Private Stockwell's 1863 Springfield Rifle Musket

Indeed, the new rifle muskets used during the Civil War were a huge advancement over the muskets used during the Napoleonic Wars. Back then, opposing armies could stand within a hundred yards of each otehr and not many men would get hit, but not so with the new weapons with their rifling in the bores which increased the distance and accuracy the guns could be fired.

Merritt Roe of MIT said that the creation of tne technical know-how that could produce precisely tooled, interchangeable parts for hundreds of thousands of rifles essentially did in the South who couldn't match the industrial might of the North.

--Old Secesh