Why are there Cannons from the Civil War in Placerville, CA?
Living on the west coast in the United States you might think that to see Civil War artifacts, you gotta head on down to the South where it was fought or go to a museum. What if I told you there are some Civil War Cannons in plain sight in Northern California? But before I tell you about that…
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Something you might not realize but War changes a nation drastically. So many things change in the midst of the fight that when the fighting is over, old customs and ideas sometimes are wiped from the memory a big part of that is simply that a huge chunk of the population is killed in war.
Pre-Civil War for the most part, soldiers were fighting on behalf of their particular community first, county second state third and country 4th. It never was really for the United States directly. This country was not as homogenized as it became and definitely not as much as today. States used to have their own identity and they were proud of it. The US government was small and power was limited. If you lived in Virginia you didn't just say you were American. You were a Virginian and dang proud of it. During the Civil war though, men were taken from their community and mixed in with others fighting all over the place. After the War that identity slowly went away and American became the new Identity. The Government got significantly larger and more powerful.
The US government promised to take care of these vets after the war where in the past it was the local community that made that promise. Soon groups of vets came together to keep up the friendships and to take care of one another. One such group founded in 1866 over in Illinois was called The Grand Army of the Republic. This group was a mixture of a political organization, a union of sorts and a social club for these vets.
This group is responsible for a bunch of things such as memorial day, military pensions and the election of Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Harrison and McKinley who were all members of the G.A.R.
Anyways that is a long way for me to say that eventually in 1913 The War Department of the United states was giving away a bunch of old Civil War era cannons and the Grand Army of the Republic made sure to get their hands on as many as they could. and put them around in different cities across America. These cannons were put mainly in Cemeteries and parks. But If you head on over to Placerville California and go down Main street you'll come across the El Dorado County Courthouse and, on either side of the stairs are these canons from the civil war with a plaque on them that simply say Civil War Cannon.
