Dan Monroe

My annual write up on 1st Lt. Alonzo Cushing at Gettysburg: I think it's the combination of extreme heroism in the face of ghastly personal injury at such a young age that has always struck me about this young officer who died defending the integrity of the Republic against those who would tear it asunder. At Gettysburg Cushing was only 22 years old and a regular Army officer commanding Battery A, 4th US Light Artillery. He was a West Point grad (class of '61), a veteran of 63 engagements, twice wounded, and at Gettysburg serving as a brevet Major. His battery was placed in a tight spot on day 3, defending The Angle and supporting General Webb's Philadelphia Brigade (69th, 71st, 72nd, & 106th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry). As the rebel preparatory bombardment began, his men took cover where they could as Confederate artillery shells start falling around them. The battery probably took its first casualties here. As the artillery duel between the armies got into full swing, Battery A went into action, but it suffered badly. As the battle progressed and the rebel infantry began their tortuous march across the field many of the men of Battery A became casualties and Cushing was hit twice by shrapnel; once in the shoulder and a second time by a fragment that opened him from abdomen to groin. An unknown Volunteer Officer ordered him to the rear, and he refused. Instead he was held up by his Battery 1st Sergeant, a German immigrant named Frederick W. Füger, and continued to direct mixed crews of his own artillerymen and some of the supporting infantry to service his guns as they pounded away at advancing rebel troops. Füger pleaded with him to go to the rear, but Cushing again refused, telling him “No, I stay right here and fight it out or die in the attempt.” Füger also refused to fall back as casualties mounted and instead cradled his horrifically wounded commander while passing his orders to the battery. Cushing, at this point, could not raise his voice and was literally holding his intestines inside his own body. By the time Armistead and Garnett's Brigades of Pickett's Division (Longstreet's CSA I Corps) came over the Emmitsburg road, Battery A had lost 5 of its 6 guns and was firing shots of double canister as fast as they could in a desperate attempt to check the rebel advance. Some of Cushing's last known words were praise to his gunners, saying "That's excellent.....keep that range." As the rebel infantry began to charge into the Union lines, most of the battery had been killed or wounded and at some point Lt. Cushing himself was finally killed when a bullet passed through his mouth and exited out the back of his head. He died instantly in Sergeant Füger's arms. Sgt. Füger, ordered his men to stand fast and keep firing their single remaining gun. When rebel infantry finally collided with the Federals, they overran Battery A's position, but Füger and his remaining gunners fought alongside the 69th Pennsylvania in the vicious hand to hand action that followed. When rebel troops swung Battery A's single operational gun around, intending to use it at point blank range against Union troops, they found there was no ammunition left. Battery A had shot itself dry. Cushing was breveted to Lt.Col. and laid to rest in West Point cemetery next to the man who selected the Gettysburg Battlefield; John Buford. Füger was awarded the Medal of Honor for his part in the action, and eventually rose to Lt.Col. himself before retiring in 1900. In the 1980's a campaign was started to recognize Cushing's actions by Wisconsin Senator William Proxmire. Alonzo Cushing was finally awarded his own Medal of Honor by President Obama in November of 2014.