Cannon, William Laws

William Laws Cannon was born on April 6, 1839 at Bridgeville, Delaware and graduated from Dickinson College in 1860. He obtained a position at the Census Bureau in Washington, D.C. Cannon became a captain of the 1st Delaware cavalry in the Army of the Potomac and was placed in command of Company B of that unit. While Cannon fought during the occupation of Bel Air, Maryland, he contracted typhoid fever and died on August 18, 1863. (By John Osborne and Leigh Oczkowski)
Life Span
to
Dickinson Connection
Class of 1860
Full name
William Laws Cannon
Place of Birth
Bridgeville, DE
Birth Date Certainty
Exact
Death Date Certainty
Exact
Gender
Male
Race
White
Sectional choice
North
Origins
Slave State
Family
William Cannon (father), Margaret Ann Barker Laws (mother)
Education
Dickinson (Carlisle College)
Occupation
Military
Military
Union Army

William Laws Cannon (Dickinson Chronicles)

Scholarship
Cannon was born on April 6, 1839 at Bridgeville, Delaware. His father, William Cannon, was a successful merchant who later became governor of Delaware during the war.  At Dickinson, Cannon was a member of the Union Philosophical Society as well as Phi Kappa Sigma.  He received his bachelor of arts degree in 1860.  After graduation he obtained a position at the Census Bureau in Washington, D.C.

Cannon became a captain of the 1st Delaware cavalry in the Army of the Potomac and was placed in command of Company B of that unit.  He contracted typhoid fever during the occupation of Bel Air, Maryland, dying there on August 18, 1863.
John Osborne and James W. Gerencser, eds., “William Laws Cannon,” Dickinson Chronicles, http://chronicles.dickinson.edu/encyclo/c/ed_cannonW.htm.
Dickinson College
How to Cite This Page: "Cannon, William Laws," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/5316.