The Alabama in the Civil War Message Board

Re: Sheer Grit
In Response To: Sheer Grit ()

Rachelle --

There's another side of the story about loading, aiming and firing in action. I've seen different figures (27,500 long arms in one reference; 35,000 in another), but soldiers on both side evidently loaded multiple rounds without firing. A majority of these weapons were found to include two or three rounds rammed into their barrels, while some contained many more.

Obviously tens of thousands of men were not thinking clearly in the midst of battle. Of course that's entirely to be expected.

A further perspective which should be mentioned is the amount of time actually under to fire compared to the amount of time in camp and field. By far the greater portion of a soldier's life consisted of camp activities, drilling, marching, boredom and frustration. Yes, rush-hour traffic would have been a small matter to most of them.

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Sheer Grit
Re: Sheer Grit