- Joined
- Aug 17, 2011
- Location
- Birmingham, Alabama
A goggle of "Civil War First Modern War" gets 13 million hits and it is a common theme in Civil War History.
Google books gets 1.4 million hits on a search
Ngram on "first modern war" shows it use starts after WW I and really goes way up after 1960.
The following exchange exchanged happen in another thread and I think it is worth exploring.
One issue is what is meant by 'modern war'
Google books gets 1.4 million hits on a search
Ngram on "first modern war" shows it use starts after WW I and really goes way up after 1960.
The following exchange exchanged happen in another thread and I think it is worth exploring.
One issue is what is meant by 'modern war'
It was the first modern war fought on the North American Continent, perhaps in the world. The flaw in the Southern Strategy was not anticipating what was not known.
Not a modern war. This was the last great war of of the musket period fought with muzzle loaded firearms in close ordered line formations.... just like it had been done for 150years.
(I would argue that the first real modern war started in Europe in 1915... when the great powers realized that the war would go one for at least a few years.)
As I see it 1861 was just about the latest the south had any change at all... The Northern advantaged was only getting bigger and bigger.
And had the standard infantry weapons changed to a breechloaded (or worse repeating) rifle using brass cartridges, the south would have been completely dependent on importing ammo from Europe...
The fact is that the south managed to fight the war, despite the huge disadvantage in industrial output... and this tell us that is was not a modern war. (but it did have modern elements)