Winans Steam Gun The Civil War produced a number of experimental cannons, machine guns and rifles, but perhaps none was more unusual than the Winans steam gun. Built by Ohio inventors William Joslin and Charles Dickinson, this massive automatic weapon sat on an armored train carriage and used steam to fire projectiles—supposedly at a rate of 200 a minute. Newspapers hailed the mysterious gun as a super weapon, but it was never actually used in combat. When Dickinson headed for Harper’s Ferry in May 1861—most likely to sell the gun to the Confederacy—Union forces intercepted him and confiscated his invention. The steam gun was later transferred to Fortress Monroe in Virginia before being sent to Massachusetts, where it was eventually scrapped. The Union Army never attempted to deploy the contraption in the field, which suggests the steam gun probably failed to live up to its deadly reputation. Read the 25 May 1861 article in Harpers Weekly Newspaper about the steam gun ... sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1861/may/winans-steam-gun.htm
Posted on: Mon, 20 Jan 2014 22:00:45 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015