January 06, 2014

Time for more cannon photos! These are some of my favorites, taken near the Angle and just over the wall from the pink granite 26^TH North Carolina Infantry monument. They represent Battery A of the 1^ST Rhode Island Artillery. In the first photo, part of the Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble Charge is visible, as well as the 26^TH’s monument (between the spokes of the left cannon wheel, hard to see). The cannon tube was made in 1864.

The second photo shows the stone wall and gives a glimpse of the white Abraham Bryan farm (at left of cannon muzzles). This particular cannon is a Phoenix Iron Co. 3-inch Rifle (as are all four of the rifles of this battery) and the tube dates from 1862. Other artillery batteries along Hancock Avenue at the Angle are also visible. The cannon at far right belongs to Battery K, 1^ST New York Light Artillery, while the two to the left of it (only one can be seen) are from the 11^TH New York Independent Battery.

**HONORED TODAY**

PVT. HARDY G. GRAVES

Co. C, 6^TH Alabama Infantry

Born 1838 --- Died July 26, 1863 at age 25

Pvt. Graves left behind a wife, Julia, and a daughter, Victoria, when he enlisted in the Confederate Army. He was first taken to the Catholic church in Gettysburg and then later to Camp Letterman to recover, but he couldn’t fight off ill effects from an arm amputation and he died a little over three weeks after his wounding. One of the civilian women-turned-nurses of Gettysburg described Pvt. Graves’ dark hair and eyes and chronicles seeing him alive at the town’s Catholic church and dead at Camp Letterman. He was buried at Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery, though there’s supposedly a stone for him at Pea River Cemetery in Pike County, Alabama.


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