The smoothbore muskets were a standard of the army. They were inaccurate but very deadly at close range.

The rifled musket with the minie ball was more accurate than the smoothbore. It had a half a mile range, but it only shot two rounds a minute.

Spencer Carbine

The most popular US Cavalry shouder arm of the war, the 39 inch, .52 caliber repeating gun could shoot seven-rounds before reloading. The Spencer repeating rifle was rugged and its metallic ammunition wasn’t vulnerable to rain or fording rivers.

The standard artillery piece in the army was the brass smoothbore 12 pounder Napolean. It shot a ball 4.5 inches in diameter, and had a range of a mile, but was highly inaccurate. With the correct ammunition, the Napolean was highly effective at close range. The case shot was a thin walled shell with a charge and 50 lead slugs. The canister was a metal cylinder with a charge and 200 to 300 bullets.

A more accurate type of artillery was the Parrot gun. The Parrot guns shot twice as far as the Napoleans and were cheaper to manufacture. Of the Parrot guns, the most common were the 10 and 20 pound versions.