NEW ORLEANS (AP) — New Orleans has quietly moved a cannon owned by a unit that fought for the Confederacy out of a French Quarter park to a Louisiana National Guard museum.
The pocket park overlooking Jackson Square and St. Louis Cathedral was renamed last year from Washington Artillery Park to Oscar Dunn Park, honoring a lieutenant governor who took office in 1868 as the nation’s first Black elected executive.
The renaming proposal did not get any opposition in two online forums.
Washington Artillery is the nickname for the 1st Battalion, 141st Field Artillery. The unit was formed in 1838, disbanded after Union forces took New Orleans, but later re-formed. It was taken into the Louisiana National Guard in 1909, fought in World War II and remains a National Guard unit.
The cannon which the unit bought in 1875 was removed Tuesday as the first step in redeveloping the park, John Lawson, a spokesperson for Mayor LaToya Cantrell, told The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate.
It is now in front of the Jackson Barracks museum, Col. Kenneth Baily told WDSU-TV.
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