Lake Co. Discovery Museum rolls out the big gun for Civil War exhibit

The Lake County Discovery Museum is literally dragging a piece of Civil War history from its collection for the first time in a decade.

The museum didn't have any horses to help, so the rare 500-pound Gatling gun (including its 300-pound carriage) took four staffers just to move it out of storage and to the display area.

The gun is the centerpiece of the museum's new Civil War exhibit, which opens Friday, July 2 and runs to Sept. 12.

"It's made of really heavy cast metal and they would hook it up to a team of horses," said Justin Collins, the museum's exhibits director.

The gun was one of the first rapid-fire weapons ever invented, and Collins said it revolutionized warfare when it was introduced.

"A normal soldier could get off three rounds per minute, but a Gatling gun could get off 150 to 200 rounds per minute" he said. "It had a tremendous effect psychologically on soldiers."

Along with the gun, the exhibit will feature artillery uniforms from soldiers who would have been in charge of this type of gun, Civil War letters from local soldiers, a few muskets and rifles and Gatling gun bullets.

Collins said one of the more interesting items on display is a copy of a letter that Dr. Richard Gatling sent to President Lincoln pressing the president to use the gun to end the war. One of the reasons senior military brass were against it was the supposed waste of bullets.

"At that time, artillery pieces were the shock and awe," Collins said.

The exhibit opens just ahead of the Lake County Civil War Days re-enactment on July 10 and 11 at the Lakewood Forest Preserve on Route 176, just west of Fairfield Road, near Wauconda.