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Gettysburg Pennsylvania Monument question

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speedenforcer:
Is it true that the bronze figures on the Pennsylvania monument at Gettysburg were made from melted down bronze cannon? If so that is a darn shame and pisses me off. >:(  :'(
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FIRU2xBXEU     at 20:03

redbob:
I don't know about that, but I do know that Britain's highest military award (the Victoria Cross) is supposedly made from bronze cannon from the Crimean War.

Beltplate53:
" Records dated between 1874 and 1902 indicate that more than 800 cannon had at one time or another, been shipped to Gettysburg by the War Department, About one- half of this number ( both bronze and iron with most being pre- Civil War vintage and/ or damaged were eventually melted down and used for monuments, tablets, and statues. The surplus bronze was used for equestrian statues, including those erected of George Meade, Winfield Hancock, and John Sedgwick.
Source: "Silent Sentinels" by George W. Newton.

A good book by the way.

speedenforcer:
That's a shame. :(

Beltplate53:
From what I have read through my travels, the 6lb bronze was for all practicle purposes, obsolete in the Union Army and melted down to make 12lb ers. By Gettysburg, Lee had ridden his 6lb bronze cannon from the Army of Northern Virginia except for one.

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