Civil War soldiers and officers used many different types of firearms. Advancements in rifling, applying grooves along the interior barrel of a firearm to cause a projectile to spin, allowed soldiers to fire their weapons farther and more accurately. Battlefields were the most common scenes of combat, yet brutal guerilla warfare frequently occurred in the Eastern and Western Theater. Along the Eastern Theater, raiding was synonymous with “The Gray Ghost,” Colonel John Singleton Mosby, and his rangers. This section displays objects used as weapons by both Confederate and Union armies.
