Florida Reenactors Online News Magazine

At this time I haven't been able to find a lot of information about the Union Repeating Gun or Ager as it is more commonly known or about its use in the Civil War.

Several people have been given credit for inventing the gun but the actual inventor/inventors are unknown for certain. William Palmer and Edward Nugent may have been the inventors. They were involved in a court case concerning the gun prior to 1855.

A biography of Charles Foster Cox, a prominent New Jersey farmer, notes that he and Cyrus Field of transatlantic cable fame formed the American Arms Company in 1855 in order to build and sell the Union Repeating Gun. They traveled to Europe promoting the repeating gun and had agents in various countries to handle the sales of the gun.

One of their agents, Wilson Ager, patented the gun in England. So far, I have not seen any information about an American patent though one may very well exist. The gun became known in Europe as the "Ager" and seems to have been much better known in Europe than in the United States. A comment was made by an American about that time that anything that would enable the Europeans to kill each other faster would sell well in Europe.

Capt. Fosberry of the British Army mentioned in a report that an Ager was fired until lead was observed dripping out of the barrel. The test was stopped at that point. From my experience with my gun, I believe a Union Repeating Gun if properly tuned, could fire the advertised 120 rounds per minute. (Editors note: Details of the construction of Lyle's repeating gun can be seen below at the end of this article ). A higher rate of fire was possible but one of the problems at the 120 rpm rate was burning out barrels.

The gun fired a forerunner of the modern cartridge called a "charger", it was made of mild steel, with a cap nipple for a standard musket cap recessed into one end and the other end bored out to take a .58 caliber Minie projectile. The charger also served as the chamber. The chargers were dangerous because if one was dropped so as to strike the musket cap, it would fire.

The American Arms Company made several attempts to interest the U.S. Army but nothing came of them until 1861, when R.S. Mills, an American Arms Company salesman, demonstrated the gun for Abraham Lincoln. President Lincoln was impressed enough that he ordered ten guns at a cost of $1300 or $1350 each as reported in various sources. It was an expensive gun for the times when compared to a standard musket which could be purchased for about three dollars.

Lincoln gave it the name of the "Coffee Mill Gun". The Lincoln order is said to be first "machine gun" ever ordered by the Government. A few months later, General McClellan ordered fifty of the guns at $735 each. There may have been other orders placed privately but at this point, it appears that this was the total order of Union Repeating Guns for the Union Army and private interests.

Lincoln's purchase didn't set well with the Ordnance Department. There were letters going each way, Lincoln trying to get the guns issued and the Ordnance Department finding reasons why they wouldn't issue them.

Col. Geary of the Ordnance Department said the guns were inefficient and dangerous to the operators. The design did present several problems. The chargers or cartridges could be dangerous as mentioned above. In addition, if the mouth of the charger isn't greased in the same manner as a cap and ball revolver cylinder, it is possible to have a chain fire within the hopper.

The Union Repeating Gun was used by the 56th New York at the siege of Warwick and Yorktown. There is a possibility that other units had them but I haven't found any records of their use yet. Sometime after the siege, the guns were withdrawn and put into storage. At the end of the war, they were sold for scrap. One source says the guns sold for as little as forty two cents each.

The gun was not a machine gun as we know machine guns today. The Ager was not an automatic weapon. An operator must turn the crank in order for the weapon to fire and its rate of fire depends entirely on the operator. When the operator stops cranking, the gun stops shooting. The Union Repeating Gun is more closely related to today's semi-automatic firearms. Fully automatic machine guns would not be developed for almost another fifty years.

Gatling in 1862 designed his first gun. The American Arms Company took him to court for patent infringement and won. His first gun used "chargers" as did the Union Repeating gun. His major contribution to the science of rapid fire weapons was using multiple barrels to distribute the heat load. The U.S. showed little interest in the Gatling Gun until a cartridge firing version was successfully built. Cartridge firing Gatling's were used until 1913 or so by the U.S. and longer in other countries.