Fully armed, a soldier carried about seven pounds of ammunition. His cartridge pouch contained 40 rounds, and an additional 60 rounds might be conveyed in the pocket if an extensive battle was anticipated.
The muzzle-loading rifle could be loaded at the rate of about two times a minute. Its maximum range was about 1,000 yards.
Most infantry rifles were equipped with bayonets, but very few men wounded by bayonet showed up at hospitals. The conclusion was that the bayonet was not a lethal weapon. The explanation probably lay in the fact that opposing soldiers did not often actually come to grips and, when they did, were prone to use their rifles as clubs.
Artillery was used extensively, but only about 10 per cent of the wounded were the victims of artillery fire.
Besides the rifle and cannon, weapons consisted of revolvers, swords, cutlasses, hand grenades, Greek fire and land mines.
Many doctors who saw service in the Civil War had never been to medical school, but had served an apprenticeship in the office of an established practitioner.
In the Peninsular campaign in the spring of 1862, as many as 5,000 wounded were brought into a hospital where there were only one medical man and five hospital stewards to care for them.
The first organized ambulance corps were used in the Peninsular campaign and at Antietam.
In the battle of Gettysburg, 1,100 ambulances were in use. The medical director of the Union army boasted that all the wounded were picked up from the field within 12 hours after the battle was over. This was a far cry from the second battle of Bull Run, when many of the wounded were left on the field in the rain, heat and sun for three or four days.
Eighty per cent of all wounds during the Civil War were in the extremities.
The first U. S. Naval hospital ship, the Red Rover, was used on the inland waters during the Vicksburg campaign.
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