1851 gun used in Civil War returns to Arkansas (AP)

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - An 1851 artillery gun carried into battle by Arkansas military school students who joined the Confederate Army was unveiled in its home state Thursday after nearly 150 years.

The 570-pound cast bronze Alger Cadet Gun is on display at the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History inside the Little Rock Arsenal. Gen. Douglas MacArthur was born in the building in 1880.

Built by Cyrus Alger & Co. of Boston, the artillery piece was used to help train cadets at the privately run Arkansas Military Institute in Tulip, 50 miles south of Little Rock.

Alger built 10 of the light artillery guns, which fired 6-pound projectiles. Four guns were sent to the Virginia Military Institute, four were sent to the Georgia Military Institute and two were sent to Arkansas' school. Only seven guns survive.

This gun is owned by the Petersburg National Battlefield in Virginia and is being lent to the MacArthur Museum for three years.

The Alger gun is numbered and has "Arkansas Military Institute" etched on the barrel. The Petersburg battlefield has owned the gun since at least the 1970s; the Arkansas museum has worked since the 1990s to bring it home.

When the Civil War broke out, the school's 150 cadets quit their studies, enlisted in the Confederate Army and selected their headmaster as their captain.

"They just took the guns they had been training on," said Stephan McAteer, the MacArthur Museum's executive director.

"This gun left the state in 1861 and only came home last year when our staff went to Virginia to oversee its return."

Company I of the 3rd Arkansas Infantry Regiment, nicknamed the "Tulip Rifles," fought at Harpers Ferry, W.Va.; Chickamauga, Ga.; and Gettysburg, Pa. Of the 150 men in the unit, only 13 survived the war.

"The guns were lost in battle — at what point, we don't know. Records don't indicate that," McAteer said. At Petersburg, the gun was part of a scene showing the aftermath of a battle and was not central to its collection, the museum director said. At Little Rock, it is a featured exhibit.

"This predated the war and is from the state's first military academy," McAteer said.

The Arkansas Military Institute never reopened after the war.

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On the Web:

MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History: http://www.arkmilitaryheritage.com

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