Editing Richard Jordan Gatling (section)

==Inventions==
While being most known for inventing the [[Gatling gun]], Gatling invented and patented a number of other inventions. His inventions include a [[screw propeller]] and a wheat drill (a planting device) in 1839, a hemp break machine in 1850, a steam plow ([[steam tractor]]) in 1857, the Gatling gun in 1861, a marine steam ram in 1862, and a motor-driven plow ([[tractor]]).{{sfn|World Biography|2005}}

===Gatling gun===
{{Main|Gatling gun}}

Gatling invented the Gatling gun after he noticed that a majority of the soldiers fighting in the [[American Civil War|Civil War]] were lost to disease rather than gunshots. In 1877, he wrote, "It occurred to me that if I could invent a machine gun which could by its rapidity of fire, enable one man to do as much battle duty as a hundred, that it would, to a large extent supersede the necessity of large armies, and consequently, exposure to battle and disease would be greatly diminished."{{sfn|Wahl|Toppel|1971}}

The gun was based on Gatling's seed planter.{{sfn|Keller|2008}} A working prototype was developed in 1861. In 1862, he founded the Gatling Gun Company in [[Indianapolis|Indianapolis, Indiana]] to market the gun. The first six production guns were destroyed during a fire in December 1862 at the factory. All six of them had been manufactured at Gatling's expense. Undaunted, Gatling arranged for another thirteen to be manufactured at the Cincinnati Type Factory. Although the gun was developed during the Civil War, it saw very little action.{{citation needed|date=February 2015}} This is partly because Gatling was accused of being a [[Copperhead (politics)|copperhead]] because of his [[North Carolina]] roots, but this was never proven.{{sfn|Smith|2002}} Gatling was never affiliated with the [[Confederate States of America|Confederate States]] government or military, nor did he live in the [[Southern United States|South]] during the Civil War.{{sfn|Keller|2008|p=134}}

[[Benjamin Butler (politician)|General Benjamin F. Butler]] bought 12 and [[David Dixon Porter|Admiral David Dixon Porter]] bought one,{{sfn|Keller|2008|p=163}} it was not until 1866 that the US Government officially purchased Gatling guns.{{sfn|Keller|2008|p=179}} In 1870, he sold his patents for the Gatling gun to [[Colt Firearms|Colt]].{{sfn|Keller|2008|p=181}}  Gatling remained president of the Gatling Gun Company until it was fully absorbed by Colt in 1897. In 1893, Gatling patented a Gatling gun that replaced the hand cranked mechanism with an [[electric motor]], a relatively new invention at the time, achieving a rate of fire of 3,000 rounds per minute.{{sfn|Gatling|1893}} The hand-cranked Gatling gun was declared obsolete by the [[United States Army]] in 1911.{{citation needed|date=October 2010}} Decades later, the mechanical concept was resurrected and wedded to electrically-driven cranking in the [[M61 Vulcan]]. That cannon has given rise to numerous variations scaled up to as high as [[T249 Vigilante|37 mm]] and down to [[5.56 mm]] calibers offering versions that are gas-operated as well.