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Winans Steam Gun
The Winans Steam Gun was a steam-powered centrifugal gun used during the American Civil War, which used centrifugal forces (rather than gunpowder) to propel projectiles. Description Similar in size to a steam-powered fire engine of the day, the gun had a menacing appearance thanks to a large curved shield covering its inner workings. Its mechanism involved a shielded barrel that rotated up to 250 times per minute. Shot dumped into the top of the barrel rolled down into it, and were held back by a spring-loaded gate that opened to allow one shot to be flung out per revolution of the barrel. Despite the effort invested in the project, it was unable to match the accuracy or power of the gunpowder weaponry of the time, and thus the steam gun project was abandoned. History The weapon grew out of work by Ohio inventors William Joslin and Charles S. Dickinson on a hand-powered centrifugal gun, which they patented in 1858 - one of many 19th century attempts to harness "centrifugal" for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper
''Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper'', later renamed ''Leslie's Weekly'', was an American illustrated literary and news magazine founded in 1855 and published until 1922. It was one of several magazines started by publisher and illustrator Frank Leslie. Throughout its existence, the weekly provided illustrations and reports—first with wood engravings and daguerreotypes, later with more advanced forms of photography—of wars from John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry and the Civil War until the Spanish–American War and the First World War. Surviving issues today are highly prized as collectors' items for vividly depicting American life during the seven decades of its existence. Many distinguished writers were featured in its pages. History Background Frank Leslie was the pen name of Henry Carter (1821–1880), the son of a well-to-do English glovemaker.Joshua Brown, "The Great Uprising and Pictorial Order in Gilded Age America," in David O. Stowell (ed.), ''The Great S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states that had seceded. The central cause of the war was the dispute over whether slavery would be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prevented from doing so, which was widely believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction. Decades of political controversy over slavery were brought to a head by the victory in the 1860 U.S. presidential election of Abraham Lincoln, who opposed slavery's expansion into the west. An initial seven southern slave states responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and, in 1861, forming the Confederacy. The Confederacy seized U.S. forts and other federal assets within their borders. Led by Confederate President Jefferson ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles S
Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was "free man". The Old English descendant of this word was '' Ċearl'' or ''Ċeorl'', as the name of King Cearl of Mercia, that disappeared after the Norman conquest of England. The name was notably borne by Charlemagne (Charles the Great), and was at the time Latinized as ''Karolus'' (as in ''Vita Karoli Magni''), later also as '' Carolus''. Some Germanic languages, for example Dutch and German, have retained the word in two separate senses. In the particular case of Dutch, ''Karel'' refers to the given name, whereas the noun ''kerel'' means "a bloke, fellow, man". Etymology The name's etymology is a Common Germanic noun ''*karilaz'' meaning "free man", which survives in English as churl (< Old English ''ċeorl''), which developed i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Centrifugal Gun
A centrifugal gun is a type of rapid-fire projectile accelerator, like a machine gun but operating on a different principle. Centrifugal guns use a rapidly rotating disc to impart energy to the projectiles, replacing gunpowder with kinetic energy. A steam-powered centrifugal gun built by Charles Dickinson of Boston was tested during the American Civil War. This gun was popularly but incorrectly attributed to pro-Southern Maryland millionaire and inventor Ross Winans. Another hand-cranked centrifugal gun that fired musket balls was designed by Robert McCarty during the same period. Despite repeated tests, including one in the presence of Abraham Lincoln, McCarty's gun never saw service. Dahlgren however took the idea seriously, and after testing McCarty's prototype, he built a steam-powered 12 pounder which could fire 15 rounds in 16 seconds and had a range of a mile. It was extremely inaccurate however. As historian Robert V. Bruce notes: "the sole casualty of centrifugal gunfire ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Centrifugal Force
In Newtonian mechanics, the centrifugal force is an inertial force (also called a "fictitious" or "pseudo" force) that appears to act on all objects when viewed in a rotating frame of reference. It is directed away from an axis which is parallel to the axis of rotation and passing through the coordinate system's origin. If the axis of rotation passes through the coordinate system's origin, the centrifugal force is directed radially outwards from that axis. The magnitude of centrifugal force ''F'' on an object of mass ''m'' at the distance ''r'' from the origin of a frame of reference rotating with angular velocity is: F = m\omega^2 r The concept of centrifugal force can be applied in rotating devices, such as centrifuges, centrifugal pumps, centrifugal governors, and centrifugal clutches, and in centrifugal railways, planetary orbits and banked curves, when they are analyzed in a rotating coordinate system. Confusingly, the term has sometimes also been used for the rea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baltimore Riot Of 1861
The Baltimore riot of 1861 (also called the "Pratt Street Riots" and the "Pratt Street Massacre") was a civil conflict on Friday, April 19, 1861, on Pratt Street, in Baltimore, Maryland. It occurred between antiwar "Copperhead" Democrats (the largest party in Maryland) and other Southern/Confederate sympathizers on one side, and on the other, members of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania state militia regiments en route to the national capital at Washington who had been called up for federal service. The fighting began at the President Street Station, spreading throughout President Street and subsequently to Howard Street, where it ended at the Camden Street Station. The riot produced the first deaths by hostile action in the American Civil War and is often called the "first bloodshed of the Civil War". Background In 1861, most Baltimoreans did not support a violent conflict with their southern neighbors, and some of them strongly sympathized with the Southern cause. In the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
6th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Militia
The 6th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Militia was a peacetime infantry regiment that was activated for federal service in the Union army for three separate terms during the American Civil War (1861-1865). The regiment gained notoriety as the first unit in the Union Army to suffer fatal casualties in action during the Civil War in the Baltimore Riot and the first militia unit to arrive in Washington D.C. in response to President Abraham Lincoln's initial call for 75,000 troops. Private Luther C. Ladd of the 6th Massachusetts is often referred to as the first Union soldier killed in action during the war. In the years immediately preceding the war and during its first enlistment, the regiment consisted primarily of companies from Middlesex County. During its first term of service, four out of ten companies of the regiment were from Lowell, Massachusetts. Colonel Edward F. Jones commanded the regiment during its first term. He later commanded the 26th Massachusetts and w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
States' Rights
In American political discourse, states' rights are political powers held for the state governments rather than the federal government according to the United States Constitution, reflecting especially the enumerated powers of Congress and the Tenth Amendment. The enumerated powers that are listed in the Constitution include exclusive federal powers, as well as concurrent powers that are shared with the states, and all of those powers are contrasted with the reserved powers—also called states' rights—that only the states possess. Background The balance of federal powers and those powers held by the states as defined in the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution was first addressed in the case of ''McCulloch v. Maryland'' (1819). The Court's decision by Chief Justice John Marshall asserted that the laws adopted by the federal government, when exercising its constitutional powers, are generally paramount over any conflicting laws adopted by state governments. Afte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ross Winans
Ross Winans (1796–1877) was an American inventor, mechanic, and builder of locomotives and railroad machinery. He is also noted for design of pioneering cigar-hulled ships. Winans, one of the United States' first multi-millionaires, was involved in national and state politics, a southern-sympathizer and was a vehement "states' rights" advocate. Winans was briefly arrested after the Baltimore riot of 1861. His outspoken anti-federal stance as a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, the lower chamber of the General Assembly, (state legislature) led to his temporary arrest on May 14, 1861. At the time of his arrest, Winans was returning on a Baltimore and Ohio Railroad train from an early session of the legislature that was being held in the western Maryland town of Frederick to avoid the Union Army-occupied state capital of Annapolis in April–May 1861 to consider the possibilities of state secession during the early decisive period of the American Civil War. Winans was r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ellicott City, Maryland
Ellicott City is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in, and the county seat of, Howard County, Maryland, Howard County, Maryland, United States. Part of the Baltimore metropolitan area, its population was 65,834 at the United States 2010 Census, 2010 census, making it the most populous unincorporated county seat in the country. Ellicott City's historic downtownthe Ellicott City Historic Districtlies in the valleys of the Ellicott City#Geography, Tiber and Patapsco River, Patapsco rivers. The historic district includes the Ellicott City Station, which is the oldest surviving train station in the United States, having been built in 1830 as the first terminus of the original Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, B&O Railroad line. The historic district is often called "Historic Ellicott City" or "Old Ellicott City" to distinguish it from the surrounding suburbs that extend south to Columbia, Maryland, Columbia and west to West Friendship, Maryland, West Friendship. Histo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fortress Monroe
Fort Monroe, managed by partnership between the Fort Monroe Authority for the Commonwealth of Virginia, the National Park Service as the Fort Monroe National Monument, and the City of Hampton, is a former military installation in Hampton, Virginia, at Old Point Comfort, the southern tip of the Virginia Peninsula, United States. Along with Fort Wool, Fort Monroe originally guarded the navigation channel between the Chesapeake Bay and Hampton Roads—the natural roadstead at the confluence of the Elizabeth, the Nansemond and the James rivers. Union General George B. McClellan landed his forces at the fort during Peninsula campaign of 1862 during the American Civil War. Until disarmament in 1946, the areas protected by the fort were the entire Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River regions, including the water approaches to the cities of Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland, along with important shipyards and naval bases in the Hampton Roads area. Surrounded by a moat, the six- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
