Civil War reenactors present at Navy ship commissioning in Cleveland had hoped to fire artillery salutes. Gun #179 did fire a volley in 1865 at Lincoln funeral there

Original Napoleon (foreground) and 3-inch ordnance rifle at Saturday's event (1st Ohio LA, Battery A)

Ohio Civil War reenactment crews present for the commissioning of a U.S. Navy combat ship in Cleveland on Saturday displayed two cannons, including one that reportedly saluted assassinated President Abraham Lincoln during his funeral train stop in the city in 1865.

They had hoped to fire the guns but increased security ahead of the ceremony precluded the booming display, officials said.

Gun #179, an 1864 Napoleon that was at the Lincoln events, was transported from the Statehouse grounds in Columbus to Cleveland, which saw the first U.S. Navy commissioning in Ohio in 250 years. A 3-inch ordnance gun was placed next to the Napoleon. Both were pointed toward Lake Erie.

Lake Erie made a picturesque setting Saturday morning (U.S. Navy photo)

Littoral warship USS Cleveland was launched three years ago; Saturday morning brought its formal commissioning in military service before it is deployed to Naval Station Mayport in Florida.

The guns were placed about a 100 yards from the stern of the ship so the public could learn about Civil War artillery, said Tim Daley of the USS Cleveland Legacy Foundation.

The 1st Ohio Light Artillery, Battery A reenactment unit brought the Napoleon “for a much happier occasion” than the wake for Lincoln on April 28, 1865, according to a news release from Battery A and the Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board.

Cleveland was one of several Lincoln funeral train stops between Washington, D.C., and Springfield, Ill. Church bells and cannon firing were part of the public viewing of Lincoln and procession in Cleveland. The 1^st Ohio Light Artillery saw extensive service in the Western Theater.

The 19th Ohio Light Artillery from the Cleveland area showed off the 3-inch gun (above, in foreground, courtesy Wes Smith).

Saturday’s ceremony was full of Navy tradition, and speakers mentioned Cleveland’s contribution of steel and welding to the construction of the vessel. One pointed out the city’s service to the U.S. military intensified with manufacturing during the Civil War.

“This crew is ready to sail. This crew is ready to fight. This crew is ready to serve,” said its commander, Capt. Bruce Hallett near the completion of the ceremony.

Members of both reenactor groups on Cleveland waterfront (Special to the Picket)

In a Facebook post following the events, the 19th Ohio Light Artillery wrote:

"We were treated like royalty, being police-escorted from Berea, Ohio, to Cleveland Lakefront! Although we were unable to fire the guns we were put pretty close to the ceremony and able to mingle with the public and witness history."

They were able to tour the ship, though one participant had to remove her outer hoopskirt in order to take the stairs and maneuver in tight places.

I contacted both reenactment groups ahead of the event, and the following provides background: Responses have been edited for order and brevity.

Background on 1st Ohio Light Artillery, Battery A

Reenactors man 1864 Napoleon on the Cleveland waterfront (1st Ohio Light Artillery, Battery A)

From Capt. Duane Rezac:

Q. Do you have a history of gun #179? Where was it from October 1864 until the Lincoln assassination?

A. I have done research on the history of the four cannon on the Statehouse grounds. The cannon were part of a purchase of two batteries of 6-pdr and 2 batteries of 12-pdr guns for the newly formed Ohio National Guard in 1864. At the start of the war, the states provided arms and equipment for troops going into federal service. By mid-1863, Ohio had sent 40 6-pdr field guns with Ohio troops going into federal service. When the process of disbanding the Ohio militia and forming the Ohio National Guard began in 1863, Ohio had no functional artillery remaining in the State Arsenal. The few artillery pieces that remained with the Ohio militia were in poor condition and were unserviceable.

The Ohio National Guard was authorized to have 20 2-gun batteries of artillery, but they had no equipment for them. A requisition was sent to the U.S. government requesting that the 40 6-pdr field guns be replaced. The request was denied, with the response including, "If we provide the guns, it will set a precedent and the other states will request the same, and we cannot do that in a time of war.”

The business end of gun #179 in Cleveland ((1st Ohio Light Artillery, Battery A)

Ohio came up with a solution. They would purchase four batteries of artillery, two 6-pdr batteries, 2 12-pdr batteries and 200 horses. The 6-pdr batteries would be used to train Ohio National Guard batteries so they would be prepared when more guns could be procured. The first two batteries to be trained would be expanded to a six-gun strength, and on the completion of their training, would be issued 6 12-pdr guns and 100 horses. These batteries would be stationed in Cleveland and Cincinnati to provide protection for the cities and borders of Ohio. The Ohio Statehouse has one gun from each of the batteries purchased.

Gun #179 was one of 6 12-pdrs issued to the 8th Independent Battery Ohio National Guard. The 8th was stationed in Brooklyn Ohio (now a suburb of Cleveland) and maintained an armory there.They kept the 100 horses they were issued stabled close to Brooklyn; however I have not been able to determine its exact location. In fall of 1864, Gen. Hooker wrote a letter to the governor of Ohio requesting that an Ohio Battery be made available to him in Cleveland. Gen. Hooker had information from spies that Confederate refugees in Canada planned " an early decent upon Detroit or Cleveland for purposes of Plunder and incendiarism" and he requested a battery for support in the event the attack occurred. The 8th was given that assignment and were on active duty from fall of 1864 until spring of 1865 with orders to provide Gen. Hooker any support requested.

Lincoln's casket was brought to Public Square (Courtesy The Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio

When President Lincoln's funeral was at Cleveland, the 8th was selected to participate. The 8th fired the 36 -gun National Salute on the arrival of the train carrying the president’s body ( gun #179 would have fired six volleys). The 8th was a part of the honor guard escorting the casket from the train to the square where the president’s body was on repose, and the 8th fired salutes through the day.

Q. What kind of cannon is it? How long has it been at the Statehouse grounds?

The cannon is a M1857 12-pdr field gun commonly referred to as a Napoleon. All of the cannon were manufactured by Miles Greenwood of Cincinnati. #179 refers to the foundry number on the trunnion of the gun. While I am still researching to determine the exact date the guns were placed on the Statehouse grounds, I have a photograph from 1879 of the Statehouse that shows a cannon in the same location they were when the renovations to the Statehouse were done in the late 1980s. During that same time period, the inventory reports have a column of “Items at the State Campground or otherwise assigned by the Adjutant General’. This column contains two 12-pdr guns and two 6-pdr guns. While there is no way to definitively prove that these four guns are the Statehouse guns, I believe that it is highly likely that they are.

Q. How many members of the battery will be there? Do they have experience with this weapon?

A. All of our battery members are experienced operating muzzle-loading cannon with experience from new recruits to over 20 years operating cannon. We currently have nine members that are planning to attend

Q. Has this gun been fired before, in recent years?

A. While I can't say exactly when the last time this gun was fired, all four of the guns are maintained in operating condition. Due to logistics of handling the guns without horses, we typically use one of the lighter 6-pdr guns. Since 12-pdr #179 served in Cleveland during the war, we are very happy to return it back to where it served 161 years ago. When the Ohio Statehouse underwent major restoration in the late 1980s, all four of the cannon were completely reconditioned and new carriages built, using as much of the original hardware that was salvageable, with the remainder being newly manufactured by Cannon Ltd. In Coolville, Ohio (now out of business). The cannon are maintained by our battery and the Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board, who are responsible for the Statehouse, grounds and monuments.

Background on the 19^th Ohio Light Artillery

From Capt. Wesley Smith

The 19th Ohio Light Artillery is a reenactment group that portrays the original 19th Ohio Independent Light Artillery, which was formed in the Cleveland area in September of 1862. They fought mainly in the Western Theater. Our reenactment group was formed way back in the 1960s during the centennial of the Civil War. Through the years, we’ve been reenacting and doing living history displays all over the mid-Atlantic states through Ohio and Michigan, also. We are a member of larger reenactment organizations like The Artillery Reserve and Birney’s Division. We take great pride in safety and historical accuracy while in the field. Our group is a very tight knit family group. Most events we field at least two cannons with limbers.

A bomb squad rushed to a suburban Atlanta home to check out a possible Civil War cannonball said to be found in the yard. I now toss you the rest of the story

Metal ball had been moved into a bucket in a Marietta, Ga., shed (Cobb County Police)

The bomb squad in Cobb County, Ga., is called in two to four times a year following the discovery of metal objects that look like Civil War ordnance.

That's hardly surprising, given the amount of combat, artillery and troop movement in Cobb and neighboring Paulding County in summer 1864. (more on that later)

“We deal with Civil War ordnance more than other local bomb squads due to Kennesaw Mountain, Cheatham Hill, Pickett’s Mill and other historic sites,” says Cobb County Police Sgt. Joel Cade, who heads the squad.

Such was the case in mid-December, when police in Marietta, the county seat, reached out to the squad.

A resident in the eastern part of the city had called authorities about some items she had found, according to the Marietta police report, which listed the incident code as 89L: BOMB DEVICE LOCATED

“(She) advised that she had located multiple objects that she thought could be explosive devices," wrote one of the responding officers. "(She) advised that the objects were large, round metal objects and that she had located throughout the side and back yards,” the report says. “(The woman) further advised that she had moved one of these objects into a bucket in the shed.”

The Marietta officers thought the item resembled a cannonball. The home and residents on the street were told to evacuate. Traffic on a stretch of a larger road was temporarily blocked. The officers called the bomb squad.

Cade and others traveled to the scene and dealt with the situation.

A couple weeks later -- after I reached out to authorities following a media report --  Cade emailed me about what they saw. It wasn’t what I was expecting.

“It was very clean when we took possession of it. It was in the townhome’s back storage closet when Marietta police took it and placed it into a bucket. The complainant alleged she found it in the ground but could not explain why there was no dirt on the ball,” he wrote.

The bomb squad, citing training and similar calls, determined the solid ball was non-hazardous. And it had no fusing or charge.

So what is it?

Wait for it…..

A shot put ball. 

All of 4 inches in diameter and weighing about 15 pounds (below). To the layman, it sure looks like it could be a cannonball. 

Great for sports competition, but not the field of battle (Cobb County Police)

That raised more questions and I fired a few more back at Cade, who got back with me a few weeks later.

“We concluded it was a shot put from prior cannonball calls we have had and compared it to resources we maintain in our files,” Cade replied. “The ones we have been called out to in the past that were adjudicated as cannonballs have a different texture to the iron, and they have prominent fuze wells.

“Additionally, shot-put sizes can vary (men’s, women’s, junior’s) but I haven’t seen one the same size as the cannon balls we have recovered in the past.”

“The spanner wrench holes with removable plug, opposite welded plug, weight/diameter and good condition led us to the conclusion it was not ordnance. Additionally, as an extra step, we used high energy radiography and looked inside the ball, no fillers or fuze was seen.”

The shot put was destroyed and the remains disposed of, said Cade.

So there you have it.

Of course, a whole lot of real Civil War ordnance has been recovered in metro Atlanta over the years.

Charlie Crawford, president emeritus of the Georgia Battlefields Association, said many shells were found during the construction of downtown Atlanta buildings and sites. Others were dug up in northwest Atlanta. “Those shells were probably from the U.S. artillery massed northwest of the city during the August 1864 bombardment,” he said.

The area home to the shot put ball may have been crisscrossed by Federal and Confederate artillery units during the Atlanta Campaign. And there was artillery firing a couple miles away, and an errant shot may have landed in the neighborhood.

But that scenario proved to be moot in this case.

In 2022, Bomb squad members gingerly removed this round from the Kennesaw battlefield (NPS photos)

Cade said real Civil War ordnance his team has handled include cannonballs and Parrott, Hotchkiss and Schenkl projectiles.

"There are a variety of ways things have been discovered, and some of the ordnance ended up being gained unlawfully," he said. "The few of those cases we responded to the person who had possession was deceased and no prosecution was appropriate (we were notified by their estate)."

One of the more recent publicized discoveries of an actual shell in Cobb County came at Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park in February 2022. The county police bomb squad took custody of the Parrott round but later returned to the park after it had been rendered safe and inert.

Officials implied the shell was left intact, a rarity after bomb squads are called in. Usually, they take an object to a safe location and detonate it.

In 2009, a contractor found 42 artillery shells south of Atlanta, near Lovejoy.

The bomb squad removed a cannonball from a flower bed south of Topeka. Was it part of a weapons cache during the Civil War or 'Bleeding Kansas' violence?

The item was found in a small garden in eastern Kansas (Overbrook Police Department)

A bomb squad this week removed a small cannonball from the garden of a house in Overbrook, Kan., near the old Santa Fe Trail, which ran through communities ravaged by the Civil War.

Overbrook Police Chief Eric Carlson said several agencies went to the home on Walnut Street after a call came in Tuesday afternoon. The suspected Civil War ball, described by Carlson as slightly larger than a softball, was removed by Topeka police.

“The cannonball was outside in a garden and had been there since at least 2006,” Carlson said Thursday morning in an email to the Picket. “It is believed that the cannonball had been there much longer but buried and recent rain had brought it above ground.

Topeka police have the ordnance “pending a determination on whether or not it can be safely returned or needs to be destroyed,” said Carlson. 

“There is not suspected to be others in the garden and the area was checked. I am unable to identify the exact kind of shell,” Carlson said. “The metal was too thick for the X-ray used by the bomb squad. This is why further investigation was required.”

If the ball is saved, he said, it will go the Overbrook Historical Society.

Lance Feyh, a public information officer for the state fire marshal's office, said Topeka police were to consult with the Army’s Fort Riley about the object. The Picket left a message with Topeka police.

Wade Sisson, a board member with the historical society, said the artifact was discovered on the former grounds of the original Overbrook Methodist Church, which was built in 1888. The property now is a private residence. "I'm told by someone who did the initial examination that they estimate it was made sometime between 1860 and 1865," he said in an email.

According to Sisson, the owner told them a basement and first floor for an addition at the church were built and completed in the 1950s. After a 2006 flood, the homeowner had the basement wall excavated to replace a drain.

The trail, shown in red, ran through Overbook, which is a few miles east of Wilmington (NPS map)

The cannonball was discovered during the excavation but it was so mud-packed, it was assumed to be a solid metal ball. The resident placed it in a garden bed by the back door and forgot about it. In May, his son found the item. A rain cleared some mud and when it was put back in a different position they noticed an angle that showed a plug. That is when the owner called authorities.

Carlson said officials determined the cannonball was from the mid-19th century “based on the plug hole and the fact that a large cache of cannonballs that had been stored in Overbrook during the Civil War and Bleeding Kansas period.”

“Kansas sided with the Union during the war and several confrontations during the Bleeding Kansas era were rumored to have taken place in the area," said the chief.

The farm and railroad town was not incorporated until 1886. Overbrook is about 20 miles southeast of Topeka and 25 miles southwest of Lawrence, scene of an 1863 Confederate guerrilla massacre of civilians. Kansas was beset before and during the war by violence among pro- and anti-slavery forces.

Santa Fe Trail Street in Overbrook – which is about a block from the scene -- runs directly along the Santa Fe Trail.

Several battles in Kansas were fought along the historic pioneer corridor, including in Olathe, Westport and Diamond Spring. No fighting was believed to have occurred in Overbrook.

The town's police department includes a Santa Fe Trail covered wagon in its logo (right).

About 1,000 people live in Overbrook.

Officials: Reenactment cannonball found at North Carolina school

A crew clearing vegetation around a school in coastal North Carolina came across what is believed to be a Civil War reenactment cannonball, prompting evacuation of the school and response from a Camp Lejeune explosive ordnance disposal team.

The cannonball had been “in place long enough that woody vegetation had grown around it, to the point that it had to be cut away so the object could be removed,” Onslow County Schools said about the Thursday incident at the Onslow County Learning Center.

The EOD team from the Marine Corps base determined the object, which had been unseen for a significant amount of time, was found to be inert with no explosives, and it was removed, officials said.

“Safety is Onslow County Schools’ top priority, and we appreciate the support and collaboration of our local emergency responders, as well as our families, as we work to keep our schools safe and secure,” the district said.

The Picket asked the district how the shell may have come to be there and what happened to it after removal. Public information assistant Jessica Wells said Onslow County Schools had no other information it could share.

Little Round Top rehab project at Gettysburg yields artillery round

Nearly 160 years after the battle at Gettysburg, a Civil War-era unexploded artillery shell was found this week in the Little Round Top area. According to the Gettysburg National Military Park, the shell weighs about 10 pounds and measures about 7 inches long. An Army explosives ordnance disposal team later detonated the round. -- Article 

Dumped by Sherman? Utility soon to resume removing 'metallic' objects from S.C. river

Burning of Columbia, Feb. 1865 (William Waud, Library of Congress)

Historic flooding earlier this month in Columbia, South Carolina, put a temporary hold on the removal of objects from a river where Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman is believed to have dumped captured munitions.
 

“Prior to the flooding, we did work on removing the metallic objects for several days,” said Ginny Jones, senior public affairs specialist for SCANA, parent company of utility SCE&G. “Nothing we found at that time was of historical significance. We plan to resume work on the project on Nov. 2.”

The State newspaper has reported that sonar and metal detection have located where the weapons were likely dumped into the Congaree River near the Gervais Street bridge. But no one is certain the objects are associated with the Civil War.

Sherman, on his way to North Carolina after seizing the South Carolina capital, kept what he wanted of Confederate ordnance and threw the rest into the river in February 1865.

“It is certainly possible that historical objects could still be found; we still just don’t know what’s there until we dig it up,” Jones said in an email to the Civil War Picket.

Gervais Street bridge (NPS)

EOTI, a Tennessee company, has been contracted to help deal with any Civil War-related munitions that are found. “That likely would involve placing a cover over any explosives consultants find, then detonating the material in place,” the newspaper reported, quoting a SCANA official. “The cover would keep the explosion contained to protect the public and the surrounding environment.”

EOTI referred Picket questions to SCANA.

SCE&G is conducting a remediation project in the Congaree River because of the detected presence of tar. It says tests show it to be coal tar created by manufactured gas plants that operated throughout Columbia more than century ago.

The State, in a preview of this phase of the work, said workers will go through soil in the river and remove 74 objects.

Officials previously told the newspaper that any recovered cannonballs, scabbards, sabers or cartridges will likely be housed at the S.C. Confederate Relic Room.