Battles & Wars › Industrial wars › Machine gun (Maxim gun)
Gatling gun
patented November 1862· Invention or discovery· Weapons, armor & warships
Well documentedSolid records, physical evidence or scientific consensus.
A hand-cranked gun with a ring of rotating barrels, usually six to ten, patented by American doctor Richard Gatling in November 1862.
See it on the Battles & Wars map →What happened
Richard Gatling, a North Carolina-born doctor living in Indianapolis, patented his gun in 1862. Turning a crank spun a ring of barrels; each barrel loaded, fired and ejected once per turn, fed by gravity from a magazine on top. Early models fired about 200 rounds a minute, later ones several hundred. It saw little Civil War use, but the US Army adopted it in 1866, with Colt building it. Gatlings fought in colonial wars and in Cuba in 1898.
Why it matters
It was the first rapid-fire gun that armies widely bought, proving machines could multiply a few men's firepower. Its rotating-barrel idea returned, power-driven, in today's jet-fighter cannon and miniguns.
Think of it like
Like a revolving door: each barrel takes its turn at the firing position, then swings away to reload and cool.
How we know
Gatling's 1862 US patent, US Army ordnance contracts from 1866, Colt production records, surviving guns in museums, and reports from campaigns in Zululand, Sudan and Cuba.
Still debated
Gatling said he hoped such a gun would shrink armies and so save lives. Whether he truly believed it, or said it to sell guns, cannot be known.
Connections (3)
▸Gatling gun was the hand-cranked forerunner of the Machine gun (Maxim gun)Well documented
The connection
The Gatling needed a man turning a crank and several barrels. Hiram Maxim's 1884 gun used the energy of each shot's recoil to load and fire the next, so one water-cooled barrel fired continuously while the trigger was held. It was lighter and more reliable, and by 1911 the US Army had declared its Gatlings obsolete.
When and how
Gatling, Indianapolis and Hartford, from 1862; Maxim, an American working in London, 1883–84; both guns sold worldwide.
How we know
Patents and army adoption records show the sequence; Maxim knew of earlier rapid-fire guns, including the Gatling, and set out to beat them.
Debates and open questions
Whether the Gatling counts as the first 'machine gun' depends on definition; earlier volley guns and crank guns also claim the title.
▸Gatling gun was turned on African armies in the Colonial conquest of Africa (Scramble for Africa)Well documented
The connection
British forces took Gatlings to colonial wars in Africa. At Ulundi in 1879 they fired from the British square that broke the Zulu army. In Sudan in 1885 a jammed crank gun at Abu Klea, actually a Gardner, inspired the poem line 'The Gatling's jammed and the Colonel dead.' Prone to jams, they gave way to the Maxim.
When and how
Ulundi, Zululand, July 4, 1879; Abu Klea, Sudan, January 17, 1885; British army and Royal Navy gun crews.
How we know
British dispatches and officers' accounts record Gatlings at Ulundi and other battles; Henry Newbolt's 1892 poem preserved the Abu Klea jam.
Debates and open questions
How many casualties Gatlings caused is unknown; rifles and artillery did most of the killing, and jams often limited them.
▸Colt's Hartford armory manufactured the Gatling gunWell documented
The connection
Gatling's first guns were made in Cincinnati, where a factory fire destroyed early models. In 1866 the US Army ordered 100 improved Gatlings, built at Colt's Hartford armory, whose machine tools and interchangeable parts suited precise mass production. Colt went on making Gatlings for the US and foreign armies until the gun was retired.
When and how
Hartford, Connecticut, from 1866; Richard Gatling's Gatling Gun Company and Colt's Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Company.
How we know
Army ordnance contracts and surviving guns stamped with Colt's name.
Debates and open questions
Total Colt output is uncertain, since Gatlings were also built under license abroad, as by Armstrong in Britain, and copied in Russia.