It was akin to shooting fish in a barrel. The Hoosiers of the 45th Illinois were pinned down in a crater that June 25, 1862, the result of a Union mine used in an attempt to blow up a section of the Rebel works at Vicksburg. The Federal attack had faltered in the reeking pit, and the Confederates had taken the opportunity to hurl ad hoc hand grenades, modified artillery shells, down up the helpless Yankees. A Union officer reported that "the enemy…with their hand-grenades render it difficult for our working parties to remain in the crater at all. The wounds inflicted by those missiles are frightful."

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While artillery shells were pressed into service during that incident, there were several varieties of Civil War grenades made specifically for their purpose. Some had an almost cartoonish appearance, with fins for aerodynamics and plungers for detonating. Others looked like deadly bocce balls. But though the grenades used by the Blue and the Gray were far from perfect—some were as dangerous to the thrower as they were to the intended target—a variety of improvised and purpose-built grenades were hurled and used in combat in numerous battles.

Grenades had been used in battle for hundreds of years before the Civil War, and were well known to the military men of the 1860s. In his 1861 Military Dictionary, Colonel Henry Lee Scott described a grenade as "small shell about 2-inches in diameter, which, being set on fire by means of a short fuze and cast among the enemy's troops causes great damage by its explosion." For troops attacking fortifications, Scott recommended the use of "blindages," a French term for armored shields, as protection from grenades.

Colonel Scott suggested that forts be amply supplied with grenades, and the weapons often were staples of garrison armament. At Fort Sumter hand grenades were distributed at critical points during the 1861 siege, including the room over the gateway, to use against a storming party. Captain John G. Foster reported that he had made "complete arrangements for using shells and grenades over the parapet." The Confederate bombardment exploded some of the grenade piles.

By 1862, grenades were being used in land warfare. In May, the commander of the 37th Ohio Infantry claimed his men were attacked by Confederates armed with grenades, and Colonel George H. Gordon of the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry reported that grenades thrown by civilians from houses in Winchester, Va., killed and wounded his soldiers as they retreated through the town that same month. In April Confederate Brig. Gen. Daniel H. Hill requested that a supply of grenades be sent to his men defending the Virginia Peninsula.

Hand grenades were frequently used during the summer of 1863 at the twin sieges of Port Hudson and Vicksburg. Following the 1862 capture of New Orleans, Rebels fortified Port Hudson, situated atop an 80-foot bluff on a bend in the Mississippi River and surrounded by deep ravines, in a desperate attempt to keep the river open between northern Louisiana and Vicksburg as an avenue to the trans-Mississippi Confederacy. In May 1863, Maj. Gen. General Nathaniel Banks' army of more than 30,000 men moved north from New Orleans to attack Port Hudson, which, although well fortified, was garrisoned by only around 6,800 Confederates under Maj. Gen. Franklin Gardner. Banks' goal was to overrun Port Hudson and proceed up the river to join forces with Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's force besieging Vicksburg. On May 27, Banks launched an all-out assault on the miles of earthworks surrounding Port Hudson. It failed miserably.

In preparation for a second attack, Banks ordered 500 hand grenades from Admiral David G. Farragut, requesting that they "be accompanied, if you please, by an officer who can explain to our men their proper management." The U.S. Navy seems to have been the place to go for grenades on the Mississippi, because ships were routinely issued a generous supply to repel potential boarders. In April 1862, Colonel Charles Ellett requested nine cases of "parapet hand-grenades, such as would be most convenient for throwing over a bulwark, to clear the bows of the steamer in case of boarding" for his fleet of ramming ships. In February 1863, Acting Rear Adm. David D. Porter advised one of his captains to "keep your pilot-house well supplied with hand-grenades, &c., in case the enemy should get on your upper decks."

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