Ahl's Independent Company, Heavy Artillery (officially known as the 1st Delaware Heavy Artillery) was a heavy artillery battery that served in the Union army in the American Civil War. The company was mainly composed of former Confederate prisoners of war who had sworn allegiance to the Union (over 200 so-called "galvanized Yankees").
The company (Delaware's only heavy artillery company during the war) was organized at Fort Delaware on July 27, 1863, not long after the Battle of Gettysburg. The company was assigned to garrison and guard duty at Fort Delaware during their entire period of service. Its commander was Capt. George W. Ahl, and nearly all the officers had come to the fort with Independent Battery G, Pittsburgh Heavy Artillery. The company mustered out on July 25, 1865.
Famous quotes containing the words heavy, artillery and/or company:
“she will not say how there
must be more to living
than this brief bright bridge
of the raucous bed or even
the slow braille touch of him
like a heavy god grown light....”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Another success is the post-office, with its educating energy augmented by cheapness and guarded by a certain religious sentiment in mankind; so that the power of a wafer or a drop of wax or gluten to guard a letter, as it flies over sea over land and comes to its address as if a battalion of artillery brought it, I look upon as a fine meter of civilization.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In the old days, one married a wife; now one forms a company with a female partner, or moves in to live with a friend. And then one seduces the partner, or defiles the friend.”
—J. August Strindberg (1849–1912)