In the spirit of Robert Adair’s cult classic The Physics of Baseball, here is a book that tackles the long-cherished myths of Civil War history—and ultimately shatters them, based on physics and mathematics. At what range was a Civil War sniper lethal? Did bullets ever “rain like hail”? Could one ever step across a battlefield by stepping only on bodies and never hard ground? How effective were Civil War muskets and rifles? How accurate are photographs and paintings?
In this genre-bending work of history, Scott Hippensteel puts the tropes of Civil War history under the microscope and says, “Wait a minute!” Combining science and history, Hippensteel reexamines much that we hold dear about the Civil War and convincingly argues that memoirs and histories have gotten it wrong.
This is a work of history and science for our era of “fake news”—and for well beyond. Readers will never look at the Civil War the same way again.
Scott Hippensteel is an Associate Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he focuses on coastal geology, geoarchaeology, and environmental micropaleontology. His early research involved the H. L. Hunley, the famous Confederate submarine, and used microfossils to interpret that great historical artifact. His previous work includes Rocks and Rifles (Springer, 2018), a look at how geology influenced the Civil War. A native of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, Hippensteel holds graduate degrees from the University of Delaware. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Table of Contents
1 An Overview of the Tall Tales 1
2 Sedgwick Was Correct: The Myth of the Civil War Sniper 7
3 The Density of Death 35
4 Lead Precipitation 65
5 Ready, Aim, Reload 79
6 The Rifle Musket Revolution 97
7 Eye of History or Photographic Fraud? 123
8 The Civil War on Canvas: Realism versus Romanticism 163
9 Conclusion 185
Appendix A Evaluating "Knockdown Power" or "Striking Power" of Military Rifles 195
Appendix B Effectiveness of Civil War Revolvers in Combat 197
Appendix C The Faults with Fake Fighting 201
Appendix D Isaac Newton Would Have Hated Civil War Films 203
