From this month's issue of America's Civil War magazine. An article entitled "Civil War Machine Guns, Load The Hopper and Turn The Crank," page 43 contained this interesting tidbit:

A number of Coffee Mill guns went to the Virginia Peninsula with the Armp of the Potomac in the spring of 1862.  ...Goveror Andrew Curtin of Pennsylvania made sure that many of his state's infantry regiments approached Richmond armed with machine guns. A private in the 83rd Pennsylvania wrote that, "All the Pennsylvania regiments have them."

That's the first I'd herd of it. Anoyne else have any more firmer documentation? That's like quoting an anonomyous source for goodness sake! Of course the Author has no source listed anywhere in the article for his quote. It' like saying, A private in the 83rd Pennsylvania wrote, " MacClelland had a very small penis." Where's the source man!!!

Quote :

GrumpyDave wrote : From this month's issue of America's Civil War magazine. An article entitled "Civil War Machine Guns, Load The Hopper and Turn The Crank," It' like saying, A private in the 83rd Pennsylvania wrote, " MacClelland had a very small penis." Where's the source man!!!

Grumpy,

Maybe Mrs. MacClelland?  

I can't believe the history.net let out an unsourced article???  

--Last edited by Ken Cornett on 2007-05-17 14:29:30 --

This is probably a mis-quote of a soldier referring to coffee-mills rather than machine guns.  In a general search one finds the same references to an immediate sale of 10 of Wilson Agar's guns, and an eventual purchase of 54, despite the objections of the Ordnance Department.  

Interestingly, in a specific search of the Official Records I could only turn up this mention, in Volume 26 of Series 1, page 424, referring to an action engaged in by the USS Tyler in Arkansas on June 28, 1864:

"This vessel was hulled 11 times, doing no damage, however, beyond wounding 6 men and carrying away a worthless “coffee mill” gun."

It's not even clear if this is the Agar gun, as an article in the December 10, 1864 edition of the Scientific American (Vol. 11, Issue 24) refers to a new "Canal Boat Armed With a Gatling Gun", "or, as the irreverent term it, the 'coffee mill' gun."

Does the article mention what unit of artillery or other force was armed with this weapon?

The paucity of original references, combined with the similarity of the citations on Google, makes me wonder if this thing ever did get into action.

More, from the Scientific American of March 28, 1863 (V8, I13):

"Those 'coffee-mill guns'-- one hundred or more in number, ordered by the President -- we are told, have proved to be of no practical value to the army of the Potomac, and are now laid up in a store-house in Washington."

Quote :

GrumpyDave wrote : From this month's issue of America's Civil War magazine. An article entitled "Civil War Machine Guns, Load The Hopper and Turn The Crank," page 43 contained this interesting tidbit: A number of Coffee Mill guns went to the Virginia Peninsula with the Armp of the Potomac in the spring of 1862.  ...Goveror Andrew Curtin of Pennsylvania made sure that many of his state's infantry regiments approached Richmond armed with machine guns. A private in the 83rd Pennsylvania wrote that, "All the Pennsylvania regiments have them." That's the first I'd herd of it. Anoyne else have any more firmer documentation? That's like quoting an anonomyous source for goodness sake! Of course the Author has no source listed anywhere in the article for his quote. It' like saying, A private in the 83rd Pennsylvania wrote, " MacClelland had a very small penis." Where's the source man!!!

I haven't read that article yet..
Maybe you should fire off a letter to the editor to see if the author can provide some documentation..

Still more, this one from the OR, S1/V11 part 2, p. 614, Trimble's AAR of Gaine's Mill:  "incessant fire...to which Yankee ingenuity had added a sort of 'repeating gun,' called a telescopic cannon, discharging 60 balls a minute.  Several of these were captured...."

"

Page 512, same volume, report of Capt. Smith Stansbury of the Richmond Arsenal, of captured ordnance:

"Three repeating cannon, by Capt. R. Snowden Andrews"

I'm not seeing the exact problem: It could be an accurate report of what a soldier in the 83rd believed to be the case, an accurate report of a complete lie he told, or there could never have been such a statement by a soldier in the 83rd.  Was the author of this expecting us to accept the presence of these guns in every Pennsylvania regiment on the basis of one comment for which there isn't any provenance and, even if there were, no proof the fellow wasn't the village idiot?

Good Point.