The Lebanon express. (Lebanon, Linn County, Or.) 1887-1898, 1891-05-29
THE ea1linc GUN.
Its Inventor Tells Of the First Order He
Ever 4seeeIraa.

Its inventor Tells OF the EtrBt Oruer he
Ever Received
The man who chats with DR.. II. j..
Calling of Hartford for an hour or
even half an hour says the New York
Times. comes to know the secret Of
the success which the famous Gatling
gun has achieved. The gun. is Of
course. a good one. but its excellence
alone is not the thing that has created
IA demand for IL in every civilized
country in the world. 1t may rather
be said that the irresistibleness of its
inventor has forced the sale OF this
talk with DIR. Calling five minutes
without acquiring an inclination 10
draw his wallet and buy as many of
the Gatling guns rs he can pay for,
and ii the doctor affects people in this
way whom he talks at with no other
wish than TO entertain them. what cam
not he do when he means business
when he goes a-gnnning?
The doctor is seventy-two years
old now. with suow-white hair aud
whiskers, but he can talk as fast. as
smoothly. as entertainiDgly, as per-
suasively as ever aud he is--to use a
good old Connecticut phrase-.'as keen
as ii briar.n Tall. straight gracefully
proportioned and of easy carriage. he
is also an interesting and pleasing per-
son to look upon.
I've devoted myself almost exelu-
sively to the Calling gun" said the
doctor. ..Fhe first Gatling guns !
made buiit in Cincinnati. There
were six OF them. aud they were no
sooner nicely made than they were
nearly destroyed by a fire. along with
all ms patterns Then | went to the
Indianapolis type foundry and placed
an order for thirteen gIus. and these,
as soon 40 lhes were done. | put in
the charge of man named McQueeney
and sent him off to Washington to sell
them When he got to Baltimore he
left all the guns except one. That one
he took along as sample.
''Old Gen. Ripley was at the head of
the bureau of ordnance. and he was
about the most perfect old fogy that
ever lived He refused Absolutely to
look at the gun. We don't want any
new-fangled guns. be said. The old
muzzle-loading masket is good enough.
That's whit Gen. Scott won the battle
of Lundy's lane with. and we don't
need anything better now. There's
nothing like handling the ramrod in
the face of the enemy to give men
courage and nerve No. sir; we don't
want anything issttnr than we've got
now"
.'dcQueeney started for home in
disgust. At Baltimore he met Gen.
Butler who was fastening to the front.
He showed the general the new gun.
aud the general said: What do you
ask for the lot?'
IA thousand dollars apiece. an
swered McQueeney.
sf t..1-
er:il. the whole outfit. aud give you a
voucher for tl,em.' He did it. too. al
though he hadn't any authority to
make the purchase.
Butler took tine guns south and
used them iH his next fight. The reb-
els didn't know what to make of them.
What kind of guns have you got
here. one of the prisoners asked, that
load all night and lire all day? Bnt-
ler used all of his ammunition in this
fight. and made a requisition for more,
bat he couldn't get ii. Stanton re-
fused absolutely TO allow il. He said
the gun had not been adopted by the
department. OF course that settled
the case.
.sWben the war was over my friends
told me to drop the gun business. but
I wouldn't | went to Washington
and asked for another firing. Ripley
wasn't there any more In his place
there was wide-awake man. Gen.
Dyer. Il man who wanted TO keep up
with the times. and he showed a great
interest in tlle Gatling gun. Through
him ultimately | obtaiRed an order for
the trial of the gun with canister car
tridges. in competition with howitzers.
at Fortress Monroe.
when got down to the place oil
trial found that some of the officers
had put up a job on me. They didn't
want my gun to do better work than
the howitzers. which were a regular
arm of the service. | fo and that to
work my gun they had assigned a lot
of plantation darkies. raw recruits just
in from the farm. who didn't know
any more about a gun than horse
does about his nncle- For the working
of the howitzers they had set apart
a number of picked men, 1 protested.
said l wanted a neasurably fair
deal.
Give me an hour said to drill
these darkies.'
That wasn't much time, but it was
better than nothing. They gave me
the hour. and | Immediately establish-
ed a school of gunnery and began the
work of educating my crew just be
fore the opening OF the trial gave
each darky dollar. 2ed said 10 them:
Now, do your best; this dollar is just
to begin on
Il tell You those fellows worked like
heroes. 1 beat the howitzers four to
one. and the report went on to Wash
ingtou TO that effect. Soon after / got
an order for 100 guns. and that was
the first good order / had ever re-
ceived. Since that time 1 have sold
the gun all over Europe, and should
have made great deal of money out
of it if each of the several governments
ordering had stuck to one caliber. The
many changes in the caliber which we
have been compelled to make have
been very expensive. / haven't doubl
that we have thrown away patterns
and machinery which cost us at lasi
$500, 900. changes in caliber having
made the patterns and machinery OBJ
sOlete and yaiuelessn