Why was the civil war the deadliest war?

Answer 1

since both sides fighting against each other in the civil war were American, every casualty was an American casualty, as opposed to wars where the enemy side was from another nation. That, combined with new warfare technology like the gunboat, the mortar, primitive machines guns and hand grenades, and canister shots made the civil war the deadliest war

Answer 2

The American Civil War was by far the deadliest war in American history by far, resulting in over 620,000 deaths. Why so deadly? Well the main reason was this: Modern Technology colided with Ancient Tactics. What do I mean by this? Well in previous wars, (namely, the Napoleonic wars and the Mexican-American war), the infantry would march in long rows, tight together, two deep. Napoleon dominated with this technique, and many civil war generals witnessed this tactic have great success in the Mexican-American war, generals like Lee, Jackson and Grant. The point was to send men at a quick pace at the enemy and overwhelm them before they had a chance to stop you. The momentum would be to great, ,you would push the enemy back, and win a decisive victory. The reason this worked is because of the limited weapons they had then. They were smoothbore rifles, and so the bullet would just bounce around in the barrel when fired and then its trajectory would be detirmined by the final bounce. These rifles were accurate up to only about 100 yards, and not very effective. So the frontal charge worked, and civil war generals used it. But then came the modern technology. They invented rifled muskets that fired minie balls. These rifles had a spiraled groove on the inside of the barrel. When the gun fired, the base of the minie ball expanded into the groovings and came out of the barrel spinning, giving it much greater range and accuracy. Instead this rifle had an effective range up to 400 yards, and could still kill at 1,000. When civil war generals used the frontal assault tactic, they would be bombarded by cannons with the same new rifled technology, and could be fired on long range from murderous volleys that killed dozens at a time. This is why civil war battles were so deadly.

Answer 3

of there tactics, such as going in a big group in front of the other army's