12 July 1872 • New Saybrook, Conn. (MS: Ct, UCCL 00768)
Saybrook Pt. July 12.
A friend of mine who is connected with an insignificant foreign government, officially, writes me to call upon you & “inquire the cost of a Gattling Ⓐemendation gun complete, including duplicates of certain portions necessary (in a country where reparirs will be impossible,) & 25,000 rounds of ammunition comprising the different cartridges used.”1explanatory note
As I shall probably not return home to Hartford till the warm weather is over, I have thought it best to make this inquiry through the mail. An early reply will greatly oblige—
This request might have come from John Henry Riley, who had been appointed consul general to the United States from the Orange Free State. Colt’s Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Company, incorporated in 1855 in Hartford, began manufacturing the Gatling gun in 1866, when it was officially adopted by the United States Army. This revolutionary rapid-fire gun had been invented in 1862 by Richard Jordan Gatling (1818–1903) of North Carolina, who became a Hartford resident in 1870 (Geer 1872, 67, 289).
MS, Connecticut State Library, Hartford (Ct).
L5 , 118–119; Davis 1951.
The MS was in the Colt company museum as late as 1951; it was donated to Ct sometime between 1951 and 1976.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.