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Battle of Fair Oaks |
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Today in the month the of May Fair Oaks, Virginia the average temperature on a
day would be 66 degrees Fahrenheit So during this battle the terrain that they were fighting on was damp making any movement difficult for anybody and it was also very muddy. The mud was a great factor in the battle.
Torpedoes (Landmines)
Many thought back then that these Torpedoes as both land and water mines were
improper to the conduct of war. Even though they had sunk 29 ships and damaged 14
others. They thought that these inexpensive way to destroy The Americans were the first nation to develop and use operational land mines. General Gabriel Rains experimented with booby traps while leading troops against the Indians in Florida in 1840. Next he ordered histroops to make some artillery shells so that they can explode by tripping a wire or by being stepped on and that was in 1862. Then on May 4, 1862 a horse rider on a road leading to Yortown activated the first pressure-operated landmine and was the first one to be killed by it. So Gabriel's land torpedoes were mainly used to defend fortifications. His marine torpedoes, contributed far more to the Confederacy's defense than did all the vessels of the Confederate Navy. (The mine on the top left was used for sinking ships and the mine on the bottom right was used for land.)
Topograph This was the troop positions of the Union and the Confederates Armies. You can see that Confederates were the first ones to attack, but the Union Army won this battle(Learn more at the Historian Page). The terrain that they fought on wasn't really tough. It was pretty flat and there were some hills, but the weather before the battle made movement of both troops difficult.
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May 31, 1862 was a gray and humid day. The heavy rain of last evening
had stopped and soon the sun would soon make and appearance. The Chickaominy River
lowlands were entirely flooded making any sort of movement painfully difficult. Even
thought the conditions were bad the night before, they still planed to fight.
and the average precipitation in the
month would be 3.8 inches. In June the average temperature would be 74 degrees Fahrenheit
and the average precipitation would be 3.6 inches. So this was probably the weather
conditions during the time of the battle.
The
devices designed to explode on target contact were floating mines first used by the
US Confederate Navy in 1861. These mines were used during the Civil War. They used
them during the Battle of Williamsburg 1862. They consisted of a steel tank, 122
cm (4 feet) X 91.4 cm (3 feet) broad, and 25 cm (10 inches) deep, which contained
scrap metal. The receptacle for the charge was a case of sheet iron with a heavy
base, and a strong cap of cast iron connected together by a stout spindle. When the
charge exploded, the light sides of the case were blown out, and the top, which was
retained in its place by the spindle and base, gave a horizontal direction to the
contents of the tank.
a expensive warship,
was genius.
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