Wheelgun Wednesday: The Civil War's Largest Revolver
Need a Big Bore Revolver? Henry Pate’s got you covered.
By the time the American Civil War broke out, Henry Clay Pate already had some combat experience from the 1850s. Pate, a U.S. Marshal and staunch slavery supporter, had participated in the attack on Lawrence, Kansas, and had tangled with and been beaten by John Brown at The Battle of Black Jack in Kansas as well.
Like many veterans of such skirmishes, as well as mounted units in the Mexican-American war, Pate’s fighting experience with revolvers must have made an impression on him. Upon the outbreak of the Civil War, Pate formed a mounted unit (Pate’s Rangers), and commissioned the Peterson, VA firm of Tappey and Lundsen to manufacture a monstrous, oversized 3.13-inch (313 caliber) revolver, the “Pate Revolving Cannon”.
20 Pounds of lead
Each ball for the revolving cannon weighed 4lbs or 28000gr! The cannon was as close to a scaled-up percussion revolver as one could get. It utilized a 5-shot cylinder, a striker that would impact a percussion cap, and, to improve velocity and safety by reducing gas leakage, was also a gas-sealed design! One could seal the cylinder to the barrel via the usage of a screw lever. A separate lever would rotate the cylinder, which was held in place for firing via a hefty spring-loaded mechanism.
According to the Petersburg Express of May 11, 1861, two such cannons were made, with one bursting apart during testing. The maximum range of the cannon was 1900 yards, and it was mounted on a two-wheeled caisson with an integrated elevation adjustment mechanism. The cannon was more than manageable for cavalry use, weighing a svelte (for artillery) 300 lbs.
Combat and Capture
Though innovative, the Pate revolving cannon did not make a large impression on the leadership of the Confederacy, at least not enough to pursue further. Neither Thomas Rosser nor James “Jeb” Stuart (both of whom Pate served under) seem to have made much mention or recommendation of the device. This may have been due to its ineffectiveness as a weapon, or due to Pate’s irascible insubordinate nature, which earned him a court-martial from Rosser.
The revolving cannon’s most notable combat usage during the war was in the fighting around Petersburg and Richmond, VA in 1864-5. Pate was killed in cavalry combat at the Battle of Yellow Tavern in May of 1864. The cannon itself was captured in Danville on the southern border of Virginia in April of 1865 and was sent to West Point for analysis.
While today the Pate Revolving Cannon is just a footnote in the early attempts at rapid fire artillery, it truly was a Civil War mega-revolver.
Having always had a passion for firearms, Rusty S. has had experience in gunsmithing, firearms retail, hunting, competitive shooting, range construction, as an IDPA certified range safety officer and a certified instructor. He has received military, law enforcement, and private training in the use of firearms. Editor at Outdoorhub.com
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A bit of searching led to this forum thread - https://civilwartalk.com/th... - which led to the information that the gun's at the Siege Museum in Petersburg - https://www.battlefields.or... - but my search expertise failed me at that point since I couldn't find an entry for the Pate gun at the museum site. But, the thread did have a photo of the gun - http://travelphotobase.com/...
Now that I know about the darned thing I've got a question or two but first an observation:
The gas seal design was probably informed by experience with caplock revolvers since one of their failure modes is "chain firing", i.e. the firing cylinder's discharge ignites the propellant in all the other cylinders. Disconcerting, possibly dangerous and damned inconvenient in a handgun it probably would have resulted in ballistic disassembly in the Pate cannon and its crew. A gas-seal design would help reduce the possibility of a chain-fire.
But not necessarily eliminate the possibility of chain-fire. The first Pate gun exploded.
How was it reloaded?
Wrestling that impressively-large cylinder out of the frame probably wasn't how it was done so it must have some linkage that disengages the cylinder and allows it to be rotated to the vertical position.
And then swab to extinguish any remaining embers, charge with a cloth cartridge and ram - possibly with a short ramming rod and a mallet? - rotate back into position and put on percussion caps.
What sort of projectile? Round ball or really big Minie "ball"? The claimed 1900 yard range means the latter more than likely as well as a rifled barrel. But since the cylinder bore and the barrel bore can be different it might have been a conical shot but without the hollow base of a Minie ball.
An aside that demonstrates election fraud's nothing new is the story of the Kansas Territorial election in which Henry Clay Pate was a participant:
"In October 1857, Pate participated in the most famous election fraud in Territorial Kansas. At Oxford, in Johnson County adjoining New Santa Fe, Missouri, about forty voters cast ballots in the election of the Second Territorial Legislature. Henry Clay Pate, "who was entrusted with the records," took the list to New Santa Fe that night and then on to Westport the next day. When the vote was received by the Secretary of State, Oxford had cast 1,628 votes. At the next election in December 1857, on the Lecompton pro-slavery constitution, the Oxford vote was 1,250, overwhelmingly in favor of the constitution. The next month, in January 1858, officers under the Lecompton constitution were elected.. Oxford precinct cast only 696 illegal votes, "a big slump." Later that month a census was taken for the township, showing forty-two legal voters. [Blair, Johnson County, 181] A free-state man from Ohio recognized that the voter list was written in alphabetical order, and had been copied from an old Cincinnati city directory. [Cordley, Lawrence, Ch. 10] Undoubtedly, Pate had kept a copy of the directory when he moved to Missouri."
http://kansasboguslegislatu...
Stop it and get back on track about this firearm . I enjoy this site and I don't need to hear a rehash of a 150 yr. old war. Its not what the article is about. Breath deep and relax. Enjoy the first day of spring, its real nlce here in S.D.