Gatling, Richard Jordan (1818-1903)

US inventor of a rapid-fire gun. Patented in 1862, the Gatling gun had ten barrels arranged as a cylinder rotated by a hand crank. Cartridges from an overhead hopper or drum dropped into the breech mechanism, which loaded, fired, and extracted them at a rate of 320 rounds per minute.

It was used in the US Civil War and in the Indian Wars that followed the settling of the American West. It was the precursor of the machine gun.

Gatling was born in North Carolina; from 1870 his main factory was in Hartford, Connecticut. He manufactured other machines of his invention: for sowing, for breaking hemp, a steam plough, and a marine steam ram.