Quote:
Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
They did use rifles (the muzzle-loading muskets were a species of rifle), and also repeating ones at that. The Henry rifle was one lever-action repeater that saw service in the War Between the States.* The Spencer was another. Their higher cost and relatively exotic ordnance kept them from being as widely issued as the muzzle-loading rifles, which in turn were only six-year-old technology at the start of the war and therefore relatively exotic.
A.K.A. The War Among the States.
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The repeating rifle seems so superior to the muzzle loading rifle that I find it amazing that more of an effort wasn't made to supply everyone with repeating rifles. A jump from a muzzle-loading rifle seems like to me the jump from a sword to a musket. It would seem to me that ten soldiers with repeating rifles would easily beat a hundred soliders with muzzle loading rifles. A repeating rifle could get off five rounds in a couple of seconds where a muzzle loading musket firing five rounds would take a couple of minutes. In combat that difference in time would be tactically invaluable. The difference in my mind must be greater than reality.
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