New Hampshire Monument Caused the Confederacy a Lot of Trouble

New Hampshire boasts a Civil War monument with a lot of “bang” to it.

While vacationing in the White Mountains in September, we sought covered bridges, autumn foliage, and natural beauty. I added a few Civil War monuments to one day’s excursion across central NH — and in historic Bristol we “discovered” a monument that caused a lot of wartime trouble for the Confederacy.

The monument (also called a “memorial” in Bristol) is a massive naval mortar that “served in the Mississippi River, Mobile Bay and South Carolina,” according to the National Park Service. Of all the Civil War monuments we’ve seen in New England, only Bristol’s is a naval mortar — and for that reason alone it’s worth visiting.

And did I mention the neat little coffee shop located just yards away? And the historic architecture and thriving businesses around Central Square, in which the mortar stands?

Located in central New Hampshire just west of Interstate 93 and several miles west of Meredith and Lake Winnipesaukee, Bristol has a distinct downtown accessible by routes 3A and 104. These routes meet at Central Square, “around which the town’s commercial district developed in the 19th century,” states the National Park Service.

I had seen no photo of Bristol’s Civil War monument prior to parking our car outside TD Bank on North Main Street and carefully crossing Pleasant Street to reach Central Square. Noticing two flagpoles on the bit of village green that’s survived into the 21st century, I walked over and saw the mortar.

Wow! An actual Civil War mortar looking much like the famous “Dictator” of Petersburg fame!

Taking photos and shooting videos, I walked away determined to research the mortar. There is a back story!

Bristol voters approved a $500 appropriation in 1872 “to secure the erection of a soldier’s monument” and appointed Milo Fellows, Henry A. Randolph, Henry A. Taylor, Lt. Timothy Tilton, and George M. Wooster to research the project. Informed in 1873 that $500 “was … insufficient,” voters appropriated another $500.

Some veterans wanted Bristol “to erect a more suitable monument” and tried to delay the project, “but to no avail.” Supporters erected a 16½-foot “marble shaft … in the village cemetery.”

Aging members of Nelson Post No. 40, G.A.R., did not give up. They thought, well, monumental as in asking the federal government for “a piece of ordinance (sic)” for a monument to be placed in Central Square. Congress “appropriated” a wartime naval mortar in 1896. The ship armed with that mortar was the “U.S.N. Orvetta,” according to the NPS and the History of the town of Bristol, Grafton County, New Hampshire.

NavSource Online indicates the Orvetta was a “centerboard schooner” built on Long Island in 1857 and purchased for the Navy in October 1861. “Converted into a mortar boat” in late December 1861 and early January 1862, the schooner was sold off in August 1865.

Located in the 1890s “at the Charlestown [Massachusetts] navy yard,” the mortar “had seen service” during the bombardments of forts Jackson and St. Phillips in April 1862; Vicksburg in June and July 1862; Port Hudson in mid-March and in the following siege; Fort Powell at Grant’s Pass, Mississippi in February 1864; and “off Port Royal and Morris Island, S. C., 1864-5.”

Prior to the mortar being transported to Bristol in November 1897, workers constructed “a foundation of stone and cement, which extended below the frost” line. The workers then “capped” the foundation “with a massive base of hammered granite, twelve feet long, five feet four inches wide, and one foot thick.”

The mortar was of truly monumental proportions: 5 feet, 9 inches in height; four feet, four inches in length; and “three feet, seven inches across its base.” The mortar had a 13-inch bore. Secured to the granite base, the mortar “made “a very imposing appearance.”

Veterans and local residents dedicated the monument on November 4, 1898. “The day was a delightful one, a large concourse of people were present and the exercises passed off pleasantly and creditably to all concerned.”

The dedication ceremony kicked off at 2 p.m. “under the auspices of the Nelson Post, G.A.R.[,] Nelson Post and Relief Corps, and the officers of the town.” A local group sang a chorus, and First Selectman Charles E. Davis “formally invited Nelson Post to dedicate the memorial to the purpose for which it had been placed there.”

Nelson Post members conducted a G.A.R. “dedicatory service” that featured, among other components, the American flag being unfurled on an adjacent flagpole (two stand beside the monument today) and people singing “‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’” More singing followed the G.A.R. service, and Mrs. Abbie F. Gray and Miss Clara Gray stepped forward and removed the cloth covering the mortar.

Then the G.A.R. members “formally again turned over [the monument] to the town for its care and preservation.”

The mortar by itself made a most unusual monument, but Bristol went an additional step. “A [round] white bronze tablet” sealing the mortar’s muzzle indicates the monument was dedicated “in memory of the men who fell in defence of their country, from Bristol, during the War of the Rebellion, 1861 to 1865.” The plaque also indicated that the monument was “erected through the efforts of Capt. William A. Beckford” of Bristol.

Between these two inscriptions were inscribed the names of 22 Bristol men lost during the war. Some fell in combat (three at Chancellorsville alone), and others died captivity or from wounds or disease.

Stacked behind the mortar are at least a dozen round iron shells (obviously rendered “safe”) like those that a naval mortar would fire.

The next time you’re sightseeing around Lake Winnipesaukee, swing into downtown Bristol and check out the Civil War monument. Other monuments might incorporate an army cannon, but Bristol’s certainly has the bigger “bang.”

Author’s note: This post published simultaneously on Maine at War.

Sources: Richard W. Musgrove, History of the town of Bristol, Grafton County, New Hampshire, Vol. I, Bristol, N.H., 1904, pp. 457-458; National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form for the Central Square Historic District, Bristol, N.H.