["where extra cylinders could be carried, the soldier could carry extra cylinders in a bag. Again, this would have added to the cost of the weapon to produce."]

Well that might have been part of the answer as to why they didn't persue those options. It would have been nice for the Confederate Cannon Corp to have Gatlin guns but they were not 'available' at that time. In today's terms, I guess we're used to mass manufacturing but back then the 'mass' of makers may have been 12 for the entire US. We were just learning how to maximize newbies off the boats for things like shirt making. Then the loss of slave power made the hiring of Oriental's justified for the rail work. It was almost 100 years later that we figured out that just ordering goods from a factory 'over there' was more cost effective than doing it ourselves. We spent ourselves out of a living, so to speak. In recent months, since I've been searching for a handgun, I've found there's so much info out there one needs to carry an interpreter. I thinking I'm lucky to have Granddaddy's Remington Model 12. I really do want an AR 15. Yes, I have used one so it's not quite just because they're in the news. I actually hit things I was aiming at with it. That's a good thing. It's ammo that's the problem nowdays. Guess we're seeing how the infantry felt when they were running low. Pretty scary really.

What I am still fascinated with in this story of this weapon is that it was used by Lewis and Clark but was not developed for general use. That was a lot of years to get it set up. Maybe they just didn't think there would be a market for them if they did have more to make them-----or, very few could afford them.

Pam