The Cincinnati Gazette says that a few days ago Colonel Guthrie of the First Kentucky regiment, now commanding at Charleston, Va., learning that a revolving cannon, invented by two men named Woods of the rebel army, was secreted somewhere in the town of Maiden, a little place about six miles above Charlestown, caused a vigorous search to be made for it, and succeeded in unearthing it. He embraced the first opportunity to forward it to Cincinnati, and it is now in Collector Carson’s office in the Custom House. It is impossible to give satisfactory description of the gun, for the reason that it is in an unfinished condition, and also because some of the pieces have been lost. The workmen bad not time to complete it before Wise was in full retreat, and consequently it was buried to keep it from falling into the hands of the Union troops. We may say, however, that it is composed chiefly of sixteen short cylinders, each containing twelve chambers, and that it is designed to throw ounce balls through rifled barrels about eighteen inches long. It seems to be worked by a lever similar to that of a locomotive. At each discharge it would throw one hundred and ninety-two balls. If the principle on which it is constructed be correct, we see no reason why one might not be built that would throw five hundred, or even a thousand balls. Col. Tomkins of the rebel army, a graduate of West Point, pronounced it one of the most destructive engines of war ever designed. Colonel Guthrie, thinking that “there might be something in it,” and believing there is ingenuity enough in Cincinnati to find out what that something is, requests that it be delivered to Miles Greenwood, or some other well-known iron worker, for examination. We shall most probably learn whether it is a valuable arm, or simply “a weak invention of the enemy.
Raftsman’s Journal, Clearfield, PA