Baltimore Steam Battery

Note: I sent this post to the Animal List back in 2004, hoping to get some feedback. No luck. If anyone reading this article knows whether or not the principle is sound, write me (on- or off-blog) and let me know.

The following is an article from Scientific American, May 25 1861, reprinted in Kurt Saxon's The Weaponeer. The device covered in the article is a gun using centrifugal force generated by a steam engine in order to propel its projectiles. It was apparently envisioned as a machinegun by its inventor. A patent date is given, but not a patent number. Apparently, it was first used by the Confederates, but captured by the Feds (who, although being specifically sent to capture it, deemed it unworthy of use) en route to Harper's Ferry. Another Scientific American article (June, 1861) refers to its capture.

The only serious reference I've been able to find is here:

Does anyone know anything about this, or if the principle is sound? I know that toys of this sort can be made from a small electric motor, a tobacco tin and a soda straw, and used to shoot BBs, so I'm kinda wondering if a lawnmower engine --- Uhh, never mind. Just let me know what you think.
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Baltimore Steam Battery

The annexed engraving represents a perspective view, taken from a photograph, of the famous steam battery, as being in the process of construction by Messrs. Winans of Baltimore. From a letter by Mr. Thos. Winans, published in the Baltimore papers, it appears that the machine belongs to the city of Baltimore, and that the only grounds for connecting the name of the Winases with it is the fact that it was sent to their shop for repair. It was invented by Charles S. Dickinson, of Cleveland, Ohio, and
patented August 9, 1859.

[Note: Google searches to verify this have thus far failed]

Its capabilities and advantages are set forth int he following terms by its inventor:
" As a triumph of inventive genius, in the applications an practical demonstrationof centrfugal force (that power which governs and controls the universe and regulates and impels the motion of the planetrary bodies around the sun) this most efficient engine stands without a parallel, commanding wonder and admiration at the simplicity of its construction and the destructiveness of its effects, and is eventaully destined to inaugurate a new era in the science of war. [Uhh, not exactly...]

Rendered ball proof, and protected by an iron cone, and mounted on a four-wheeled carriage, it can be readily moved from place to place, or kept on the march with an army. It can be constructed to discharge missiles of any capacity from and ounce ball to a 25 pound shot, with a force and range
equal to the most approved gunpowder projectiles, and can discharge from one hundred to five hundred rounds per minute.

For city or harbor defense, it would prove more efficient than the largest battery; for use on the battlefield, the musket caliber engine would mow down opposing troops as the scythe mows standing grain; and in sea fights, mounted on low-decked steamers, it would be capable of sinking any ordinary vessels.

In addition to the advantages of power, continuous action and velocity of discharge, may be added economy in cost of construction, in space, in labor and transportation; all of which would be small in comparison to the cost and and working of batteries of cannon, and the equipment and management of
a proportionate force of infantry.

[This might be part of the reason the weapon was never adopted; see John D. MacAulay's Carbines of the Civil War and take a look at the amount of swag picked up by Northern small-arms manufacturers during the late unpleasantness]

The possession of this engine -- ball proof and cased in iron -- will give the powers using such decided advantages as will strike terror to the hearts of opposing foces, and render its possessors impregnable to armies equipped with ordinary offensive weapons. [A none-too-humble, but fairly accurate prediction, based on the observable effects of German use of the machinegun fifty-odd years later.]

Its efficiency will soon be practically demonstrated, and the day is not far distant when, thought its instrumentality, the new era in the science of war being inaugurated, it weil be generally adopted by the Powes of the Old and the New Worlds, and, from its very destructiveness, wil prove the means and medium of peace. [LOL! Sheeeeeiiit! ]

The construction of the gun is represented in Fig. 2. [sorry, I can't reproduce the illustrations]. A steel gun barrell [sic], bent at an elbow as shown, is caused to revolve by steam power with great velocity; when the balls, being fed into the perpendicular portion, which as at the center of the revolution, are thown out of the horizontal arm with great force. A gate, J, keeps the balls from flying out until the barrell is in the desried position, when this gate is opened by the action of the lever, C, and the balls permitted to to escape. To make sure against accident fromt he chance issuing of balls, when the barrell [sic.] is not in the proper position, a strong wrought iron casing surrounds the gun, with a slit in one side, through which the balls may pass, as shown in Fig. 1. Our cut represents the balls
as being fed in singly by hand, but in action it is proposed to feed them in with a shovel. Mr. Winans says that the shot from this gun will cut of a nine inch scantling at the distance of half a mile.

The battery is represented in our engraving as standing in front of messrs. Winans' extensive works in Baltimore, a part of the building being represented. In 1837, Benjamin Reynolds, or Kinderhook, N.Y., constructed a centrifugal war engine for discharging bullets in a stream from a tube. It was operated by two men, one standing at each side working a crank, and turning it in the same manner as two men operate a windlass. The bullets, we understand, were taken from a hopper at the center of a revolving drum and thrown out at the circumference, the action being similar to that of a rotary pump. A small engine of Mr. Reynolds' was tried at West Point, in 1837 , before General Worth and several other officers of the United States Army, and it is stated that, at 110 yards distance from the target, it sent
1,000 2-ounce balls in a minute, through 3 3/4 inches of hard pine plank.

After this, it was taken to Washington, and experiments made with it before a committee of Congress and several military officers, with results similar to those obtained at West Point. At ths trial the committee exercised great perseverance; first in regard to its power and range, and, second, in regard to the number of shots projected at a given time.

On this occasion, the power applied was as before, one man at each of the two cranks. The target, three thicknesses of one-inch pine planks, at the distance of 150 yards. Each ball was projected through the target, falling from three to four hundred yards behind it into the Potomac River. They were
not so successful, however, in determining the number of shots thrown in a given time. In this test sixty balls of 2 oz. were placed in a tin tube of sufficient size and length to contain them. One end of the tube was then placed at the admitting orifice of the battery, into which they were carried by the action of gravity and the exhausting disposition of the machine, The space of time taken for the projection of sixty such shots was so small a portion of a second that the committee could not report any specific space
of time at all.
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Comments

[Don Rearic]

Dave,

I don't know anymore about the device than you do, but I know a real important piece of information: I know where one is. Or was. I'll have to check this weekend. There used to be one near the bottom of Buttermilk Hill on Route 1 in Elkridge, Maryland.

Don

[Dave]

Cool! Let me know what you find out.

[John Lamb]

A new history of the Winans Steam Gun is out - A Strange Engine of War- get it at http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Engine-War-Winans-Maryland/dp/0982304927/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322795557&sr=8-1