CHAPTER 20: Machine Guns—Masterworks or Monstrosities?

The origin of rapid fire weapons equal to the machine gun of the paper cartridge era is lost in antiquity. There are Biblical references to weapons shooting many arrows, and Leonardo da Vinci, millenia later, planned a device of that class of arm known as orgue des bombards, or organ of bombards (small guns). In the ordinary “organ” of the late medieval ages, a row of barrels was placed parallel, or with breeches converging, to be fired by a single touch of the match in a volley. Tactically, this primitive device and the “machine guns” used by the North in 1862 were virtually identical in purpose.
The machine gun as employed by regular forces was looked upon as a “fortress or flank defense gun,” a sort of large buckshot cannon to be placed within the outer defences of a fortress, and turned loose in the event enemy soldiers breached the walls. The orgue des bombards of the Middle Ages was such an arm, intended for use inside the castle outer wall or at the head of steps, to sweep it clear.
Not until the development of Dr. Gatling’s gun began during the Civil War did a sense of the field and attack values of the machine gun occur to modern military men. Even then, the principles of the old “orgue” kept their sights limited, although the original purpose of the volley gun was to serve a defense need vital in the America of 1860. Today, full comprehension of that first role of the American machine gun is held only by the historical buffs who preserve the lore and artifact of old covered bridges. But in 1860, to keep storms from scaring horses through guard rails, nearly every bridge was covered and dark inside. To suit this situation, gunmaker Billinghurst at the behest of inventor Requa resurrected the orgue des bombards.

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The Gatling Gun

Ager, Williams, Vandenberg, these have faded into history. The repeating gun most remembered from the war, and yet one which had a very confusing record of use therein, is that of Dr. Richard Jordan Gatling. I had the pleasure of witnessing how effectively Dr. Gatling had builded when I attended a meeting of the American Ordnance Association at Aberdeen the fall of 1957 . Mounted on a testing stand was a small bundle of barrels, dwarfed in seeming firepower by the huge cannon flanking it. But when the gunner pushed the button and that mighty mite whirred into action with a high-pitched snarling roar so rapidly that no individual explosions could even be sensed, I knew I had witnessed not only the world’s fastest-firing machine gun, and the world’s heaviest gun in weight of metal fired (a ton and a half in one minute), but a gun that was directly inspired by the Civil War special artillery General Butler bought from Dr. Gatling. First of Gatling’s guns was bulky wheeled carriage “c...

CHAPTER 6 Rifle Muskets: Civil War Scandals

You place me in a most embarrassing position, Mr. Secretary. How is that, Mr. Wilkeson? the gaunt-faced Penn sylvanian queried, the lines of his expression amplified by the fatigue and, somewhat, disappointment with which he laid down his role as Secretary of War for Mr. Lincoln. Because, Mr. Cameron, the newspaperman re sponded, your contract for rifle muskets with the Eagle Manufacturing Company of Mansfield, Connecticut is for only 25,000 arms, and my friends there, whom I induced to engage in this business in expectation of your issuing a further order, as your assistant Mr. Scott assured me you would, will be sorely embarrassed in their operations on this small amount. Indeed this is bad news to me, Mr. Wilkeson, War Secretary Simon Cameron sympathetically observed, as he stuffed papers from his desk drawer into a large portfolio, scanning them briefly, consigning some to the waste basket. But as you can see, I am leaving office today; I believe Mister Stanton, who repla...

French and Belgian Arms

French and Belgian materiel was considered next best to the Enfields, though the types and calibers were more varied than either Enfield or Austrian Lorenz arms. Basic pattern for the best rifles of both France and Belgium was the “carabine” of Captain Minie. Minie’s designs had exerted profound changes in the world’s small arms armament. That change was ably summed up by lexicographer Thomas Wilhelm after the War when he prepared his military dictionary. Said Wilhelm, “Minie Rifle. A species of fire-arm, invented by Capt. Minie, from whom it receives its name. It is certain in aim, and fatal in its results at 800 yards.” The claim was, if anything, inferior to the real capability of the Minie rifle. France in 1861 possessed a surplus of many arms. During the 1840 ’s the temporary procurement of guns designed by Thouvenin, Pontchara, Minie, and others kept the arsenals busy and the soldiers active testing them. Then came the Crimean War and France’s involvement on the side of Gr...

Civil War Guns

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