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A Canadian may have invented the Civil War’s best fieldpiece. All sorts of new weapons were developed during the Civil War. Breechloading rifles, repeating rifles, and metal-cased ammunition all made their mark on battlefields. But such innovations were not limited to small arms. One inventor in particular, Norman Wiard, developed a number of cannons and boat howitzers that incorporated new ideas. Two fieldpieces that he developed, a 6-pounder rifle and a 12-pounder smoothbore, were particularly ingenious and innovative.