Similar in size to a steam-powered fire engine of the day, the gun had a menacing appearance thanks to a large curved shield covering its inner workings.

After the two had a falling out, Dickinson promoted the device under his name, patented his own version a few months later, and found funding to build a steam-powered gun in Boston in 1860.

In the wake of the April 19, 1861 clash between a pro-Southern mob and the 6th Massachusetts Militia in Baltimore, Maryland, word spread of an allegedly powerful steam gun said to have been invented and built by noted Maryland industrialist and states' rights advocate Ross Winans to oppose Federal troops passing through Baltimore to Washington in response to President Lincoln's call for volunteers.

Available evidence suggests that it was taken to the foundry/machine shop of Ross Winans and his son Thomas who the city’s Board of Police had hired to make pikes, shot and other munitions.

In the excitement of the times, Ross Winans' public involvement in states' rights politics in Maryland, his great fortune, word of the munitions work being done at his factory for the city, city defense appropriations, and the appearance of a menacing looking gun that had emerged from his factory became mixed in the press and were carried in papers across the country.