Essay --

The first major battle of the civil war was fought near Bull Run River in Virginia, and was later named the First Battle of Bull Run. The fight was started when General Irvin McDowell planned on marching his Union soldiers into the southern capital, putting an immediate end on the rebellion. Confederate soldiers led by General P. G. T. Beauregard met his forces near the Bull Run River. The Confederate forces won the battle with the Union having 2,896 casualties and losses while the Confederacy only had 1,982. This battle marked the beginning of the war and put the Confederacy to a good start at winning succeeding battles. After years of the Confederacy winning the majority of the battles came a turning point. The Battle of Gettysburg was fought from July 1 to July 3 in 1863. The battle was fought in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in an attempt to slop Lee’s advances into Northern territory. This is one of the first major battles that the Union won. Both sides lost around the same amount of soldiers injured or killed. The Union had a total of 23,055 lost while the Confederacy had 23,231. This win has since been marked the turning point of the war and was a huge moral booster for the Union army. After around a year of battling the Union had an idea to split the South in two and finally end this brutal war. This action was named Sherman’s March after the leader of the campaign, General William T. Sherman. The campaign lasted little over a month starting on November 15, 1864, and ending December 21. Sherman started his march in Atlanta, Georgia and ended on the on the coast in Fort McAllister. The idea behind this tactic was to split the South in half and burning everything in his path, therefore destroying all moral left in the Confedera... ... muskets came the first reliable and maneuverable long-range weapon of the time. The grooves or â€Å"rifling† in the barrel caused the projectile to spin, allowing the bullet to have increased accuracy instead of just hoping you could hit your target. The earlier muskets were similar to a knuckleball in baseball; the lack of spin in a certain direction causes the ball to move around in the air unexpectedly. Because these new rifled muskets could be accurate at a far greater range, the army started to create snipers. These snipers would look for the highest-ranking official they could find on the battlefield and keep working their way down, killing the most important people in hopes of destroying their leadership and creating panic among the other soldiers. Seeing this Gatling gun during the Civil War would have instantly struck fear into any enemy on the battlefield.