Mitrailleuse
The first "mitrailleuse" was a manually fired 50-barrel volley gun originally developed in Belgium in 1851 by the Belgian Army Captain Fafschamps, who made a rough prototype and drawings of his invention. The system was improved during the 1850s by Louis Christophe and the Belgian engineer Joseph Montigny, with the completion of the 37-barrel Montigny mitrailleuse in 1863. From 1859, Joseph Montigny proposed his design to Napoleon III, which led to the development of the French Reffye mitrailleuse, designed by Jean-Baptiste Verchère de Reffye with the collaboration of Montigny, and which was adopted by the French Army in 1865. Initially kept under wraps as a secret weapon, it was widely used in battle by French artillery during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71). Smaller numbers of other designs, including the Gatling gun, were also purchased by the French government during the latter part of that conflict. The Reffye model had initially been built in small numbers and in secrecy: only about 200 were available at the beginning of the conflict. This also kept regular French field artillery in a neglected position in the eyes of French emperor Napoleon III, with dire consequences during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71.
Daguerreotype
Morse met the inventor of the daguerreotype, Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre, in Paris in January 1839 when Daguerre's invention was announced [2]. While the daguerreotype fascinated Morse, he was concerned about how the new invention would compete with his telegraph. However, Morse's viewing of the daguerreotype alleviated his fears when he saw how revolutionary its technology was. Morse wrote a letter to his brother Sidney describing Daguerre's invention, which Sidney then published in the New-York Observer on April 20, 1839. While this was not the first report of the daguerreotype to appear in America, it was the first in-person report to appear in the United States.