7. Tatiana Nikolayevna Ilyina, Voyenniye Agenty i Russkie Oruzhiye (Military Agents and Russian Weapons), (Saint Petersburg: Atlant, 2008), pp. 75–83.
8. Peter Cozzens, Eyewitness to the Indian Wars, 1865–1890: Conquering the Southern Plains (Mechanicsburgh, Pa: Stackpole Books, 2003), p. 69.
9. Gatling’s System of Fire-Arms with Official Reports of Recent Trials and Great Success. This undated brochure, printed by C. W. Ames in New York, is on file at Indiana State Library.
10. The test results are published in Norton, American Breech-Loading Small Arms, pp. 268–74.
11. Copies of correspondence are on file at Connecticut State Library.
12. Fosbery, “On Mitrailleurs,” p. 547.
13. Letter from R. J. Gatling to General John Love, February 3, 1868. Gatling told Love that he expected the French to buy his guns. “The best of the officers are of the opinion that the 1-inch Gatling gun will supercede the ordinary field guns now in use,” he wrote. “If such should be the case, then making guns must soon grow [into] a large business.”
14. Cited in Norton, American Breech-Loading Small Arms, p. 238.
15. Brevet-Colonel Edward B. Williston, “Machine Guns in War,” Army and Navy Journal, May 20, 1886.
16. Major General Beauchamp, from the transcript of remarks at the Royal United Service Institution after a presentation, “Machine-Guns and How To Use Them,” by W. Gardner. In Ordnance Notes No. 198, 1882, p. 7. That mitrailleuses were carted off no one disputes. It seems unlikely, however, that the quantity was 600; another officer noted that the year before the war, the French had 190 mitrailleuses.
17. Kimball, “Machine Guns,” p. 413.
18. A series of letters in late 1869 between the secretary of state for war in Great Britain and officers of the Gatling Gun Company provide details. On file at Connecticut State Library.
19. Abridged Treatise on The Construction and Manufacture of Ordnance in the British Service, July 1877, p. 262.
20. Gatling’s System of Fire-Arms with Official Report of Recent Trial and Great Successes (C. W. Ames, printer, circa 1874), pp. 6–7. On file at Indiana State Library.
21. Letter from W. H. Talbott, August 31, 1871. On file at Connecticut State Library.
22. G. A. Henty, By Sheer Pluck: A Tale of the Ashanti War (Glasgow: Blackie & Son, 1884), p. 197.
23. H. A. Brackenbury, captain, Royal Artillery, The Ashanti War: A Narrative Prepared From The Official Documents By Permission of Major-General Sir Garnet Wolseley, Vol. II (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1874), p. 44–45.
24. John H. Parker, Tactical Organization and Uses of Machine Guns in the Field (Kansas City, Mo: Hudson-Kimberly Publishing Co. 1899), p. 35–36.
25. A full copy of the handwritten test report is on file at Connecticut State Library.
26. Letter from R. J. Gatling to General John Love, October 26, 1873. On file at Indiana Historical Society Collection.
27. Letter from R. J. Gatling to General John Love. August 1, 1873. On file at Indiana Historical Society Collection.
28. Letter from Edgar T. Welles to General John Love, August 2, 1873. On file at Indiana Historical Society Collection.
29. Letter from R. J. Gatling to General John Love, November 30, 1873. On file at Indiana Historical Society Collection.
30. Letter from R. J. Gatling to General Love, November 8, 1873. On file at Indiana Historical Society.
31. Ibid.
32. “Letter from the Secretary of War Recommending Appropriation for Gatling Guns,” Government Printing Office, 1874. On file at Connecticut State Library.
33. Letter from R. J. Gatling to General John Love, May 10, 1874. On file at Indiana Historical Society Collection.
34. Letter from R. J. Gatling to General John Love, March 26, 1874. On file at Indiana Historical Society Collection.
35. Letter from R. J. Gatling to General John Love, May 30, 1874. On file at Indiana Historical Society Collection.
36. “List of Guns Sold and Paid For,” on file at Connecticut State Library.
37. “The Place of the Mitrailleurs in War,” reprinted from Saturday Review in Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science and Art, Vol. XII, July to December 1870 (New York: E. R. Pelton, 1870), pp. 725–28.
38. Nature, September 1, 1870, p. 361.
39. Letter from R. J. Gatling to General John Love, August 28, 1873. On file at Indiana Historical Society Collection.
40. Letter from R. J. Gatling to General John Love, November 9, 1873. On file at Indiana Historical Society Collection.
41. Letter from William Folger to General John Love, July 11, 1874. On file at Indiana Historical Society Collection.
42. Fosbery, “On Mitrailleurs,” p. 557.
43. Ibid., p. 572.
44. Captain Rogers made a presentation, “The Gatling Gun: Its Place in Tactics,” at the evening meeting of the Royal United Services Institution on April 19, 1875. The full text of his speech was published in the institution’s journal, No. 19, 1876, London. The excerpt here is from p. 423.
45. Ibid., p. 427.
46. Letter from R. J. Gatling to General John Love, April 27, 1874. Letter on file at Indiana Historical Society.
47. Letter from R. J. Gatling to Love, May 30, 1874. The letter has a telling cross-out. After writing “five pounds” Gatling had originally added “or 10 pounds.” The second amount was crossed out with four lines, suggesting that while Gatling sought Rogers’s assistance, he wanted to secure it at minimal expense.
48. Rogers, “The Gatling Gun,” p. 438.
49. Ibid., p. 440.
50. Red Horse was interviewed in 1881 by an army surgeon. His account was published by the Government Printing Office in 1893 and reproduced in Lakota and Cheyenne, Indian Views of the Great Sioux War, 1876–1877, ed. Jerome A. Greene, p. 37.
51. “On Little Big Horn with General Custer,” Army Magazine, June and July 1894; republished in Peter Cozzens, ed., Eyewitness to the Indian Wars, 1865–1890: The Long War for the Northern Plains, p. 318.
52. Williston, “Machine Guns in War.”
53. Peter Cozzens, ed., Eyewitness to the Indian Wars, 1865–1890, Volume Two: The Wars for the Pacific Northwest (Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Press, 2002), p. 377.
54. Donald R. Morris, The Washing of the Spears: The Rise and Fall of the Zulu Nation (Cambridge, Mass.: De Capo Press, 1998), p. 567.
55. Ibid., p. 569.
56. “The Zulus Badly Whipped,” New York Times, July 24, 1879.
57. Morris, Washing of the Spears, p 572.
58. Kimball, “Machine Guns,” p. 410.
59. W. Gardner, “Machine Guns and How to Use Them,” in Ordnance Notes. No. 198, Washington, D.C., June 1, 1882, p. 2.
60. Ibid., p. 6.
61. Ibid., p. 8.
62. Lakeside Press, Cleveland, N.Y., April 2, 1881.
63. Paul Wahl and Donald R. Toppel, The Gatling Gun (New York: Arco Publishing, 1965), p. 100. The authors cited the August 27 issue of the Army & Navy Journal.
64. Chinn, The Machine Gun, p. 58.
3. Hiram Maxim Changes War
1. “Evening News” of Baltimore, date illegible. From the Sir Hiram S. Maxim Collection, 1890–1916. Archives Division, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
2. This number is from Maxim’s memoirs, My Life (London: Methuen and Co., 1915). In another account, to the Royal United Services Institution, Maxim said he had fired seven rounds.
3. “Sir Hiram Maxim, Inventor, Dies,” Rochester Herald, November 25, 1916.
4. Hiram Maxim, My Life, p. 38.
5. Personal communication from Dr. Joseph Slade, of the University of Ohio, who has researched Maxim’s life and holds copies of some of Maxim’s personal papers.
6. Maxim, My Life, p. 40.
7. Ibid., p. 48.
8. Ibid., p. 86.
9. Brooklyn Eagle, November 24, 1916.
10. Maxim, My Life, p. 132.
&
nbsp; 11. Hiram Percy Maxim, A Genius in the Family: Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim Through a Small Son’s Eyes (New York & London: Harper & Brothers 1936), pp. 21–25.
12. Maxim, A Genius in the Family, pp. 17–20.
13. Census data from personal communication from Dick Eastman, genealogist. Dr. Slade, who had researched Maxim’s life, said, of Maxim’s move to Canada during the war, “His wanderings are certainly suspicious” (personal communication with author).
14. “How I Invented Maxim Gun—Hiram Maxim. Outbreak of World-War Moves Veteran American to Describe for The Times His Epoch-Making Invention,” New York Times, November 1, 1914. This was how Maxim himself quoted the advice in 1914. A briefer version is commonly cited: “Hang your chemistry and electricity! If you want to make a pile of money, invent something that will enable these Europeans to cut each other’s throats with great facility.” The second quotation has been used by many sources, including by Chinn in The Machine Gun (p. 128), and the many gun writers who borrowed from him. The reference to a “Jew” appears in Dolf Goldsmith, The Devil’s Paintbrush, Sir Hiram Maxim’s Gun, 2nd ed. (Toronto: Collector Grade Publication, 1993) p. 7, citing the London Times.
15. Chinn, The Machine Gun, p. 128. It was 1883. The idea was ahead of its time—machine guns were still struggling for military acceptance, and Maxim had conceived of an assault rifle, which would not be carried into combat for decades.
16. Maxim, My Life, p. 157.
17. P. Fleury Mottelay, The Life and Work of Sir Hiram Maxim (London: John Lane, 1920), p. 10.
18. A transcript of Maxim’s presentation to the Royal United Services Institution on December 11, 1896, entitled “The Automatic System of Fire-Arms: Its History and Development,” is on file at the Smithsonian. The account is taken from the opening page. Archives Division, National Air and Space Museum.
19. Ian V. Hogg, Machine Guns: A Detailed History of the Rapid-Fire Gun, 14th Century to Present (Iola, Wisc.: Krause Publications, 2002), pp. 34–35.
20. Goldsmith, The Devil’s Paintbrush.
21. Maxim, My Life, p. 163.
22. Ibid., p. 170.
23. Chinn, The Machine Gun, pp. 134–35.
24. Julian Symons, England’s Pride: The Story of the Gordon Relief Expedition (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1965), p. 196.
25. Lord Charles Beresford, The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, Volume I. (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1914), p. 263.
26. Symons, p. 198.
27. Ibid., p. 203.
28. Alex MacDonald, Too Late for Gordon and Khartoum: The Testimony of an Independent Eye-Witness of the Heroic Efforts for Their Relief and Rescue (John Murray, publisher, 1887), p. 241.
29. Beresford, Memoirs, p. 267.
30. The Nineteenth Century and After, vol. 13, James Knowles, ed. (London: Sampson, Low Marston & Co., 1903), p. 91.
31. Chinn, The Machine Gun, p. 131.
32. Maxim, My Life, p. 203.
33. Ibid., p. 238.
34. Armstrong, Bullets and Bureaucrats, p. 175
35. Williston. “Machine Guns in War.”
36. “Robari (The Story of A Very Little War.)” MacMillan’s Volume LXXXI, Nov 1899–April 1900, pp. 99–105.
37. Details of Rattray’s travels and life were provided to the author by his grandson, Alan Swindale.
38. Rattray’s letter is posted on www.fivenine.co.uk, a British genealogy website.
39. “I am glad to learn the Fletcher note has been paid,” Gatling wrote in a letter to General John Love, January 30, 1874. On file at Indiana Historical Society. The “Fletcher note” refers to the debt.
40. “Statement of the Condition of the Company,” handwritten by Gatling for the shareholders, October 4, 1876. On file at Connecticut State Library.
41. “Cash Receipts and Disbursements during the year ending Sept. 30, 1889.” On file at Connecticut State Library.
42. Armstrong, Bullets and Bureaucrats, p. 77.
43. Wahl and Toppel, Gatling Gun, p. 135.
44. Letter from Frederick W. Prince, secretary of the Gatling Gun Company, to the U.S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance, September 22, 1894. On file at Connecticut State Library.
45. Norton, American Breech-Loading Small Arms, p. 242.
46. Army and Navy Gazette of London, May 7, 1892.
47. G. S. Hutchison, Machine Guns: Their History and Tactical Employment (London: Macmillan and Co., 1938), p. 67.
48. The notes on Maxim’s workplace personality are from a section of Maxim Nordentfelt Days and Ways, quoted at length in Goldsmith, The Devil’s Paintbrush, p. 58. The details on overcapitalization are from a directors’ report, quoted at length in the same book, p. 59.
49. “An Abridgement of Mr. Hiram S. Maxim’s Lecture delivered at Dartford, March 16th, 1897,” p. 5. On file at the Smithsonian.
50. John H. Parker, History of the Gatling Gun Detachment, Fifth Army Corps, At Santiago, With a Few Unvarnished Truths Concerning that Expedition (Kansas City, Mo.: Hudson-Kimberly Publishing Co., 1898), p. 11.
51. Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., Since Its Establishment in 1802, supplement vol. VI-A, 1910–20 (Saginaw, Mich.: Seemann & Peters Printers, 1920), pp. 642–44.
52. Parker, History of the Gatling Gun Detachment, p. 20. Parker’s book, like his actions outside Santiago, was prescient. His suggestions for machine-gun employment presaged World War I. The book also serves as social criticism of the American army circa 1900. Parker championed the enlisted man, and his writing was spiced with his observations—and derision—of the machinations of army generals for status and power, and, chillingly, of what he saw as the abandonment by the army of soldiers in Cuba who had contracted tropical diseases. These men, he said, were not provided for as the army sailed home for victory parades. He was a tactical visionary. He was not popular.
53. Armstrong, Bullets and Bureaucrats. p. 83.
54. Goddard, Army Ordnance, pp. 8–9.
55. “The Yuma Penitentiary. One of the Most Remarkable Prisons in the United States. Filled With Desperate Characters. In Many Years but One Has Escaped,” New York Times, March 1, 1896.
56. Times of London, February 22, 1879. On file at Connecticut State Library.
57. All three newspaper clippings are on file, undated, at Connecticut State Library.
58. Peter Cozzens, Eyewitness to the Indian Wars, Volume Five: The Army and the Indian (Mechanicsburg, Pa: Stackpole Books, 2001). A soldier’s diary on p. 319 describes the encounter. “With one Gatling on board, we started up the river Yellowstone. Had a lively target practice this P.M. at a large brown bear which was seen ahead on a sandbar. He made a lively retreat for the shore and into the thicket as we drew near. The men forward gave him a volley, but he still kept on.” The entry thus is not fully clear, and can be read in two ways. The Gatling was certainly present, and the order of the writing strongly suggests it was fired. The phrase “gave a volley” indicates that the soldiers might have fired their rifles simultaneously. Armstrong, in Bullets and Bureaucrats, documented six uses of a Gatling gun against Native Americans from 1874 to 1878; p. 80.
59. Parker, History of the Gatling Gun Detachment, p. 14.
60. Ibid., p. 10.
61. “The Story of San Juan. How Parker and His Gatlings Turned The Tide Of Battle,” undated newspaper clip, circa 1898, on file at Connecticut State Library. The report was written by Parker, who was given a tag line.
62. John H. Parker, History of the Gatling Gun Detachment. From the preface, written by Theodore Roosevelt.
63. Ibid.
64. Hutchison, Machine Guns, p. 67.
65. Ismat Hassan Zulfo, Karari: The Sudanese Account of the Battle of Omdurman, translated by Peter Clark (Bath, U.K.: Pittman Press, 1980), pp. 96–100.
66. Ibid., pp. 172–73.
67. Winston S. Churchill, The River War (originally published in 1900; reprinted by Kessinger Publishing, 2004), p. 150.
68. Hutchinson, Machine
Guns, p. 69.
69. Rudyard Kipling, “Pharaoh and the Sergeant,” 1897. First published in the New York Tribune.
70. Maxim, My Life, p. 182
71. Hiram S. Maxim, Li Hung Chang’s Scrap-Book (London: Watts & Co., 1913). The first two quotations are excerpted from p. 19; the last quotation from p. 368.
72. Not long before his death, Maxim wrote of the inferiority of the freed slaves, describing his frustration at trying to keep the Kimball House lit and heated through a night with the help of only a black man. The company engineer had the same problem, he said, and finally told him he had concluded that “no amount of beating would keep a nigger awake at night.”
73. New Zealand Free Lance, September 15, 1900.
4. Slaughter Made Industrial: The Great War
1. Sergeant A. J. Rixon papers, letter of March 17, 1915. On file at Imperial War Museum, London. Rixon added: “Not the St. Patrick’s Day I’m used to.”
2. Chinn, The Machine Gun, describes Browning’s discovery and the series of experiments on pp. 160–63.
3. Ibid., pp. 150–70; also Major B. R. Lewis, Machine Guns of the U.S., 1895–1944, a series in Army Ordnance.
4. Chinn, The Machine Gun, pp. 209–10.
5. Julia Keller, Mr. Gatling’s Terrible Marvel (New York: Viking, 2008), p. 203. The text of Dr. Gatling’s letter thanking his son for the five hundred dollars appears on p. 203.
6. Historians have excoriated Western officer corps for what would later seem monumental ignorance; it has become a bromide. Ellis’s Social History of the Machine Gun portrayed the British generals thoughtlessly sending a generation to its doom.
7. Richard Meinertzhagen, Army Diary: 1899–1926 (Edingburgh and London: Oliver and Boyd, 1960), p. 8.
8. Ellis, Social History of the Machine Gun, pp. 54–55.
9. “The United Service,” New York Times, July 15, 1903.
10. Kimball, “Machine Guns,” p. 417.
11. Armstrong, Bullets and Bureaucrats, p. 133.
12. Ibid., pp. 126–29.
13. Ibid., pp. 136–37.
14. Ellis, Social History of the Machine Gun, p. 55.
15. Hutchison, Machine Guns, pp. 82–83.
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