Richard Jordan Gatling, (born September 12, 1818,
Maney’s Neck, North Carolina, U.S.—died February 26, 1903, New York, New York),
American inventor best known for his invention of the Gatling gun, a
crank-operated, multibarrel machine gun, which he patented in 1862.
Gatling’s career as an inventor began when he
assisted his father in the construction and perfecting of machines for sowing
cotton seeds and for thinning cotton plants. In 1839 he perfected a practical
screw propeller for steamboats, only to find that a patent had been granted to
John Ericsson for a similar invention a few months earlier. He established
himself in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1844, and, taking the cotton-sowing machine
as a basis, he adapted it for sowing rice, wheat, and other grains. The
introduction of these machines did much to revolutionize the agricultural system
in the country.
Becoming interested in the study of medicine
during an attack of smallpox, Gatling completed a course at the Ohio Medical
College in 1850. In the same year, he invented a hemp-breaking machine, and in
1857 a steam plow. At the outbreak of the American Civil War he devoted himself
at once to the perfecting of firearms. In 1861 he conceived the idea of the
rapid-fire machine gun that is associated with his name. By 1862 he had
succeeded in perfecting the weapon; but the war was practically over before the
federal authorities consented to its official adoption.
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