his March, many of his troops were killed by land mines. Eventually, he began to force his Confederate prisoners to lead the March, so that if they did walk over any torpedoes, the Confederates would trigger them, and Sherman would not lose any

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