The quest to create a rapid-firing gun had been underway since medieval times but it was not until the 19th century that machine guns came into being. In 1861, American inventor Richard Gatling patented the Gatling gun, which was the first firearm to offer controlled, sequential firing with mechanical loading. Gatling guns were first used in the American Civil War (1861-65) and Franco-Prussian War (1870-71).
The British Army deployed the Gatling gun for the first time in what is now Ghana during the Third Anglo-Ashanti
