Weathered Civil War cannon finds itself on a new battlefield

GRISWOLD, Iowa — Fixed to a concrete pedestal under an American flag, the cannon was hard to miss. It commemorated the Civil War. And it sat center stage in the only park in town. Still, no one around here paid it much heed.

Not, at least, until the American Legion in this weathered little farm town tried to sell it. And inadvertently touched off a ferocious debate on the meaning of memorials.

Is a memorial supposed to teach us? If so, maybe a cannon like Griswold’s belongs in a museum, restored and studied up close.

Is a memorial supposed to inspire us? In that case, perhaps this one was washed up. Its barrel was blistered, its paint peeling. How much inspiration could it offer?

Or perhaps a memorial is supposed to sit sentry, paying silent tribute to a cause? Then this cannon was doing its duty, even as it rusted from neglect.

There’s no right answer here. Just a lot of passionate opinions. Opinions that reverberate around the nation--because Civil War cannons are very much in demand.

These cannons, which have sat in parks and in cemeteries from Maine to California for a century or more, are suddenly, wildly, hot. Collectors want them for the sheer joy of having them, to amass and admire as they would classic cars. Weapon buffs enter them in competitions, pitting their accuracy against other antique artillery. Museum curators want cannons too. Even thieves are after them.

And all this wanting has, naturally, jacked up prices.

A bronze Confederate cannon scarred in battle might sell for $200,000. A 1-ton iron mortar might fetch $70,000 or more. Even the most run-of-the-mill Civil War cannon can be worth a good $20,000.

That’s a lot of money to a sagging town like Griswold, population maybe 1,000.

But is it right to auction a memorial?

Lee Booton says no.

He’s an ex-Navy SEAL who fought in Vietnam and now reenacts Civil War battles. Two dozen of his ancestors fought in the Civil War. The cannons that honor them, he says, should be sacred. Sell them? He would as soon peddle the Washington Monument. It’s desecration, he insists, “like me saying I’m going to yank your grandfather’s headstone.”

Charles Smithgall disagrees.

He’s a pharmacist and the mayor of Lancaster, Pa.; the Civil War has fascinated him since his high school days. He now owns 50 cannons. Some he salvaged from junkyards. Others he bought from parks and cemeteries. “I believe in honoring veterans,” he said. “[But] if they put a reproduction back that looks exactly the same [as the original], I don’t see what the problem is.”

In the middle ground, meet Bruce Stiles.

He’s the assistant curator of the Museum of the Union and Confederacy, which opened last year in Emmaus, Pa. Stiles isn’t big on collectors hogging Civil War history in warehouses. But he’s also not keen on letting the cannons “rust beyond recognition” in small-town parks that no one will visit. He likes to restore and preserve them. That’s why he offers a $1,000 bounty to anyone who helps his museum purchase a cannon. “The whole key to the game is stewardship.”

Which brings us again to Griswold, a six-block town squeezed on all sides by stubbly fields, two hours’ drive west of Des Moines.

Griswold has a cannon. Nothing particularly rare, just a commonplace 3-inch ordnance. As far as anyone knows, it didn’t fire an important shot in any major battle. It might not have even seen action. But Smithgall wants it for his collection. So he offered the local American Legion $15,000 for it. Plus, he promised to provide a replica free.

Deal.

Before the cannon could change hands, however, Brad McGowan stepped in and scuttled the sale.

McGowan is a fast-talking, ever-moving kind of guy, restless, edgy and passionate. His passion is Civil War cannons. A leader of the Sons of Union Veterans national organization, McGowan has made it his personal crusade to keep Civil War memorials in place. When he heard about Griswold, he raged. Then he hired a lawyer and sued.

“We wouldn’t think of destroying our Vietnam War Memorial,” he explained. “Just because it’s a cannon, they think they can get away with it.”

In fact, however, the Griswold Legionnaires didn’t think they were acting underhandedly at all. The way they looked at it, they were doing the town a favor: getting rid of a rusty old gun and bringing in a good-looking replica that they could fire on special occasions. The $15,000 would help the town too: They planned to use it for scholarships.

As for the cannon, the sacrifices it represented, the history it recalled?

They didn’t realize anyone cared.

After all, the thing had been plunked in Griswold’s lone park since 1911. It was rededicated in ‘92, but the new plaque didn’t do much for it. Even the kids who once played on it had moved on, dropping it in favor of a real jungle gym built a few years back near City Hall.

“No one paid any attention to the cannon,” said Bob Dean, a World War II veteran and local Legionnaire. “It had been sitting up there for 80 years or better, and no one was taking care of it. If we’d sold it and put a new one there, no one would have known the difference.”

Indeed, when the American Legion removed the cannon to prepare it for sale, it took two full weeks before Dennis Sasse even noticed it was missing. And Sasse is a member of the Sons of Union Veterans--one of the few Griswold residents who has any emotional connection to the cannon. “I took it for granted,” he admitted.

The Sons acknowledge that’s a common problem.

Still, they insist the memorials--in Griswold and elsewhere--must remain as they are, where they are, for all time. If the cannons are ignored, that’s a shame. If the cannons rust, that’s too bad. They’re there for a reason, and there they must stay. That’s what memorials are about.

Booton boils the Sons’ philosophy down to a single, snarling phrase: “Don’t mess with our cannons.”

Many Civil War cannons, however, already have been messed with.

The federal government handed them out to towns like Griswold for use as memorials in the years after the Civil War. Some were melted down to make statues. Many thousands more were later junked in the scrap-metal drives of World Wars I and II. According to amateur historian Wayne Stark, an acknowledged expert in the field, just 5,494 cannons have survived intact.

And many of those have vanished from the town squares and parks where they once presided.

Stark counts at least 30 cannons stolen in the last decade. Although they’re heavy--a mid-size mortar can weigh more than a ton--many are small enough to fit in a pickup truck. With some careful lifting, they can be carted away.

And what thieves don’t find, private collectors will. Several brokers now buy and sell cannons for profit--often working off Stark’s published list of every cannon in the United States.

“They’re really taking advantage of small towns and cemetery boards,” said Kathryn Jorgensen, editor of the monthly Civil War News. “They offer $10,000 for a cannon and people say, ‘Wow, we didn’t know the gun was worth that much.’ Well, folks, it was really worth $20,000. You just got taken.”

The brokers have hit towns across the United States but lately seem to be concentrating in the Midwest, Stark said. At least, deals in the Midwest have generated the most controversy, thanks to rabble-rousers like McGowan.

Part bully, part evangelist, part historical conscience, McGowan relentlessly seeks publicity to shame cannon caretakers into spurning collectors’ offers.

But there’s a downside to the spotlight as well, as McGowan is savvy enough to realize. Each flurry of publicity about the cannons inevitably mentions their value. And that, in turn, piques the interest of thieves and collectors alike. And can lead to some unintended consequences.

Fearing thieves, Des Moines officials yanked nine cannons from cemeteries and locked them with the National Guard last fall after the local paper wrote about the Griswold affair. Officials now say they will replace eight of the cannons--but only after they devise a security plan.

Back in Griswold, meanwhile, the Legionnaires have locked away the town cannon. They won’t put it back in the park. They won’t tell anyone where it is. So it remains hidden, a muted memorial serving no one at all.

“You can’t leave things of this value sitting around outside,” Dean explained. “All you can do is hide ‘em.”