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From: "Colleen" <>
Subject: Stockton Record Today
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 21:46:30 -0800

Cannon conundrum
Civil War-era guns embroiled in Lode custody fight
Dana M. Nichols
Record Staff Writer
Published Saturday, Nov 19, 2005

SAN ANDREAS -- About 140 years after they were last fired in combat, two
Civil War-era cannons are at the center of a gentler battle.

This time, the struggle is over whether the cannons will be returned to
their longtime post near Civil War soldiers' graves on a hilltop cemetery or
be redeployed to the Red Barn Museum.

Now, one gun is in a Calaveras County warehouse and the other is in the
keeping of the Calaveras County Sheriff's Department.

"We want those guns put back as they were intended, as a memorial," said
Kirby Morgan, a spokesman for the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War.

The board of the cemetery district that runs People's Cemetery in San
Andreas and the leaders of the Calaveras Historical Society have a different
plan. They want to place the cannons at the Red Barn near the county
government complex on Mountain Ranch Road. County officials say it is a good
idea, if only because it will make the more-than-700-pound cannons harder to
steal.

"The only reason the barn is involved in it is because the barn belongs to
the county, so it is going to be mounted on county property right there by
the barn so the public can see it," said Rosemary Faulkner, chairwoman of
the Calaveras Historical Society committee that oversees the Red Barn
Museum.

An act of Congress in 1913 authorized the Secretary of War to deliver two
cannons to "The City of San Andreas," according to a newspaper article at
the time.

One problem with that: There is no city of San Andreas. The town is an
unincorporated area in Calaveras County. The cannons were given into the
custody of "Chickamauga Post 115, Grand Army of the Republic."

The GAR -- Union soldiers in the Civil War -- are now long gone. Post 115 of
San Andreas is defunct. That's where the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil
War come in. "We are the legal heirs of the GAR, Grand Army of the
Republic," Morgan said.

Ed Woolverton, chief of the Army's Donation Program headquartered in Warren,
Mich., said his legal department has asked the federal district court in
Washington, D.C., to dig up a copy of a 1940 ruling on a case involving the
Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War's claim that it is heir to the GAR.
Until his legal advisers read that decision, he won't decide who should have
custody of the cannons.

One of the cannons was stolen from the cemetery in 1998. The Calaveras
County Sheriff's Department this summer received a tip and found it hidden
in a pond near Mountain Ranch, said Capt. Keith Anderson. That cannon did
not return to the cemetery and remains in custody of the Sheriff's
Department.

The stolen cannon's recovery stimulated talks by Calaveras Historical
Society members about where to put the cannons.

About the same time last summer, a Sons of Union Veterans delegation came to
photograph the single cannon then remaining in People's Cemetery. Sal Manna
of Burson, a local history buff, tagged along.

"The cannons overlook the veterans plot, which is probably the GAR plot of
the cemetery," Manna said. "I thought it was somewhat disrespectful, the
idea that they would take these cannons that were put there as a memorial
and move them to this museum that is about farm life."

Meanwhile, the cemetery board sent a letter to the Historical Society saying
the society could have that remaining cannon.

A Historical Society member borrowed a county truck in October and hauled
the cannon from the cemetery to a county warehouse. A few weeks later, Manna
noticed the cannon was missing.

The deal between the cemetery and the Historical Society appears to be moot.
Both county officials and the Army agree the cannons belong to the Army.

Now, Anderson is preparing paperwork for county officials asking the Army to
give the county custody.

That's in limbo, however, until Woolverton's staff finishes its legal
research on the GAR and the Sons of Union Veterans.

Anderson said the Army representative he'd been in contact with said the
Army had made a tentative decision to give the county custody of the
cannons.

"I had to explain to them back East that San Andreas is not a city," he
said.

Contact reporter Dana M. Nichols at 209 754-9534 or

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• Stockton Record Today by "Colleen" <>