Info Sought About Cooper’s Battery Monument At Gettysburg
GETTYSBURG, Pa. — Descendants and members of today’s Cooper’s Battery B, 1st Pennsylvania Light Artillery, seek the public’s help in learning the inscriptions on the unit’s 1880 capstone monument at Gettysburg National Military Park. According to Keith Foote, who is a member of the reenacting unit and point person for Cooper’s Battery B Capstone Monument Replacement Project, the capstone has the distinction of being the tenth monument, and first artillery monument, placed on the battlefield. It marks the battery’s position on the second day of battle. “Unfortunately, another distinction of the monument is that it hasn’t been able to be read for a long, long, long time,” says Foote. That’s where the public’s help comes in. The eight-sided monument has been removed for safety reasons, as it was loosening from the base, and so that park personnel could study it. The base remains on the battlefield near an 1889 monument to the battery. The National Park Service has given the reenactors and descendants permission to replace the monument with a similar one in a more durable stone, pending policies and procedures, confirming the original inscription, and cost, says Foote. The problem is that the original inscription is difficult to confirm because it was not recorded in any one source. Cooper’s Battery veterans placed the monument they called a shaft on East Cemetery Hill in August 1880. Its total cost is not known. Reunion minutes record they raised $48 in 1880, after a year of inactivity because of lack of funds to pay the balance due on the shaft and erect it. The veterans still owed $2.40 for it a year later. Reunion minutes printed in the local newspaper describe an octagon marble shaft 4 feet high surmounted by 9-inch crossed cannons in high relief. Three faces were to be inscribed with battery particulars such as name, organization and discharge date and two more with their engagements. The captains’ names were to be on the remaining three faces. The minutes about the monument contradict what can be seen in the William H. Tipton photo from the Adams County Historical Society collection shown on this page. For example, minutes say nothing about corps badges, yet 1st and 5th Corps badges were engraved. J. Howard Wert’s A Complete Hand-book of the Monuments and Indications and Guide to the Positions on the Gettysburg Battlefield, published in 1886, described the monument “in the form of a pedestal surmounted with a white capping” and crossed cannon on top. Wert said it listed 24 engagements, the commanders’ names, corps badges and information about when and where the battery was organized and discharged. The battery was raised at Mount Jackson in Lawrence County, northwest of Pittsburgh, and entered state service in June 1861. It saw action for five years including such battles as Malvern Hill, Second Manassas, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Petersburg and Appomattox. Cooper’s Battery arrived on the Gettysburg battlefield south of McPherson’s Woods about noon on July 1, 1863, with four guns according to Foote. After firing west on Confederate positions, the men repositioned their three remaining guns to fire on Oak Hill. They withdrew to Seminary Ridge and fired on Confederates advancing from McPherson’s Ridge. When Union infantry was driven from Seminary Ridge Cooper’s Battery joined other batteries on East Cemetery Hill, losing one man killed and another captured. On July 2 Cooper’s lost two men killed during the firing against Confederate artillery on Benner’s Hill. On July 3 the battery was positioned to the left of where the Pennsylvania Monument stands and helped repel the Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble charge. “Before the new capstone is inscribed, we are seeking any additional information to which someone has access,” says Foote. “We think the men of Cooper’s would be honored to know that they are still being honored. We know the descendants are.” Anyone with information can contact Foote at parafeet@hotmail.com.
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