Honoring Those Who Gave Their Last Full Measure of Devotion

During my last visit to Naples, NY which sits at the southern end of Canandaigua Lake, I stopped at Memorial Park as I noticed a newly erected building on the property. There housed in the newly constructed Memorial Building was a restored Civil War cannon along with its caisson. According to a Daily Messenger article, this particular cannon first came to Naples in 1876 and then was restored by the people of Naples and local Post 810 of the American Legion in time for the Memorial Day celebration in 2011.

This cannon was first built in 1838 along with 32 other cannon barrels and were meant to fire a 9 pound cannonball. According to the newspaper article, there was a battery of six of these 9 pound cannons, but it is not known if they saw action in the Civil War or not. In any event, the cannon at Naples is the last known survivor of the 32 barrels cast.

It looks to me as if the cannon was pulled by at least four horses along with another four horses to pull the caisson which contained the powder and the cannonballs. A garrison consisted of six cannon. Imagine feeding and watering the forty eight horses which had to pull the equipment over roads which were hardly more than widened wagon trails in Civil War days?

I read Lincoln’s Gettysburg’s address written on a plaque in the Memorial Park. Before Veteran’s Day, I think that we all need to re-read Lincoln’s Gettysburg address (click here). What greater honor could we all bestow on those fallen in battle than to remember that our freedom is not free and for us the living to dedicate ourselves to the “unfinished work that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom.”