ABSTRACT

By the middle of the nineteenth century, United States (US) military institutions had proven their worth in the Mexican War. Far more Americans fought and died in the American Civil War of 1861–65 than in all other previous conflicts put together. The United States actually began adopting percussion cap technology just prior to the Mexican War. It continued in the 1850s under then-Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, when the US Army began considering rifled muskets. Soldiers in early Civil War combat used previously developed tactics, with troops packed into formations of two or three ranks. Given the large size of Civil War armies relative to limited personnel in the regular US Army, most company officers came directly from civilian life with no or little military expertise. Between 1861 and 1863, both the Union and the Confederacy mobilized resources and manpower to prosecute a large conventional war.