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Even as an ignorant of much before my time, it has seemed to me based on what I know about the Civil War that it involved a lot of inefficiency (perhaps not the proper word but I don't know what fits). Medical care was abysmal, field hospitals were filthy, conditions were terrible, the solution to injuries was to just amputate, and more soldiers died from disease than did from the combat itself. Field combat involved the slow to load muzzleloading rifle, in spite of the possible development and innovation of repeating rifles (which did exist at that period, though they had mechanical problems), and the existence of the Gatling gun, which only saw limited usage in the Civil War despite its unprecedented firepower. On the battlefield, at least in the early part of the war, soldiers wore colors of their local units or militias often times, causing massive confusion. And tactically and in the theater of war, there were a number of bungles, missed opportunities, ball dropping, and assorted fuck ups (the name McClellan springs to mind). And there's other things I probably didn't cover in this long-winded introductory paragraph of the kind I tend to write.

The challenge here is to therefore take the American Civil War and to make it more efficient.
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