THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
421 
wheels, and in each seven small brass and leather cannon charged with 
case.”* 
For some two centuries from that date, we hear little more of many- 
barrelled guns, until the Crimean War woke up the spirit of destructive 
invention. The science of mechanism had made gigantic strides since 
the 17th century, and although metallic cartridges were not yet used, 
rifling had come into vogue. 
In 1853, Mr. S. A. Goddard invented a rifle battery of 36 barrels, 
combined together and mounted on wheels. Later on, Sir J. Scott 
Lillie and others brought to the notice of Government several natures 
of compound guns, on frames or wheels. None of these inventions 
were considered applicable for general service, nor was it until the 
great Secession War in America of 1860 that machine guns were again 
used in the field. 
An engine of war, called a Requa rifle battery, was employed at the 
siege of Charleston. It consisted of 25 rifled barrels, each 2 ft. long, 
arranged horizontally on an iron frame upon a field carriage, and it 
weighed altogether about 1400 lbs. It could fire at the rate of 175 
shots per minute.f 
General Gilmore, commanding U.S. forces, reported with regard to 
this weapon :—“ I feel quite satisfied that it is adapted to the defence 
of earthworks, particularly in a flat country like this, where the hori¬ 
zontal line of dispersion afforded by the fire of this piece is more 
effective than the cone of dispersion of the howitzer.” 
Notwithstanding this report, they did not come into favour, and 
machine guns, somewhat resembling the Gatling, exhibited to General 
McClellan (when before Richmond, in 1862) were contemptuously 
called “coffee grinders,” and never brought to the front. Their 
mechanism was still imperfect, while the wooded country in which most 
of the .fighting took place was not suited for their employment. 
Otherwise, the Americans would certainly have made more use of them 
in that war—a war in which, as Rossel says, “ each new means was tried, 
every old one had its turn ; where, as soon as an operation of war was 
known and appreciated, its use was pushed to an extreme.” J 
Subsequently to 1860, many new machine guns were brought to the 
notice of our War Office— e.g ., those of Colonel Martin, 4th King's 
Own, in 1860; of Mr. Palmer, U.S., and General Yandenburgh, also 
an American, in 1862-3; of Mr. Dupuis, and Captain Warlow, R.A., in 
1866. Though some were ingenious, none of these machines were 
worth much experiment. 
In 1869, the question of such weapons was seriously taken up by 
different nations. The United States Government ordered 100 Gatling 
guns, to be used for flank defences, and occasionally as field artillery j 
* Clarendon, p. 522, quoted by Lieut. Hime, R.A*, in his “ Eield Artillery of the Great Rebellion.’’ 
(“Proceedings R.A. Institution,” Vol. VI., p. 301)* 
The nature of tube was no doubt copied from the leather and brass field guns employed by 
Gustavus Adolphus, under whom many Scotchmen fought in the Thirty Years’ War. 
f Eor a full description of this weapon, vide Owen’s “ Modern Artillery,” p. 296 s 
j The “Art of War,” by L. Ns Rossel, Captain of Engineers; 
