Civil War cannonballs to be removed from Pittsburgh site

Dozens of Civil War-era cannonballs unearthed at a Pittsburgh construction site will be removed starting Tuesday.

Ordnance Holdings Inc. and Milhaus Ventures have been hired to remove the cannonballs found near the former site of the Allegheny Arsenal. The arsenal supplied the Union Army, and an explosion there in September 1862 killed 78 people, many of them female employees.

Franjo Constructions unearthed the cannonballs — believed to be 35 to 43 of them — during excavation for a planned apartment complex.