Gettysburg & a Governor

Today in New Jersey history:

July 3, 1863: The men of the Twelfth New Jersey Volunteer Infantry, firing “buck and ball” ammunition (one round ball and three buckshot) in their obsolete smoothbore muskets, helped wreck Pickett’s Charge on Cemetery Ridge. Some of the New Jerseyans took their paper cartridges apart and loaded as many as twenty buckshot pellets in their muskets. As the Rebels closed on the federal line, the Twenty-sixth North Carolina regiment drifted towards the Twelfth’s position. The Jerseymen rose up from behind the stone wall they were using for cover and delivered a crushing short range volley into the Carolinians, devastating the regiment and capturing its flag, which hung in Trenton until returned to North Carolina in the early 20th century.

July 3, 1879: Arthur Harry Moore was born in Jersey City. Better known as A. Harry Moore, he rose in state politics due to his competence, affable nature and alliance with Hudson County political boss and Jersey City mayor Frank Hague. Initially a Jersey City Commissioner, between 1926 and 1941 Moore served three three-year terms as governor under the constitution of 1844, making him, with nine years in office, the longest serving governor of the modern era, in a period when the governor could not succeed himself in office. That title will never likely be challenged, as the Constitution of 1947, under which the state is now governed, allows a governor to succeed himself, but only serve two four-year terms. In between two of his gubernatorial terms, Moore also served part of a term as a United States senator from New Jersey.