Treasures: Battle of Gettysburg cannonball is beautifully engraved
Dear Helaine and Joe:
I found this in my parent’s basement and am not sure what we have here. It looks to be a portion of a cannonball with markings that say “Battle of Gettysburg.” Any information would be appreciated.
Thank you,
J. K.
Dear J. K.:
The American Civil War Battle of Gettysburg was horrific. Tens of thousands of Union and Confederate soldiers were killed, and many historians consider this to have been the turning part of the war.
When the battle was over, the farms around the small Pennsylvania town were strewn with bodies and bits and pieces of ordnance — cannonballs plus various kinds of shot and bullets. The battlefield was also strewn with objects such as uniform buttons, belt buckles, canteens and other accoutrements worn or carried by soldiers.
The partial cannonball in today’s question is beautifully engraved.
The top line, which we cannot quite make out, is a reference to Gen. George G. Meade. The rest of the inscription reads, “in command in the Battle of Gettysburg 1-2-3 July 1863.” We speculate that this piece of memorabilia might have been harvested near Meade’s first headquarters at the Leister Farm on Taneytown Road, or his second headquarters at the widow Pfeffer house on Baltimore Street.
After the titanic conflict, the battlefield became a sacred site and attracted both tourists and veterans. Various individuals and enterprises in Gettysburg went to the battlefield and gathered relics, which they assembled into trays or mounted as desk sets or other remembrances to sell as souvenirs.
Perhaps the most famous of the scavengers/assemblers was John Good, who was a cabinetmaker with a shop on Race Horse Alley. We have also seen such items attributed to J. A. Good, Gettysburg Battlefield Novelty Works located at 30 N. Washington St. These may be one and the same enterprise with different business addresses, but the information available is a bit sketchy.
Associated with Good was someone named John Woodward, but the exact nature of the connection is unclear. Groupings of Gettysburg souvenirs were typically made for Grand Army of the Republic Halls, small museums, veterans and sightseers.
It is hard to tell in this case who might have salvaged this shard from the field, but we do believe it was once part of a larger collection of artifacts assembled and retailed as a grouping.The engraving on the shard does look like Good’s work, which we have seen pictured on a much more complete cannonball that was said to have been engraved by Good in the 1870s. It is our understanding, however, that Good normally nailed his artifacts to boards, and the piece is today’s question appears to have been attached with a screw. We think the engraved fragment is authentic and of interest to collectors as well as to the Gettysburg History Museum, 219 Baltimore St., Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, (717) 337-2035.
Assigning a monetary value to this piece would be pure speculation, so we will refrain.