List of weapons in the American Civil War

The American Civil War by Union and Confederate soldiers took place during the years 1861–1865. During the war, a variety of weapons were used on both sides. These weapons include edged weapons such as knives and swords, firearms such as handguns, rifled-muskets, breech loaders and repeating weapons, various field guns such as artillery, and new weapons such as the early grenade and machine gun.

The Civil War is often to referred as the first "modern" war in history as it included the most advanced technology and innovations of warfare available at the time. Some of the innovations and advances of the Civil War included mass production of war material, rifling of gun barrels and the use of the Minié ball, the advent of repeating firearms and metallic cartridges, ironclad warships, advances in medicine, communication (especially the telegraph), and transportation (railroads), and the gradual decline of tactics from previous centuries.

Edged weapons
Early in the war Robert E Lee proposed issuing pikes to the Confederate army to compensate for the shortage of guns. A few were made and used for training but were never issued for combat.

Handguns
Derringers, pepper-box pocket pistols, and small revolvers like the Colt Baby Dragoon or teat-fire were often carried by enlisted men as a backup gun for close-quarters fighting.

Single-shot caplock pistols copied from the prewar French model were issued to the United States Navy. These had brass barrels to prevent corrosion. Some Confederate cavalry units were equipped with single-shot percussion cap or even flintlock pistols early in the war which were sometimes fitted with stocks to improve accuracy. These had been issued to the US Army until the 1840s, but were obsolete by the time of the Civil War due to the introduction of the Colt revolver.

Rifles
Early in the war Confederates would use civilian arms including shotguns and hunting rifles like the Kentucky or Hawken due to the shortage of military weapons. These remained in service as late as 1863.

Old smoothbore muskets converted from flintlock to Caplock mechanism were also used, especially by the South, and had calibers as large as .74 which fired buck and ball ammunition: the Model 1816 Musket, Model 1822 Musket, Springfield Model 1835, Springfield Model 1840 Flintlock Musket, Springfield Model 1842, remnants from the War of 1812 like the Brown Bess and Model 1795 Musket, and surplus British Brunswick rifles and Minié rifles.

Grenades
The American Civil War belligerents did have crude hand grenades equipped with a plunger that would detonate upon impact. The North relied on experimental Ketchum Grenades, with a metal tail to ensure the nose would strike the target and start the fuse. The Confederacy used spherical hand grenades that weighed about six pounds, sometimes with a paper fuse. They also used Rains and Adams grenades, which were similar to the Ketchum in appearance and firing mechanism.

Rapid-fire weapons
The Gatling gun was a multi-barreled, .58 caliber rapid-fire repeating gun that was capable of firing 600 rounds per minute that was created by Dr. Richard Jordan Gatling. As the crank was turned, a barrel revolved into place before the breech, a cartridge was inserted and fitted, and the empty shell was extracted in a continuous cycle. As there were multiple barrels, a Gatling gun could be fired for long periods of time without overheating. It was not as popular as common rifles, and saw very little action in the Civil War.

Similar weapons included J.D. Mill's Coffee Mill Gun. Like the Gatling Gun, the cartridges of Mill's invention were fed by a hand crank, and this is why some people believe that President Lincoln called it "the coffee grinder gun". Other infantry support weapons included the .58 caliber Agar gun with a hopper on top and steel guard, and the Billinghurst Requa Battery which had eight banks of cartridge chambers that were rotated into alignment behind the row of 25 barrels.

Chief of Ordnance, General James Wolfe Ripley was against issuing repeating rifles and machine guns to the Union army as he believed it would waste ammunition. Nevertheless, several generals, including General Benjamin Butler and General Winfield Scott Hancock, purchased Gatling Guns.

The Confederate used the hand-cranked single barrel Williams Gun and the Vandenburgh volley gun, a volley gun similar to the French Mitrailleuse.