Weapons and Artillery

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 All firearms larger than small arms are known as artillery or cannon. Although there were dozens of different types of cannon used during the Civil War, they all fell into one of two categories: smoothbore or rifled cannon. They were further designated by the weight of their projectile (12-pounder, 24-pounder, 32-pounder, etc.), the caliber or size of their bore diameter (3-inch, 8-inch, 10-inch), method of loading (breech or muzzle), and often their inventor or the factory in which they were made (i.e. Dahlgren, Napoleon, Rodman, Parrott, Whitworth). A further distinction involved the path of their trajectories: guns had a flat trajectory, mortars a high, arching path, and a howitzer a trajectory between the other two. Civil War artillery was also classified according to its tactical deployment, including field, seacoast, and siege artillery. Cannon were made of steel, bronze, or iron, depending on the availability of material.

Howitzers shorter, lighter pieces than guns of the same bore diameter, have chambered bores, use smaller charges, fire explosive shells instead of solid shot, and were meant, essentially, to eject their projectiles at low velocity into a target.
  Packing a solid punch and having a respectable 1600-1700 yard effective range, the 12-pdr was a much better weapon than its little brother.
 Guns were longer and heavier. 

Any weapon smaller than a cannon and carried by a soldier was known as a small arm. During the Civil War, small arms included muskets, which were smoothbore, long-barrelled shoulder arms; rifles, shoulder guns with spiral grooves cut into the inner surface of the barrel; carbines, short-barrelled rifles; and handguns, including pistols and revolvers. Like artillery, small arms also were designated by their caliber, mode of loading (breech or muzzle), and maker. The principal small arms on both sides were the .5 8 caliber Springfield musket and the .69 caliber Harper's Ferry Rifle, both muzzleloading arms that fired the deadly mini ball.

Before the introduction of what soldiers commonly called the "minnie ball"-even though it was indeed bullet-shaped-the use of rifles in battle was impractical and largely limited to corps of elite marksmen. Expensive, tightfitting projectiles had to be jammed into the grooves of the rifle's muzzle, a time-consuming process.
        In 1848, however, French army Captain Claude F. Minie created a smaller, hollow-based bullet that could far more quickly and easily be rammed into the bore, expanding when the weapon was fired to catch in the rifling and be shot spinning out of the barrel. That spin made the mini ball, like other, more expensive and unwieldy rifle bullets, a highly precise and far traveling projectile. They could reach a half-mile or more, and an average soldier could easily hit a target 250 yards away.

Bayonets, sabers, swords, short swords, cutlasses, Bowie knives, pikes, and lances, classified as "edged weapons," appeared in considerable profusion during the Civil War. Although they served to decorate their original possessors and delight modern collectors, they inflicted few casualties. In Regimental Losses Fox points out that of the approximately 250,000 wounded treated in Union hospitals during the war only 922 were the victims of sabers or bayonets. "And a large proportion of these originated in private quarrels, or were inflicted by camp guards in the discharge of their duty." A few instances Of Bayonet Attacks are recorded.

One of the most common used weapons was the bayonett. It  could be used to stab victims to death, when someones musket were to run out of bullets.  This kind of death would most likely be bloody, painful, and slow; unless done right.

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