Joseph Requa and built in late 1861 by the Billinghurst Company of Rochester, New York, it revived the old Ribauld or Ribauldequin principle of the Organ Gun but was breech-loading rather than muzzle loading. But they did show interest in the Billinghurst-Requa Battery Gun. By the time of the American Civil War the Army was in no mood for new-fangled gun developments. military, always slow on the uptake, reverted back to the concept of volley fire after the Army’s disastrous first official attempt to introduce a repeating shoulder weapon using the Colt Revolving Rifle that caused many serious injuries to soldiers using it when, due to a faulty cap, or a gas leak, caused the other chambers to ignite resulting in lost hands and limbs. At each advancement of ignition, from percussion cap to paper cartridge to metallic cartridge, gun makers were in lockstep with new mechanical developments, designing machine tools to make their mechanical ideas a reality.

This was a radical development that set in motion the Machine Age that enabled the use of machine tools to produce advancements in light, power, heat, all modern transportation, electric communication, agricultural machinery, textiles, paper mills, printing, all the instruments used in every science, etc.: everything that ultimately affected everyone’s daily lives.

The Navy used the Gatling gun in the ‘fighting tops’ of man-of war ships.Ĭoncurrently within this time period, it was the gun makers who took the concept and perfected the use of machine tools, particularly in New England, to speed up and economize on weapon production.

1862 gatling gun blueprints