The Lafayette Artillery Company was founded in Peterborough, New Hampshire, in 1804 as the Artillery Company of the 22nd Regiment. It was part of the State of New Hampshire's artillery system, a forerunner to the National Guard. The group has continued to operate continuously since its founding, and since 1833 it has been headquartered at Lyndeborough, New Hampshire. Since the 1980s, it has been primarily an educational service organization, and participates in Civil War reenactments throughout the northeastern United States.
History
Formation and early history
In 1804, in the wake of the reorganization of New Hampshire's state militia system, several new artillery companies were founded around New Hampshire. These included units in Somersworth, Walpole, Keene, Fitzwilliam, and Peterborough. Peterborough's artillery unit belonged to the Twenty-Second Regiment, a unit consisting of infantry companies from New Ipswich, Sharon, Mason, Temple, Wilton, and Peterborough. James Wilson, a lawyer and state legislator, served as the group's first captain. At the time, military service was compulsory, and being a member of the artillery was an honor—or at least it was more prestigious than being a member of the infantry. Little else is known about the artillery's early years except that, in response to the British Navy's blockade of New England during the War of 1812, several of its members served in the defense of Portsmouth in 1814.
In the 1820s, the artillery faced a decade of instability and change. Between 1804 and 1820, the organization had been led by only three captains, but from 1820 to 1832, five captains served an average of 28.8 months each. Artillery membership also began to change; as Peterborough industrialized, its residents were less inclined to join the organization, and membership from Wilton and Lyndeborough (which was annexed to the Twenty-Second Regiment some years earlier) increased. By 1833, the organization was headed by Eleazer Putnam of Lyndeborough, most Peterborough members had withdrawn, and the artillery moved to a new headquarters near Putnam's house in South Lyndeborough.
Incorporation and the Civil War
In 1837, the Artillery Company of the Twenty-Second Regiment petitioned to be incorporated, adopting the name "Lafayette Artillery Company," probably in honor of the French nobleman Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette, who died in 1834. During this period the group acquired the brass cannon for which it still cares. In the 1820s the artillery may have possessed an iron cannon, but between 1835 and 1844 its cannon was a brass one which, in 1844, inspectors determined to be "unfit for service." In December, 1844, the New Hampshire Legislature passed an act granting the unit a new, 822-pound, six-pounder brass cannon, which the group picked up from Portsmouth. The gun had been cast in 1844 by the Ames Manufacturing Company of Springfield, Massachusetts, and remains in the group's possession today. Of interest to military historians, the group also maintains the original caisson, made at the Watervliet Arsenal (and so marked), complete in all-original condition (except the paint), including the wheels.
The group continued training, and in 1850 finally put its training to use at the regiment's annual muster. That year, the group attended the training muster at Amherst. The crowd of onlookers was considerably more boisterous than usual, however, and the artillery was called out to restore order. Nearly a half-century later, surviving members remembered how they chased a den of gamblers from the muster field and took as their prisoner a blanket, which they used to cover the cannon for many years.
During the Civil War, the Artillery again was called upon to defend Portsmouth from possible attack, and the group served for six weeks at Fort Constitution, seeing no action. The organization's cannon was used for training in Nashua in 1863. However, about twenty of the Artillery's members enlisted in regiments which saw action in the Civil War, among them Harvey Holt, Jr., said to be the first New Hampshire man to die at the First Battle of Bull Run in 1861. Others who died in the Civil War included John Hartshorn (namesake of the town's Hartshorn Memorial Cannon), who died at the Battle of Williamsburg in 1862; John Karr at Vicksburg; and James Boutwell, who fought in the western theater. Other noteworthy artillery members include David Proctor and George Woodward, who led the Thirtieth Regiment of the U.S. Colored Troops at Petersburg, Virginia; and Azro Cram, who was wounded in Louisiana and taken prisoner by the Confederacy before being released in a prisoner exchange.