A Think Quest 99' Project

Weapons

The Gatling Gun

Possibly the weapon whose invention had the greatest impact on the future of war was the Gatling gun. Like the Williams rapid fire gun, it's barrel rotated around a single shaft. Unlike the Williams, it had six individual barrels, capable of sweeping the field of a hard-charging enemy, leveling them in seconds. It also did not posses the major drawback of the Williams; that of overheating. The inventor was rather unique in that he was a doctor, Dr. Richard J. Gatling of North Carolina. He invented the weapon to curb man's desire for war by making a device which would make war too horrible to contemplate. While perhaps a good doctor, he was a poor psychologist, as human beings love to have items of mass killing such as this. Dr. Gatling had problems with his invention however. The Union War Department did not trust the Southern inventor and the 'Gatling gun' was not really put to a field test until Petersburg, too late in the war to play any major role. It served as a 'blue-print' for the modern machinegun and is in use even today in a modified form (the mini-gun).

Back to Weapons

The Machine Gun

The first machine-gun type weapon ever used in combat was built for the Confederate War Dept in Sept 1861 by Confederate Captain R.S. Williams. The Williams breech-loading rapid-fire gun was first used at the Battle of Seven Pines (May 1862) and worked so well that the War Dept ordered 42 more of them. The gun was actually a crank-operated, very light artillery piece that fired a one-pound (1.57 calibre) projectile with a range of 2,000 yards. The gun operated by a lever attached to a revolving cam shaft, which rotated a cylinder. Each time the cylinder turned, a cartridge was dropped into the breech and a sliding hammer struck the cartridge's percussion cap. It was manned by a crew of three and could fire at a rate of 65 rounds per minute. One operator aimed and fired the weapon by turning the crank, the second placed a paper cartridge into the breech, and the third placed the percussion cap. The major problem with this gun was overheating, which made the breech jam due to heat expansion.

Back to Weapons