During the Civil War, Volcano's gold served the Union. The Volcano Blues smuggled the 800 lb cannon "Old Abe," into the town by hearse, to intimidate rebel sympathizers. The cannon was cast by Cyrus Alger &amp; Co. in Boston in 1837 and is the first of two 6-pounders made on the same day to be stamped with serial number 4. The other cannon still survives at Shiloh Battlefield and is called "Shiloh Sam". "Old Abe" was only fired once during the Civil War. The Confederate faction known as Knights of the Golden Circle owned many of the Main Street businesses. "Old Abe" was fired down Main Street causing windows to break in all the shops that had not been warned – the ones sympathetic to the South. Abe is the only cannon of that age in the U.S. still on a nineteenth century wooden carriage.