Alonzo Cushing’s Last Stand at Little Round Top, Gettysburg

Jun 20 , 2026

Alonzo Cushing’s Last Stand at Little Round Top, Gettysburg

Alonzo Cushing gripped the artillery wheel with one hand. Blood pooled beneath him. His body screamed with every breath. Yet the cannon roared on—through smoke, through death, through the sound of a collapsing Union line. He would not quit. Not here. Not now.

Blood of Gettysburg

Born into privilege on January 23, 1841, in Delafield, Wisconsin, Alonzo Cushing carried honor like a second skin. West Point bred the warrior in him—it forged discipline, precision, a relentless code. But it was faith that anchored his soul. Raised Presbyterian, he believed his mission burned with divine purpose. “For God and Country,” his family’s creed echoed quietly in every decision.

When the Civil War erupted, Cushing answered the call without hesitation. Commissioned in the U.S. Artillery, he carried not just a cannon’s firepower but the weight of duty. His was a generation baptized under cannon smoke and brother against brother.

Hell at Little Round Top

July 3, 1863. The Battle of Gettysburg had reached its brutal crescendo. Confederate forces surged with desperate fury to pierce the Union’s left flank. Little Round Top—the linchpin—teetered on collapse.

Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and the 20th Maine grabbed the high ground, but the artillery was the keystone. Cushing, just 22 years old, commanded Battery A, 4th U.S. Artillery, positioned perilously near the top.

Enemy sharpshooters cut down his men. The ground trembled as musket and cannonballs slammed nearby. Wounded twice already—one wound piercing his abdomen, another slicing through his pelvis—he refused to falter.

Witnesses later recounted: Cushing, slumped against his gun, motioned for it to keep firing. Between agonizing breaths, he directed his remaining men, ordering point-blank grapeshot into advancing Confederates. His voice grew faint, his body weaker, but his resolve hardened.

Private George Gaeth of the 140th New York saw him: “He gave the order to fire till every gunner was shot dead or wounded.” Another witness described him dragging himself to keep the guns manned as chaos closed in.

At last, he fell—mortally wounded, bloodied, but with cannons still firing.

Medal of Honor: Valor Beyond Death

Official recognition did not come quickly. Cushing’s death certificate recorded July 3, 1863, but his heroism simmered in history’s margins for decades.

Only in 2014, after relentless advocacy by historians and descendants, did Congress award him the Medal of Honor—posthumously—“for extraordinary heroism on July 3, 1863”[1].

The citation reads:

“Throughout the repulse of the enemy’s assault, especially during the nearly three hours of severe fighting on Little Round Top, Lieutenant Colonel Cushing remained steadfast at his post. Although severely wounded multiple times, he continued to direct artillery fire against the enemy, inspiring the Union troops and helping secure the position.”

General Gouverneur K. Warren, who played a pivotal role at Little Round Top, famously called Cushing’s artillery position “the key to the entire battlefield.”

Warren later said, “If Cushing’s battery had been taken, we would have lost the battle.”

The Echoes of Sacrifice

Look past the blood and the battle smoke. See the young man who embodied the unyielding spirit of sacrifice nailed into our history.

Cushing’s story is about more than a single charge or a heroic last stand. It is the blueprint of grit etched in red—the truth that courage lives where the enemy’s breath is hot on your neck, and the choice to fight burns brighter than fear or pain.

Philippians 2:3-4 burns true here:

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”

Alonzo Cushing didn’t just fire a cannon. He fired a signal flare for every generation that followed—a reminder that valor demands everything. That some battles cost a lifetime, or a moment, but never surrender.

The boy who stood on Little Round Top, bleeding and broken but unbowed, speaks to every combat veteran bound by duty, and every civilian called to remember the price paid for freedom.

Legacy is carved in the trenches of sacrifice and sealed by faith. And through Cushing’s story, that legacy never fades.

Sources

1. U.S. Army Center of Military History, Medal of Honor Recipients: Civil War (A–L). 2. Peter S. Carmichael, The Last Stand of the Tin Can Soldiers: The Battle of Gettysburg and the Epic Defence of Little Round Top. 3. The Library of Congress, Letters and Diaries of Alonzo Cushing.