A War of 1812 "Gatling Gun"

The age of modern firepower was heralded by the introduction of the Gatling Gun, a multi-barrelled repeating gun. During the American race to produce arms for its smaller army and navy for the war with Great Britain, many inventors came up with new experimental weapons for the war. One of the most obscure but perhaps most powerful of these was the multi-barrelled Chambers Gun, patented by its creator gunsmith Joseph Chambers in 1814.

Before the key components of modern repeating firearms were developed (the percussion primer and the all-metal cartridge, although these were combined to make a modern gun as early as 1812!), many inventors attempted to build multiple shot firearms. They mainly used two methods: multiple barrels and multiple charges in the same barrel. The first method is self-explanatory, but the first requires some explanation.

When you load a muzzleloader, it's usually bad news to have more than one round in the barrel. Most explosions or failures in the gun barrel result from the difference in pressure created by having another object in the bore. Double charging is thus a recipe for making your gun into a handheld pipe bomb. Gunmakers from the 14th century on, though, sought to turn this tragic mistake into a useful weapon. They learned how to carefully load powder charges and bullets on top of each other. With a tightly-fitting round ball, the explosive energy of the top charge behaves as if the second ball were the breech. Then, either a second priming pan and touch hole are activated or the second charge is set off with delayed effect, kind of like a roman candle.

That these kind of weapons were never popular is a sign of how dangerous and inconvenient to use they must have been. There was simply no advantage of having a repeating firearm that made the laborious loading procedures and expensively crafted mechanisms worthwhile. A small bore artillery piece charged with grapeshot or canister could get the same effect, and could be reloaded much faster and with less care.

Joseph Chambers' inventions were developed for the US Navy during the War of 1812. His centerpiece was the powerful swivel gun, a seven-barreled .75 caliber gun that could fire 224 shots. The shots came out of the seven barrels in sequence, so that the infernal machine could be mounted on a frigate's fighting top and swept along the decks.

What was the secret of the Chambers gun? Basically, the seven barrels were fixed together like a Gatling gun. Each barrel was loaded with multiple charges of powder and round balls. These balls are much closer to the actual size of the bore than musket balls, and are also patched with an animal membrane. Each has a hole bored through the center containing a small amount of priming. No wonder Chambers sent his sons along with to the US Navy to act as technical advisors-- any misloading of these guns would certainly have resulted in disaster!

The first charge is set off by a flintlock set about halfway down the gun, connected to a trigger by a long wire. When it fires, the first charge sets off the priming leading through the second ball in the bore, and so on. It also communicates through a vent to a second barrel, to start off it's sequence of charges, and so on. The genius of this firearm is that it takes advantage of the natural delay between the priming and charge going off in a flintlock weapon. However, because of the precision demanded by the narrow windage and tolerances, this was a single-use weapon in a battle. The idea was that after several of these guns fired, there wouldn't be anyone left on deck to shoot at. As a bonus, they could be loaded and stored in advance during a long cruise, and unpacked for quick service. By the war's end, many frigates carried several Chambers guns in each fighting top. Although there is no direct historical accounts of them being used in a close action, some sources claim that a large number were produced during the War of 1812. As a specialized but powerful weapon, it is small wonder few if any of them saw combat service.

The swivel gun, middle. From D.R. Baxter, "Superimposed Load Firearms, 1360-1860".

Two types of repeating rifles.

Repeating pistols.

Secret Weapons of the War of 1812: IEDs

HMS Bellerophon, a 75-gun ship similar to the Ramilles, which was repeatedly targeted by American IEDs during the War of 1812. Nickname: "Billy Ruffian."

The United States and its patriotic citizens, set upon by the vast forces of the British Royal Navy in the War of 1812, came up with many "infernal devices" to even the playing field. These improvised explosive devices seem--eerily-- to echo the tactics of asymmetrical warfare faced by US troops abroad today...

The British navy had a total of 1017 vessels--258 ships-of-the-line, 240 frigates, 64 sloops of war, 12 bomb and fire ships, 191 brigs, 42 cutters, and 65 schooners and luggers...In March, 1813, Congress passed a law allowing the payment of the value of any English vessel blown up or destroyed in any manner by persons not in the actual service of the United States. Thus the whole British blockading squadron on our coast was a subject for private enterprise. The game was too big and tempting to let go without many efforts.

 The torpedoes in use were those invented by Robert Fulton for blowing up ships...These torpedoes consisted of a copper case which contained from fifty to one hundred pounds or more of powder. To this was fixed a gun-flint lock in a brass box, water tight, which lock could strike fire by several means. One was by clockwork [my italics], which could be set to one or more minutes or hours for striking the fire. Another was for being sunk at a given depth under water and a float, to which was attached a lever or catch near the surface of the water, which when hit by anything would spring the lock and strike fire. Another was by hitching one or more torpedoes to the middle of a rope a hundred feet or more long, and having a row boat at each end drag the torpedoes to an enemy's vessel or under it and either spring the gun-lock by clockwork or by contact with the vessel, and thus blow her up. (from R.S. Guernsey, New York City and Vicinity During the War of 1812-15, New York, 1889.)

 Although Fulton's mines had been demonstrated to effectively blow up a test schooner, they were never actually used against a British ship that we know of. However, another enterprising man used a variation on the classic "fireship" ploy that sounds like something a movie villain would do:

A schooner, called the Eagle, was fitted out by John Scudder, Jr... He placed ten kegs of powder, about 400 pounds, with a quantity of sulphur mixed with it, in a strong cask, and surrounded it with huge stones and other missiles... At the head of the cask, in the inside, were fixed two gun-locks, with cords fastened to their triggers at one end, and two barrels of flour at the other end, so that when the flour should be removed, the locks would be sprung, the powder ignited, and the terrible mine exploded.

As expected, the schooner was captured in Long Island Sound by the British warship Ramilles. The crew escaped to Millstone Point and sat back to watch the fireworks...

 ...Boats were sent out for the cargo. The hatches of the Eagle were opened, and when the first barrel of flour was removed, the explosion took place. A column of fire shot up into the air (the inventor of it said it reached up nine hundred feet) and a shower of pitch and tar fell upon the deck of the Ramilles. The Eagle, a British officer, and ten men, were blown to atoms, and most of the boats outside were seriously or fatally injured.

Ramilles escaped, and although for a while the local British commodore was threatening to destroy  "everything American that floats" in retaliation for what was basically a terrorist attack, things returned to normal on the blockaded shoreline--that is, until an even weirder inventor took another shot at Ramilles:

 A citizen of Norwich invented a submarine boat in which he could voyage three miles an hour. In this he went under the Ramilles, which was frequently seen near New York, and had nearly completed his task of fixing a torpedo to her bottom when his drill broke, he was discovered and his effort was foiled, but he escaped.

The enraged and fearful British navy landed a strong force where the submarine had beached, and blew it up to prevent any more attempts. The Commodore announced that American prisoners would be kept aboard British vessels, and ordered that the Ramilles be kept in motion and "caused her bottom to be swept with a cable every two hours, night and day, to keep off the 'damned Yankee barnacles'"!

A torpedo (sea mine) from the 1860s.

A critical improvement in detonators: a device to trigger mines electrically from the American Civil War.

Fulton's mines probably looked more like these barrels, reconstructions of Confederate mines from the vicinity of Wilmington, N.C.

As interesting as these early sea mines were, they failed to destroy any British ships. It would take until the American Civil War for anti-ship weapons like the electrically detonated mine and the submersible for these new weapons to begin to make an impact on naval warfare.

Tactics and Rusty Muskets

This last is from William Duane's book of tactics for the United States Infantry. It explains why a lot of commanders during the Napoleonic period favored columns for offensive action: they offered the most flexible, stealthy, and simple way to get a lot of men to the decisive point in a battle. The trick lay in "unpacking" the column when the time came. British units in Spain often foiled French columns by harassing their protective cloud of skirmishers, by hiding their lines of battle behind ridge lines until a decisive moment, and by counter-charging the front of a column. British commanders used columns of attack a lot during the War of 1812-- notably at the Siege of Detroit in 1812, the Siege of Fort Erie in 1813 and the Battle of New Orleans in 1815.

On another note, this weekend I took my 1795 Springfield flintlock musket out to a rifle range to shoot. The results were... less than satisfactory. At 25 yards I had trouble hitting a yard sign that had been pressed into service as a target. Part of the problem was humidity. Yesterday was the first rainy day we've had in Ohio for a while. Contrary to popular belief, rain doesn't keep a flintlock from working. You can have a perfectly decent skirmish even in a steady rain shower-- if your priming pan stays dry. As we were sheltered under an overhang and the rain had stopped, I didn't think that moisture would be a problem. However, the gunpowder residue in my flintlock seemed to suck the moisture out of the humid air, leaving a black sludge on my priming pan.

I was still able to fire the weapon, with some misfires due to the sparks not reaching the priming. Every time I fired, however, there was what seemed a longer than usual delay between the time I pulled the trigger, the flash in the pan, and the actual shot of the musket. My thesis is that the delay  caused by humidity (and maybe a misaligned vent, see below) caused me to flinch involuntarily when the priming went off, sending the muzzle (five feet distant from my face!) off target.

I took my musket out this afternoon to oil up (I had cleaned it shortly after shooting) and by chance happened to look down the bore. What a shock! The exterior of the gun was shiny thanks to a long overdue treatment with a sanding sponge, but the interior of the bore was covered in red rust. Maybe I hadn't put enough bore butter (a yellow grease) to coat the gun after I had cleaned out all the fouling. This is certainly a good lesson learned: humidity levels when shooting and when cleaning can drastically effect the performance of a flintlock weapon.

The gun itself: a 1795 Springfield, the first US-produced musket and a copy of the successful 1763 Charleville. Foot Artillery, Light Artillery, and even Light Dragoons were issued this imposing musket during the War of 1812.

The musket is held together with screws, pins, and springs. All the essential bits can be taken apart in the field for a thorough cleaning.

The situation of the vent (the hole through which the flash of the priming reaches the main charge at the breech of the weapon). Based on what I've read on the Internet, the vent should be positioned about even with the rim of the pan--so this looks about right. Many flintlock users hedge their bets by using FFFG or FFFFG powder for priming (think espresso sized grains of powder). However, FG (very coarse powder--think rock salt) should work with these weapons. The fineness of the powder effects the speed of ignition. The lock is still a little dirty, but well oiled. Note the contradictory sigils on the lock plate and flashguard--a US eagle and a GR crown!

Patch box and patches. I was dismayed at all the rust that came out of the bore after only a day. The yellow stuff is a type of grease used to coat and protect the bore from moisture. Soldiers would have probably used oil or bear grease.

A shot down the muzzle, after some cleaning. I consider this a "working gun" rather than a collector's piece, and it sees a lot of field use. Fighting gunpowder fouling and rust is a never-ending battle.

Some more preservative tools: oil for the exterior metal parts, one of many rags, and an oilcloth gun sack.

The muzzle, larger than life size. It's upside down, so you can see the sight soldered on to the front barrel band next to my thumb. Putting sights on muskets was an innovation, but there is no rear sight so aiming was still a manner of skill.

Another nice feature of these early military longarms is that you can screw on cleaning appliances to the ramrod. My tool kit includes a bottle of oil, extra flints and leather flint wrappers, plastic and bronze cleaning brushes and a toothbrush, an extra brass flashguard, and a bore mop and brush that I can't use for lack of cleaning rods.

Firing Live Ammunition with a Flintlock Musket

Last weekend I was finally able to take my flintlock musket (a 1795 pattern Springfield reproduced by the Italian gun maker Pedersoli) out to a shooting range. Besides the fun of trying to punch holes in a cardboard box, I was interested in evaluating the performance of such a weapon with a historical load.

I rolled eight paper cartridges with .65 caliber (that's .65 inches) lead balls, and filled them with 80 grains of FFg blackpowder. My reference book, Arcadi Gluckman, Identifying Old U.S. Muskets, Rifles and Carbines (New York: Bonanza Books, 1965), stated that powder loads ranged from 189 grains of "French powder" to 130 grains. Another source I read suggested 110 grains was standard. Not wishing to destroy my musket or myself, I started on the low end. Since the grain or fineness of gunpowder determines how fast it will burn, and thus it's explosive strength, I was wary of older data.

Most books state that smoothbore muskets were ineffective or completely inaccurate at ranges of more than 50 yards. I found, however, that 80 grains of powder  sent the ball thudding into the berm 100 yards downrange. Only one shot, fired by a friend, hit the 3' x 3' box festooned with zombie targets that we set up. However, most of the balls sent up satisfying clouds of dust within a 25' vicinity of where I was pointing the muzzle. Clearly, a soldier could hit a company-sized line of infantry at 100 yards.

The accuracy of smoothbore weapons can be greatly improved by using a larger ball--that is, closer to the .69 caliber size of the bore, reducing windage. By using a lubricated cloth patch, much better accuracy is achieved--but at the cost of a longer and more deliberate reloading time.

  A Mythbusters-style inquiry into tap loading.

As it was, I found even the smaller .65 ball difficult to ram down the bore after it had been fouled by a couple of shots' worth of powder residue. Most secondary works say either that fouling made it necessary to hammer the round into the bore with a handy rock or brute force, and that the bore had to be swabbed out by urinating down the muzzle (a handy trick in a firefight!) or that musket balls could be dropped down the bore and seated effortlessly by slamming the butt on the ground a couple of times. Obviously the latter method, called "tap-loading", won't work with a paper cartridge in a musket with as narrow windage as the .69 caliber French types.



However, the above video proposes to test a film-version of tap loading. They manage to do it because they are spitting a naked ball down the barrel, because the windage of a .75 caliber Brown Bess with a .67 caliber musket ball is much looser, and since we never see them run a ramrod down to measure the distance between the muzzle and the ball when loaded. In all likelyhood even British soldiers never used tap-loading because they would have to strip the ball out of its tied-paper cartridge. They managed just fine with a few strokes of the ramrod.