Chemical ACW

The ability to manufacture rudimentary chemical weapons existed during the period of the ACW. I'm curious how either side using gas weapons, both on the battlefield and as strategic weapons against cities would have affected the outcome of both the war and the way it was fought.

My first thought is that if the US as a whole entity develops them prior to the ACW and the confederates and union troops both have them ab initio, it is entirely possible that Lincoln would be unwilling to resort to force to hold together the union: The prospect of conflict would be bad enough, add in the risk of a chemical shelling of major cities might set the US back 100 years and the entire war might be avoided and left as a local "Cold War".

The second possible thought would be one side or the other developing them and using them, which in turn would result in some pretty horrific effects for the civilian and military casualties, making the reconstruction efforts pretty nasty.

The third possibility that I've considered is a latent chemical weapon program by the confederates that is used late in the war as a desperation move: Lob chemical weapons into a major US city via clandestine efforts and publically declare that unless the union pulls back to their prewar borders, the confederates will continue to use chemical weapons against the civilian populations.

Thoughts?
 
The very hard part will be the delivery weapons. Making a chemical shell was no rudmentary project in WWI. 50 years earlier will be far more difficult. Remember, it not only has to safely carry the gas without breaking and releasing it in transport (on animal-drawn caisons over really bad rutty roads), it has to be fired or otherwise deployed and release the gas at a precise time over the enemy in a manner that it will affect them, but not your own soldiers. Doing so with 1860s technology will be very difficult, possibly insurmountable.
 
If they show up during this war, depending on when and how that works it could be very bad. If it's during the Siege of Petersburg it really *would* start looking like the 1914 trenches.....:eek:
 

loughery111

Banned
As per this thread all the components (gas shells, gas masks, chlorine etc.) exist as experimental weapons of war at the time

Yes, but they're all a cottage industry (or worse, laboratory) product at this point. It's questionable whether the US, even if it recognized the potential, could scrape up enough resources to do large-scale production; it would require a mass manufacture model that just isn't that well-developed yet. The Confederates, in all likelihood, simply cannot do it at all.

Even if they do, I envision this being like tanks in WWI; not very effective at first but with a learning curve. Definitely more a psychological weapon than a physical one, for a while.
 

MrP

Banned
If they show up during this war, depending on when and how that works it could be very bad. If it's during the Siege of Petersburg it really *would* start looking like the 1914 trenches.....:eek:

Very true. What with all those overlapping Confederate heavy machine guns at St Petersburg 'n' all.
 
Very true. What with all those overlapping Confederate heavy machine guns at St Petersburg 'n' all.

I simply said they'd look more like the trenches of 1914. The absence of machine guns is what made the difference between Civil War trench warfare and that of WWI, as it was possible to mount the kind of overwhelming force that could break through by a general attack all along the line without the troops being whittled away to nothing then.
 

MrP

Banned
I simply said they'd look more like the trenches of 1914. The absence of machine guns is what made the difference between Civil War trench warfare and that of WWI, as it was possible to mount the kind of overwhelming force that could break through by a general attack all along the line without the troops being whittled away to nothing then.

Indeed. I have been thinking about Loos and gas projectors these last few days. The discrepancy between Loos and St P is palpable.
 
Indeed. I have been thinking about Loos and gas projectors these last few days. The discrepancy between Loos and St P is palpable.

Yes, use of chemical warfare at Petersburg would be intended as a means to do what the Battle of the Crater didn't, where Loos was simply a cover for the Germans moving all their troops to the East.
 

MrP

Banned
Yes, use of chemical warfare at Petersburg would be intended as a means to do what the Battle of the Crater didn't, where Loos was simply a cover for the Germans moving all their troops to the East.

I shall just stop you right now and say very clearly "Heavy Machine Guns".
 
Yes, but they're all a cottage industry (or worse, laboratory) product at this point. It's questionable whether the US, even if it recognized the potential, could scrape up enough resources to do large-scale production; it would require a mass manufacture model that just isn't that well-developed yet. The Confederates, in all likelihood, simply cannot do it at all.

That won't stop the Confederates from trying if they get the idea. Consider the CSS Hunley, a submarine that killed more Confederates during training than it ever killed Union men. I'd expect Confederate attempts at chemical warfare to kill more of them than the enemy unless they decide to target Union civilians.
 
Thomas Cochrane advocated using Sulphur Dioxide as a chemical weapon in attacking fortified ports (load up fire ships with sulphur and coal and let them drift into the harbour on fire) as early as 1812.

Lyon Playfair advocated using shells filled with a cyanide derivative in the Crimea (and I think Cochrane was also advocating his 1812 plan again)

Both proposals were kept secret as the British couldn't be sure that the weapons wouldn't be turned on themselves

A chemical ACW is technically feasible but I wouldn't have thought it was militarily practical until the seiges of the late war around Richmond (although Vicksburg was a possiblility but the civilian casualties would be horrendous).
 
If brought into combat during the Siege of Vicksburg or the Siege of Petersburg it would make the early trench warfare at those battlefields even worse. Overall would make the civil war an even nastier conflict, although as has already been pointed out, they would be probably primitive and experimental. Perhaps a delivery system could be designed using mortars: The gas would be encased in the shell, and the fuse would blow the shell apart releasing the chemicals, if it can't just be released by the impact of the shell hitting the target.

There is something scary about imagining lines of blue and grey charging each other wearing gas masks I must say. Not something pleasant to dwell on knowing how well the commanders of WWI adapted to the technological changes on the battlefield.
 
If brought into combat during the Siege of Vicksburg or the Siege of Petersburg it would make the early trench warfare at those battlefields even worse. Overall would make the civil war an even nastier conflict, although as has already been pointed out, they would be probably primitive and experimental. Perhaps a delivery system could be designed using mortars: The gas would be encased in the shell, and the fuse would blow the shell apart releasing the chemicals, if it can't just be released by the impact of the shell hitting the target.

There is something scary about imagining lines of blue and grey charging each other wearing gas masks I must say. Not something pleasant to dwell on knowing how well the commanders of WWI adapted to the technological changes on the battlefield.

Eh, General Grant adapted rather faster to those changes than Haig and company did. I can't see the CSA of late 1864 having the ability to develop gas masks all along the line so you might see an equivalent to the Loos offensive that works because the USA has gas masks and the CSA does not. The war ends more horribly but much more rapidly.

The big difference with the Petersburg trench war and that of World War I was that in World War I both sides had machine guns, while in the US Civil War only some units of the Army of the Potomac had Gatlings.
 
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