Quote:
Originally Posted by Fish In The Water
Wow...
Not to detract from such a monumental event, but I can't help but think just how far military hardware has come in the last 150 years. Imagine how much higher the death toll would have been with modern weapons. As tragic and painful as the war was, (if it had to happen), best it happened then rather than now.
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By the standards of ANY time, casualties were horrific: more Americans died in the Civil War (or War of Northern Aggression) than in all other American wars combined. Almost as many Americans died in three days in July, 1863 at Gettysburg as did in the (officially) twenty years of the Vietnam War (~53,000 at Gettysburg, ~59,000 in Vietnam).
The American Civil War is considered by many to be the beginning of what we today call "modern" warfare - the weapons improved ahead of the tactics, which is why you had massed formations crossing open ground to meet massed formations behind defensive breastworks, and the ensuing bloodbath is inevitable. Canister fire from cannon, more accurate riflery with a higher rate of fire and over longer ranges, all fired into massed crowds of men approaching shoulder-to-shoulder. The carnage must have been unimaginable.
The war saw the development of what would become the Gatling gun, the submarine, steam-powered steel ships with movable gun turrets, aerial reconnaissance... while men still marching shoulder to shoulder and ships still turned broadside to fire effectively. Technology advanced our ability to deal damage to each other very effectively indeed.