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These weapons were significantly more accurate than their smoothbore predecessors, and when combined with the long range of newer naval guns, meant that naval battles could be fought at much greater distances. Furthermore, although both Union and Confederate navies continued to use smoothbore cannon, rifled cannon (which featured grooves on the inside of the barrel to impart a spin on the projectile) became increasingly common in the 1850s and 1860s. One such change was conceived by John Dahlgren, a naval officer who developed a technique for reinforcing the breach of a cannon to better withstand the extra gunpowder needed to fire larger shells at greater distances. In the 1850s, several innovations in cannon construction enabled the military to build bigger, more accurate, and longer-ranged guns. Major artillery developments caused further change to warships. Unlike sailing ships, whose movement relied heavily on the wind’s power and direction, “steamers” could more easily return upriver after transporting goods to port or continue a journey with weak or adverse winds. By burning coal, paddlewheel or propeller-driven steamships achieved an unprecedented freedom of movement. Steam engines had existed before the nineteenth century, but Robert Fulton built the first steam-powered warship in 1815 for the US Navy. The first of these changes was the introduction of steam power. David Farragut at the Battle of Mobile Bay The screw sloop USS Hartford – flagship of Adm. In the words of one historian, a British captain who fought the Spanish Armada in 1588 "would have been more at home in the typical war-ship of 1840, than the average captain of 1840 could have been.in the advanced types of the Civil War." In the decade before the Civil War, however, major developments in naval technology – particularly in propulsion and artillery – forever changed the face of naval warfare. Conflicts in the “Age of Sail” were fought by wooden, sail-driven ships carrying as many cannon as possible, which would generally pummel each other until one of them became so damaged that it could not keep up the fight. USS Constitution defeating HMS Guerriere in the War of 1812įor centuries before the Civil War, large naval battles had not changed dramatically.