Many of the devices created or re-devised were battle-related. Some of the best were ironclad ships, double-barrel cannon (that didn't work well), balloons as areal reconnaissance, machine guns (gatling), and submarines (first working). The machinery were primitive, but most were not complete failures, if they succeeded even one time in their primary mission to which they intended. Of course, even in failures, people would go back to the drawing board and rework the design, and try it again in war, or make a use for it outside of war, such in the case of the ironclads that were later made into ocean liners such as the Titanic. Can you think of other inventions during this time? How were they later used?
The first invention which comes to mind is the last. This is something which most everyone has benefitted, the last. It makes your shoes and boots fit better, the use of the last. The LAST is the form upon which coblers built shoes. The need for large numbers of footwear rapidly lead to factory mass assembly techniques which in turn lead to the differenciation of left and right shoes.
I have no idea what you are talking about when you keep saying "last", but mass production of shoes most likely did not happen until well after the Civil War. I say this for a few reasons. First off, who would have been available to work in these factories during war? You could say the women, but they had to take care of the farm duties the men used to do, plus the work they did before (house-tending, children, and sewing, for example). Mass-producing ANYTHING did not really take place until the invention of the assembly line, which we all know was created by Henry Ford, some 40 or years later.
The name for the form used by professional cobblers to make shoes is "the Last". It is made of Iron, generally. The name of the paddle used by bakers to put bread to bake is "the Peal". Different tools have different names. Sometimes words have more than one meaning.
