- Joined
- Jul 23, 2017
- Location
- Southwest Missouri
Pittsburgh hosted the 1894 GAR National Encampment and as with other encampments, surplus Civil War cannons were melted down to supply trinkets and badges to members. Photographed above is the bronze 12 pounder, donated by the US government and pulled from the stockpile at the Allegheny Arsenal. Composed of 90% copper and 10% tin, it supplied 1,756 pounds of metal.
For the source article of this information, including a close up photo of the cannon in question, you can download the complete article here https://journals.psu.edu/wph/article/view/58862/0
One piece of history makes many more - search '1894 GAR encampment copper' in Google images to see what this cannon produced, many for sale
One piece of history makes many more - search '1894 GAR encampment copper' in Google images to see what this cannon produced, many for sale
The following year - for the 1895 encampment in Louisville, KY
From a 2005 LA Times story “In the half-century after the Civil War, about 12,000 obsolete cannons were donated to towns and veterans' groups. Many were melted down in scrap-metal drives during the world wars; fewer than 5,700 survive. At least 560 of them, Union and Confederate collectibles valued from $20,000 to $200,000, are in private hands.”
And then there was the World War Two scrap drive ...
The Daniel Morgan statue remains to this date in Spartanburg, SC
But the civil war cannons and balls were melted in a World War Two scrap drive - September 1942
Bay City, Michigan donated 8 cannon in October, 1942 to the same war effort.
Two cannons from Ft. Sumter, two cannons from the ship U.S.S. Hartford, two field cannons, and two cannons from the ship U.S.S. Portsmouth.
and so many, many more