NOTES
~1861-1862 of testing
~Patented in 1865
~Orders from US, Russia, Turkey, Hungary, and many more.
~R.J. Gatling [Indianapolis, Indiana]
~Not big impact, very useful, jammed up a lot
~Remodeled and refitted new, sleek design at Cooper’s Firearms Manufactory in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
~Modern Variant{s}
IN 1862, R.J. GATLING, A RESIDENT OF INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA, CREATED THE WORLD’S FIRST RELIABLE, STURDY AND POWERFUL, MACHINE GUN, APPROPRIATELY NAMED THE GATLING GUN. THIS LOG IS SCAVENGED FROM MANY PAGES OF AN ADOLESCENT WHOM HELPED DR. GATLING AT THE TIME.
Chapter 1
FEBRUARY 22ND, 1862
"My name is Harold Marston. The date is February 22nd, 1862. I have recently turned 6 and 10 years old (16 years old) and I am visiting my friend, Doctor Gatling, in his workshop across town. He was ecstatic the other day, and stated I arrive at his barn immediately."
Harold walked out the door and took a left turn onto an old, drab dirt road, a very common sight in a growing America. Horses and buggies crossed every which way, waving and smiling citizens called out a greeting to Harold. The town of Indianapolis was small at the time. Not very many people had lived in it. Harold walked across the town, just as he wrote, and past two or there plantations, an amazing 6 miles! When he arrived, Dr. Gatling had greeted him outside.
“Harold! Welcome, my boy, welcome!” Shouted the Doctor.
“Hello, Richard. Say, what is this big news you’ve been talking about?”
“Oh, my boy, it’s only the greatest invention in all of time! Come! Come!” Smiled Richard as he motioned Harold into the barn. The barn was very untidy; there were cobwebs, dead insects, and an awful smell. In the center of the first floor, lay an oddly shaped object, covered in a white silk tarp.
“Ah hah. Here she is, Harold: the greatest contraption ever conceived by man.” Richard smiled.
“It all looks really quite intriguing, but, what is it?” Replied Harold.
“Harold, my boy, I give you- the Gatling Gun!” Said Richard as he pulled the tarp away.
Harold couldn’t believe it; there were two wheels, made of oak, holding up a colossal cylinder of steel, with six holes out the front. A crank-handle lay horizontally off the right side.
“My God! What is that?!” Shouted Harold in shock.
“This, Harold, is a multi-barrel automatic firing, mounted gun. Used for plowing down those Southern scum!” Replied Richard, ”I’ve already measured it: 1,200 rounds per minute! That’s 20 rounds per second!”
“Wow, this is very overwhelming.” Said Harold, in shock of disbelief and surprise.
“Quick! Let’s take it into town, and find a government fellow to patent it for us!”
“Sounds good!” Harold shouted.
The two inventors rolled the contraption to the outside of the barn, attached it to a rope, and attached the rope to two horses, whom carried it into town. Harold stood on an old milk carton, and prepared his speech:
“Ladies and Gentleman, of the wonderful city of Indianapolis! My name, is Richard Jordon Gatling. And with me today, my accomplice, and my successor, Harold, uh, Marston! We bring you good fortune today, in hopes of defeating the wretched place called the South. Harold, please, remove the tarp. As my successor is showing you now, I have created a weapon. A mass war machine, capable of firing 20 rounds per second!”
Murmurs and expressions of pleasure arose from the crowd.
“This weapon,” the Doctor continued, “will decimate the enemy, within a week!”
The crowd began to plummet towards the inventor, suffocating him with questions.
“How much will it cost?”
“Will you build more?”
“When will we see it in action?”
The crowd was very anxious to know the answers. All Richard could do was sit there and think of one answer.
“I plan to take it to Philadelphia, to Cooper’s Firearms Manufacturer. They will guide me through the next step towards victory!”
The crowd cheered, as Harold and Richard wheeled the war machine back to the barn. Once they reached the barn, the mosquitoes were beginning to come out, and night began to fall.
“Well, Dr. Gatling, I really must be heading home now.” Sighed Harold
“Okay, Harold! I will see you here in the morning. The break of dawn!” Shouted Richard from inside the barn.
“What do you mean?” Asked a confused Harold
“What do I mean? Harold! You are accompanying me to Cooper’s. We leave on horseback tomorrow!” Said Richard as he walked out of the barn.
“Doctor, I-I can’t. I must attend the schoolhouse, and feed the livestock. You can’t possibly expect me to-“
“I do and I will.” Interrupted the Doctor, “I will see you tomorrow.” He said as the barn doors slowly shut.
Harold let out a large sigh, and began to walk home. On the way, he walked past a fellow, who was heavy on drinking Bourbon and Scotch, two popular alcoholic beverages at the time. Harold had bumped into him, spilling the Bourbon.
“Hey! Watch where you’re walking.” Bellowed the man.
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry, sir. I didn’t see you there, in the dark.”
“Oh? Well, the name’s Clarence, Federal Bureau agent.”
“You work for the government?”
“Yeah. You got a problem with that?”
“No! No! It’s just, you seem so…so-“
“So what?”
“Never mind that, I must be going now.”
“Take your time, now!” Said Clarence, as he walked drunkenly away.
Chapter 2
Harold awoke the next morning, right before the sun came up. He got prepared in his finest silk suit, snuck out of his home via window, and met Dr. Gatling at the barn on the other side of Indianapolis. Again, Richard was waiting for him outside, with the gun already strapped to a pair of horses.
“Good morning, Harold. Let’s begin, Philadelphia is a long ways away.”
“Okay, can we just go now?”
Harold and Richard climbed aboard the wagon, and began to travel Southeast. The sun shone high above Lake Erie later that day. Unfortunately, Harold had no idea of the temperature that day. It was a scorching 102o, and he wore a heavy silk suit. Brown polyester did not help keep the sunlight out, either. The horses became worn out by the obscene weight of the gun. They stopped for a drink and Harold bathed in a nearby stream. After a refreshing swim, they were on their way again. It became close to nightfall when they reached Akron, Ohio. They parked outside a saloon/Hotel, and spent the night there.
Yet another morning came, when the Doctor and Harold awoke to the sound of clackity-clackity-clack. Harold knew these sounded like horse hooves. He looked out the window, only to see their buggy being taken down the street! Harold rushed to Richard’s room, and they got out of the hotel, carrying loose luggage and clothing.
“Stop! Thief!” Screamed Gatling
“Hey! Give it back!” Yelled Harold.
But they were too late, and the buggy had continued on, down the trail.
“What now?” Asked Harold
“We return home.” Replied a disappointed Doctor.
The two began to walk down main street as the sun rose over a cantina. Not much time passed, before Harold and Richard heard cries of help. Reluctantly, they investigated the source.
“Help! Help! Those men just took my horse! Can you get it back for me, please?”
“Of course,” said Harold, “which way did they go?”
“That way, towards Philly!” Said the stranger, as he pointed Southeast.
“We’ll be right back.”
“Bless you, sirs! Bless you!” Said the man, as he waited by a tree.
Harold and Richard had soon traveled for at least an hour, before they spotted a large, black mass some 400 yards down the trail. There were 4 horses, surrounding a centrifuge wagon, carrying many belongings that clearly weren’t theirs.
“Stop there! Stop, I say!” Screamed Richard.
“Doc, they’re not gonna’ stop!”
“Let’s see if they can handle- this!” Said the doctor, as he pulled out a nickel-plated revolver.
“Doc! What are you gonna’ do with that? Shoot them?”
“No! No, just some warning shots!”
*Bang!*
*Zing!*
*Wham!*
Went the bullets. One lucky shot, the last one in the chamber, hit the wagon wheel, spiraling it out of control.
“We got him,” Said the doctor, smiling, “Come, let’s go!”
They stopped right in front of the wagon, only to find it was completely abandoned! Harold and Richard had found nothing but a tarp on the wagon, made of silk.
“Harold! Harold, look! It’s the gun, Harold! The gun!” Shouted the doctor with glee.
“Excellent! We had better get going back to tell the man his horse was never here.”
“No, we must continue. The weapon expo is in three days! Hurry, Harold!”
Harold helped the doctor onto the wagon, as they continued down the trail…
To be continued…
MODERN VARIANT(S)
The M134 “Micro-gun” is the Modern Variant of the Gatling gun. Able to fire M193 5.56 x 45 mm NATO Hollow-Point Cartridges at a rate of 2000 to 6000 rounds per minute, this often used military weapon is most commonly found strapped to the sides of multiple fixed-wing aircraft and military helicopters around the world. It has six barrels for firing: One barrel fires, two others are in different stages of shell extraction and another three are being loaded. Its earlier variants, the XM214 Chaingun and the M61 Vulcan, were capable of firing at an adjustable rate of 1000 RPM to a dumbfounding 10,000 RPM. U.S. Special Forces equipped the minigun as an option during Desert Storm, but cut it due to the portable issues. If one were to carry a personal minigun holding 1000 rounds that would weigh in at 65lbs., then with the proper arithmetic, those 1000 rounds could be shot and emptied in a short, constant 16 seconds.
RICHARD JORDAN GATLING
Richard Jordon Gatling was an inventor, fisherman, clerk, and shopkeeper until he founded the Gatling Gun company and Manufacturer in 1862. Richard had over 48 patents, including his most famous, the Gatling Gun. He was born on September 12th, 1818, and died on February 26th, 1903. In 1911, the US military declared his machine-gun “obsolete”. Gatling was elected as the first president of the American Association of Inventors and Manufacturers in 1891, serving for six years.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
E. Frank Stephenson, Jr. "The Gatling Gun." 24 October 2006. The North Carolinian Museum of History. 29 March 2011
McSherry, P. (n.d.). The Gatling Gun. Retrieved 4 1, 2011, from Spanam War: http://www.spanamwar.com/Gatling.htm
Hamill, J. (1998). Richard Jordan Gatling. Retrieved Avril 4, 2011, from Free Masonry: http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/biography/gatling_r/gatling_r.html
