The Civil War: Weapons Process Paper

By: Mara Jos Snchez, Liwen Wu, Jorge Ortez

We chose The American Civil War: Weapons because we learned a little bit about the topic in History class and we thought it was interesting. We decided to expand our knowledge on it by selecting it as our topic. At first, we were indecisive as whether to do transportation or weapons but we settled on weapons because we felt that the weapons used during the Civil War had more impact and was a bigger turning point in history than the transportation used. Our first step in researching was going to the library as a class and learning how to search for specific keywords that might be helpful for our topic. Then, we looked at books that had content on the weapons used during the Civil War. We also used numerous websites that had information on the Minie Ball and the Rifled Musket. In addition, we visited the National Museum of American History to gather more information. We chose to do a website because we felt like we could display more information about our topics than on a paper or a display board. On the website, we can use videos and slideshows to show how the Minie Ball and the Rifled Musket were used. On a paper and display board we cannot do that. Furthermore, we chose to do a website because we wanted to acquire skills on how to do a website. Knowing how to do a website is something not many people know how to do. The skills acquired to complete a website, such as adding videos, photographs, information, links, will be useful to know later on in life. We might come across having to create a website for college or during our future jobs. The weapons used during the American Civil War were a turning point in history because the weapons were fatal. The accuracy of the Minie Ball combined with the Rifled Musket made the death toll a vast number compared to previous wars fought in the United States. Since both the Union and the Confederacy used the Rifled Musket and the Minie Ball the total number of dead people was worse than if only one side wouldve used it. The rifled musket barrel was justified to a spiral groove that made a minie ball fire with a spinning action. The minie ball was gradually more faster and accurate than a musket ball.