In 1861, General Butler purchased two guns at $1,300 each, and in the following year General Fremont also purchased two guns, paying $1,500 for each. The guns were condemned by the Ordnance Department for using too much ammunition to ever be practical, and the guns saw little use on the battlefield. They were often deployed to remote locations to guard bridges and narrow passes. The guns often performed poorly in the field. The single barrel design proved prone to overheating, and the weapon was also prone to jamming. The special steel tubes used to hold the cartridges were heavy and expensive, and tended to get lost. Later cartridges used brass, but this was not widely available during the time that the Agar machine gun was used. The gun's range was also criticized. It had a range of about 800 yards, which was roughly the same as the range of the rifle-muskets used by infantry. A longer range weapon would have been preferred. Because of the way it was used in battle, the Agar machine gun, like most machine guns of the period, was never able to show its potential. Machine guns later became much more important on the battlefield. In 1865, the few remaining Agar machine guns were sold for $500 each. See also Confederate Revolving Cannon Gatling gun Gorgas machine gun Lowell machine gun References External links American Civil War weapons Early machine guns Machine guns of the United States