"The Gatling Gun"

Invented by Dr. Richard Jordan Gatling in 1862, the Gatling gun, firing 600 rounds a minute was, for the Civil War, a weapon of mass destruction. Although proven effective in battle before Petersburg in 1864, it found surprisingly little use in the war.

The program will cover the life of Richard Jordan Gatling, antecedents of the Gatling gun, its effectiveness and the reason it was not employed in the Civil War. The Gatling was to prove its value in later wars and has been widely adopted in military applications even today.

Our speaker this month is Dr. Joseph Wagner of the Los Angeles Civil War Round Table. Wagner is a retired orthopaedic surgeon who received his M.D. from the University of Toronto. He served as Assistant Clinical Professor both at UCLA and the UC Irvine School of Medicine. He and his wife, Dolores, now live in West Los Angeles. Dr. Wagner previous spoke to our group on The Battle of the Crater; and he has a well-earned reputation of providing interesting and visually entertaining programs for Civil War Round Table groups, both locally and across the country.

Please join us as we learn about this advanced invention in Civil War weaponry.

Janet Whaley
Program Chair

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