Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1873-04-09
TENNESSEE MITRAILLfUsE.
EXTRAORDINARY EXPERIMENTS IN
-.... ARTILLERY.
Twelve Hundred Shots in Sixty Seconds
An American Engine OF Death.

Twelve Hundred Shots in Sixty Seconds
An'American Engine OF Death,
Some interesting experiments. are now
being made with new mitrailleuse gun,
invented by Col. James p. Taylor, of Fast
Tennessee, at Sands Point on the Sound,
The gun left the machine shop only two
weeks ago, and the experiments which
have been made with il at Sands Point i'm
volley and rattle firing, have fully realized
the inventors sT'ic' .,..ivus.
An attache of this paper, in conjunction
with party of New York journalists, was
present last evening when these experi-
ments were made by General Wilder, of
Chattanooga, Mr.. Daniel Hockett, Colonel
Taylor, the inventor, and Mr.. Hosl1e, the
machinist of the gun. We were quite I'M
prepared for the wonderful rapidity and
variety of firing which this deadly piece
of mechanism can accomplish. The con-
struction of the mitrailleuse is in itself
simple. The idea, of course, being found
in the French mitrailleuse, or rather its
antecedent, from which the French them
selves borrowed, the American Gattling
gun.
The great defects of both the French mi
trailleuse and the Gattling gun, was that
the fire was not scattered over an area
large enough to be effective, and that all
the barrels could not be discharged stimuli
taneously, and that the barrels became red
hot and practically useless after the gun
was discharged few times.
All these defects are remedied by Col.
Taylor in the arm now under trial at
Sands Portland in this way Twenty
four barrels, of fOrty-four calibre a little
smaller than the regular army rifle bore
fifty are grouped together in cylindri-
cal chamber of brass in sucha way that the
e IL
while at the breach they are perfectly clip
teal. This angulation of the barrels from
the receiving chambers, in which the cart
ridges are placed, which is scarcely per-
ceptible to the eye at distance of three
hundred yards, throws the balls over an
elongated elipse the long diameter ofwhich
is twenty-four feet, and as the distance is
increased the area covered varies in pro-
portion. The brass chamber in which the
barrels are placed is filled with water when
the firing is rapid, and the barrels can not
possibly become ineffectively hot, whilst
by turn of a little screw at the breach
broadside of twenty-four guns can be dis
charged by the regulation of a single lever.
This main lever, by simple combination
of sevens, is connected with ejecting rods,
and at one compound movement revolves
the chambers, locks the breach, charges all
the barrels and discharges the shell cart
ridges of the previous volley.
Last evening this formidable instru-
ment, which can be drawn by a man at Il
run, if necessary, was placed on the piazza
of Dunspaugh's Hotel, at Sands Point,
and, in the presence of number of news
paper men, twelve hundred shots were dis
charged from it in one minute. At q dis
lance of one hundred yards from the hotel
Il target, twelve feet by six, was completely
riddled with balls. When the whole
broadside was discharged the report was
not much louder than that of an ordinary
rifle, and has absolutely no recoil, not even
a perceptible shake of the gun carriage.
At night, when the barrels We're discharged
in quick succession, perfect stream of fire
issued from the muzzle, and the effect was
curious and beautiful. The proprietors
have engaged the splendid hotel from Mr..
Dunspaugh, the genial proprietor, for a
few days, and the natives watch the bullets
plough up the waters of the Sound from
morning until night with undated Curl
osity. Gen. Wilder, Commissioner from
the State of Tennessee TO the Vienna Ex-
position, will carry the gun along with him,
as we'll as simplified instrument. which
Col. Taylor says will be finished in six
weeks, and which will have only "a third
of the combinations of the present weapon.
Evening Telegram.