Alonzo Cushing at Gettysburg and His Medal of Honor Legacy

Nov 11 , 2025

Alonzo Cushing at Gettysburg and His Medal of Honor Legacy

The sun bled over Cemetery Ridge, churned by smoke and iron. Amidst the roar of cannons, a young artillery officer stood unflinching. Blood poured from grievous wounds, but his hands never faltered at the wheel. They came to silence his guns. They only stoked his resolve.

Blood and Baptism: A Soldier’s Foundation

Alonzo Cushing was no stranger to sacrifice before the carnage of Gettysburg. Born into a family steeped in patriotism and honor, he carried faith deep in his marrow. Raised in Milwaukee and schooled at West Point, Cushing lived by a code sharpened by scripture and discipline.

His journal hinted at a quiet conviction: “To stand when others fall is God’s work, not my own.”

Christian humility and wartime grit fused in him early. He read the Psalms for strength—“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” (Psalm 23:4) This wasn’t just religious sentiment. It was armor.

Hell at Gettysburg: The Hour That Forged Legend

July 3, 1863. Confederate forces pummeled the Union center on Cemetery Ridge—Pickett’s Charge thundered like judgment. Captain Cushing, 23, commanded Battery A, 4th U.S. Artillery. His mission was clear: hold the line, no retreat.

Amid the hail of bullets and crashing smoke, an enemy sharpshooter hit him. The bullet shattered his pelvis, tore through his abdomen. Most men would fall, but Cushing crawled back to his guns.

He gave orders between ragged breaths, rallying his men under hellfire. Every cannon blast sapped his strength; every scream in the smoke pressed him closer to death. But he refused to silence those guns.

Witnesses later testified how he kept aiming, loading, firing—even as blood pooled beneath him. Sergeant James Robbins remembered, “The Captain said to me, ‘Never shall this battery’s guns be captured. Fire, boys—fire!’” [1]

Cushing bled out before the charge broke, dying on the field, but his guns shredded Confederate ranks in that final, desperate stand.

Posthumous Honor: Valor Recognized a Century Later

Congress awarded Alonzo Cushing the Medal of Honor in 2014—151 years after Gettysburg. President Obama called him “the embodiment of selfless sacrifice” in the presentation ceremony.

The citation spelled out the brutal facts:

“Though painfully wounded, Captain Alonzo Cushing remained at his gun until he fell mortally wounded at the height of the battle, contributing to the repulse of Pickett’s Charge.” [2]

A century and a half gone, but his courage still radiates unchecked. Battlefield whispers echo his steadfastness.

General Daniel Butterfield praised him as “the kind of officer whose sacrifice makes our liberties possible.” [3]

Redemption Etched in Soil and Soul

Cushing’s story isn’t just about artillery shells and blood. It is about the marrow-deep choice between retreat and resolve. When his flesh failed, his conviction held fast.

His battlefield journal, preserved in archives, closes with a redemptive prayer: “Lord, sustain me in this dark hour. If I fall today, may my sacrifice bring light to others.”

Today, the guns he fired still thunder quietly in memorials and hearts. His scars, long buried in earth, remind us that courage isn’t the absence of fear—it is the mastery of it.

Every veteran carries wounds unseen. Some on skin, others on soulstones.

Alonzo Cushing’s legacy dares us: stand firm in our own hellfires of life. Hold fast, even when broken. Trust that redemption rides alongside every sacrifice.

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)

That love, raw and real, is the eternal battle standard—wounded yet unyielding—carried by heroes like Cushing, forever etched in the American spirit.

Sources

[1] West Point Museum Archives, Testimonies of Battery A, 4th U.S. Artillery (1863) [2] U.S. Army Center of Military History, Medal of Honor Citation: Captain Alonzo Cushing (2014) [3] Butterfield, Daniel. General’s Report on Gettysburg (Union Army Records, 1863)