Villainous Compounds: Chemicals Weapons and the Civil War

Waterloo50

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According to the author of the book Villainous Compounds: Chemicals Weapons and the Civil War, The civil war was a pivotal turning point in the evolution of military science. One of the key sciences in the development of civil war weapons was chemistry. Knowledge of chemistry and chemicals was crucial to both the practice and production for civil war medicine. As such doctors and druggists were familiar with the toxic nature of various organic and inorganic chemical compounds. When the war erupted a few of these forward thinking chemists quickly realised that the noxious and sometimes deadly aspects of certain chemical concoctions could be weaponized. Throughout the war a host of exotic chemical weapons were proposed and in some instances deployed.

I haven't read of any situations where chemical weapons were used, were there ever such incidents or has the author got his facts wrong?

Guy Hasegawa, a pharmacist and leading expert in civil war medicine has uncovered details of a forgotten chapter in the history of American weapons development.

This from Vincent Fountain Jr 1861
'These shells can be thrown into different paths of a regiment and after exploding the pepper will get into the troops nose and eyes and will make them sneeze so that they cannot steady their muskets to get aim and will blind then so that they cannot see to pick out officers or shoot our men while men are mowing them down.'

March 11 1862
A discussion with Lincoln on the possibility of a chemical attack against the CSS Virginia.
Artillery shells should be filled with some subtle disabling or sickening powder, gas or fluid

Here is a short list of some of the villainous civil war weapons.
Flame Throwers.
Chlorine gas shells
Pepper Spray
Chloroform Shells
Hydrogen Cyanide
Red Pepper and Veratria
Phosphorus
Yellow Fever

I also found one description of something that resembles a water cannon, the mixture was Pepper, Whiskey and water, the idea was to have two men in control of the hose and fire it over the heads of the enemy, the mixture was intended to blind and incapacitate.
Another little idea was to fire a shell that would burn at extremely high temperatures, it was intended to release toxic fumes and cause burning, I'm still looking for details on that particular weapon, it sounds a bit like napalm. I have also read a few articles about the American version of Greek fire.
 
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I mentioned the pharmacist Guy Hasegawa in my previous post, he was asked which of the proposed civil war chemical weapons surprised him the most:

The one that surprised me the most was a proposal to place two relatively safe chemicals in an artillery shell and have them mix during flight to form deadly hydrogen cyanide, which would be released when the shell exploded. This was a so-called binary weapon, and the same concept appeared during the Cold War, for example, in an American artillery projectile designed to deliver the nerve agent sarin. Not only that, the chemicals suggested during the Civil War were used in American gas chambers starting in the 1930s and decades later in terrorist bombs. In this instance, the proponent got the general idea and the specific ingredients right, although it’s unclear whether the delivery system he suggested would have worked exactly as he claimed.
 
Let us not forget the tried and true decomposing corpse(s) deliberately left in front of the enemies works.

I also read that it wasn't unusual for corpses to be thrown in to things like duck ponds and other sources of fresh water. I'm also pretty sure that I have seen an article about clothing or blankets being deliberately infected with smallpox.
 
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