When I was a little kid, walking up Broadway in New York City with my father and best friend Ron, I saw something in a store window on lower Broadway that made me stop immediately. What attracted me was a small Gatling gun, probably a police model. It was $150 if I recall, a price far beyond my range in 1954. I went into the store, Bannerman’s, and found a venue of dusty glory. Between then and the few years the company maintained a retail store presence in the city, I bought a lot of stuff: original percussion cap boxes for fifty cents, McKeever .45-70 cartridge boxes for forty cents. Ah, those were the days!
As if being commanded by one of the most colorful figures in all of America wasn’t enough for Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, they also had the distinction of carrying into battle four .30-40 caliber Model 1895 Gating guns as well as the first two belt fed, full automatic machine guns ever used by the United States Army in battle. This gun, serial number 1040 was one of Roosevelt’s original four Gatlings used to provide covering fire at the Battle of San Juan Hill, July 1, 1898.
The first Gatling gun, a handcranked machine gun prototype, was invented by Dr. Richard J. Gatling during the American Civil War. The gun was patented November 4, 1862, No. 36,836. The weapon consisted of multiple barrels revolving around a central axis and capable of being fired at a rapid rate. Gatling, interviewed late in life at the turn of the last century, commented on his creation to a reporter. The inventor said he was moved to invent the gun by the idea that while “it might kill more men with bullets, it would preserve many more from death by disease,” apparently because it would shorten the war.
Gatling went on to detail his
by Joe Bilby
experience in convincing the government to purchase his weapon, a difficult task when the man you had to convince was Ordnance Chief Brigadier General James W. Ripley.
According to Gatling, things did not start well for his “ten guns in one.” He had five guns made at a factory in Indianapolis and then “spent much time and money” inventing a cartridge that could be used in his invention. Unfortunately, by the time he had developed a cartridge, the factory where his five guns were made and stored burned down, destroying the weapons.
Subsequently, Gatling had twelve guns made in Cincinnati and transported them to Washington, where the inventor presented them to General Ripley for testing and possible acquisition. Gatling recalled that his guns “did not shoot lead but simply poured it into a target.” Ripley, more interested in getting the latest model rifle musket in the hands of Union infantrymen, was not impressed. According to Gatling, the general called the guns “mechanical freaks” and advised Gatling that “This was the time for the employment of practical things, experiments would have to wait until the war was over.”
Fortunately for Gatling, Ripley was removed as Chief of Ordnance in late 1863. General Benjamin Butler was in Washington at the time, looked the guns over, saw one shoot, and asked the inventor: “What do you want for them guns?” Gatling answered: Twelve thousand dollars’ and the portly general answered with “They’re bought.”
Butler, a political general not known for his military prowess, was a creative thinker but did not have a good sense of tactical employment. Although Gatling gave a vague account of his guns being used in battle by Butler, he deployed them in artillery positions during the siege of Petersburg.
August 2020
Gatling provided his turn of the century interviewer with a vague description of the guns in action, adding that an unnamed Confederate prisoner asked: “What in the ---- kind of guns are those Butler is using that he loads all night and shoots all day.”
A differing account comes from soldiers of the 4th New Jersey Artillery (aka Battery D). Assigned to Ben Butler’s Army of the James in 1864, the battery was assigned to defend a position along the line where the Army of the James was bottled up in Bermuda Hundred. One day General Butler brought one of his privately purchased Gatling guns to the 4th’s position in Battery Marshall, a place of honor in the Union lines. The Gatling’s muzzle was pushed through an embrasure, and Butler himself turned the crank and fired about 200 bullets towards the Confederate lines. The only visible effect, according to the Jersey gunners, was the blizzard of musket balls the Rebels fired in response, which wounded several Jerseymen.
Soldiers began to get a grasp on the tactical use of the Gatling gun in the years ahead. Many ended up being issued to the American militia, including that of New Jersey, which replaced its artillery with Gatling batteries. Although George Armstrong Custer thought, perhaps to his final regret, the Gatlings were too bulky to be useful in his final campaign. Whether they would have been a critical factor in saving the 7th Cavalry is something we will never know.
In 1898, Lieutenant John Parker, a Gatling battery commander in Cuba, used the guns for what appeared to be their best role on the offensive. Firing supporting suppressive fire on Spanish positions on San Juan Hill enabled Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders and the 10th US Cavalry to close with the enemy. Although replaced by actual machine guns by World War I, the multi-barrel concept survives in today’s “rotary cannons.”
Joseph G. Bilby received his BA and MA degrees in history from Seton Hall University and served as a lieutenant in the 1st Infantry Division in 1966–1967. He is Assistant Curator of the New Jersey National Guard and Militia Museum, a freelance writer and historical consultant and author or editor of 21 books and over 400 articles on N.J. and military history and firearms. He is also publications editor for the N.J. Civil War 150 Committee and edited the award winning New Jersey Goes to War. His latest book, New Jersey: