Also known as: steel guns.
| Promise | Greater strength than iron or bronze |
|---|---|
| Status in the war | Emerging; not yet the standard |
| Later | Became the standard for heavy guns after the war |
The coming metal
Steel offered the strength that gunmakers sought, but producing sound, uniform steel in the large masses a cannon required was still difficult in the 1860s, and reliable steel ordnance was only beginning to appear. Some steel and steel-lined guns were tried, and the imported Whitworth and Armstrong guns pointed the way.
The Civil War was fought chiefly with iron and bronze guns, but in the decades that followed steel became the standard material of heavy ordnance, displacing the cast-iron and banded guns of the war.
On this site
Sources & further reading
- CivilWarArtillery.com research archive: manuals, reports, and manufacturing references.