The Ever-Changing Role Of Technology During The American Civil War

As technology has progressed throughout history, one of the main factors to technology progressing has been wars. From the days of fighting in Early Times where battles were fought with masses of men taking over territories to today where a button can be pushed from 35,000 feet in the air and drop a bomb to destroy a city, wars have had an impact on history and technology as a whole. There have been many changes to the way a military member viewed society in his ever-changing role any many different technologies used to be successful in winning wars and the effect the military member had on society.
Technology in the military began with Archimedes around 213BCE. In 213 BCE Marcus Marcellus attacked the city of Syracuse. In order to defend …show more content…
The musket that was very common during the American Revolutionary Wars was now improved on. The rifled musket could now effectively shoot accurately at 500 yards. This allowed troops to stay further back than normal which had a large strategic impact and an impact on the soldier’s daily life. Before the Civil War, troops traveled by foot or from animals. During the Civil War, the railroad was of great use for soldiers. The railroads allowed the soldiers to arrive quicker to their destinations and also allowed for supplies to be retrieved quicker. The acceleration of supplies being sent to troops allowed armies to be larger with an increase from 30,000 men to 100,000 men. Another advantage to the railroad was that troops could travel to other battles that may have been losing. The troops heard about these battles being lost via the electric telegraph. With the invention of the railroads that were invented for use in the military one of the impacts it had on other groups of people was that the quartermasters, who were in charge of the railroads had grown to over 100,000 workers. The electric telegraph assisted generals by relaying messages that normally would take days instantly. This allowed the generals to know the status of battles and troops much quicker and allowed for reinforcements to be …show more content…
Aircraft was now used to drop bombs on enemies and well as for surveillance purposes. Until World War II battleships were the common ship used for naval battles. By World War II aircraft carriers were used and naval battles were no longer fought with the enemy seeing each other. Instead battles were fought by aircraft dropping bombs on enemy’s aircraft carriers. Radar was also used in aircraft in the form of placing a radar in a bomb so that when a bomb reached a specific distance the bomb could detonate. Radars were also used in aircraft and on ships to detect where other ships and aircraft were. One major impact that technology had on wars was the advancement of medicine. Soldiers were no longer dying from disease in the battlefield which allowed for more fighting to be done. The most important technological invention was the discovery of nuclear fission and the invention of the atomic bomb. The atomic bomb is the most powerful bomb ever dropped and the threat of another one being dropped is the still prevalent today. In the aftermath of World War II, the military research and development took two different courses. One of the courses was with the advancement of nuclear weapons and the other course was with the increasing capacity and improvement of conventional weapons. Now more than ever, nuclear scientists were now more in demand than ever before both in the United States and around the world