Alonzo Cushing's Gettysburg Stand and Medal of Honor

Oct 08 , 2025

Alonzo Cushing's Gettysburg Stand and Medal of Honor

Alonzo Cushing gripped the wheel of his artillery piece at Gettysburg, smoke choking the air, hot lead biting into flesh. Wounded three times, blood soaked through his uniform, his fingers clenched the ramrod. He would not quit. Not while the Confederates surged. Not while his gun still fired.

Born to Fight, Called to Serve

Alonzo H. Cushing was born into a family carved from patriotism and stubborn faith. West Point molded him, but it was the deep Protestant belief in duty that steeled his resolve. Raised with Scripture in his heart and honor in his veins, Cushing lived by a code no battlefield scar could erase.

“Greater love hath no man than this,” he would have known—ready to lay down his life for brothers in arms.

His military career was brief but defined by discipline and a quiet ferocity. Artillery was his craft. Not just a soldier, but a sentinel casting hellfire for freedom’s promise.

The Battle That Defined Him

July 3, 1863 — the final day at Gettysburg, a crucible where the fate of a nation trembled on a knife’s edge. Cushing commanded Battery A, 4th U.S. Artillery, positioned on Cemetery Ridge.

Pickett's Charge thundered like an apocalypse. Confederate forces aimed to shatter Union lines and snatch victory.

Cushing’s guns barked defiance over the thunder of infantry. Amid chaos, he was struck—wounded in the chest. Wrong place, wrong time? No. Right place. Right time.

He pulled himself back to the limber, rallied his gunners, and ordered fire deeper into the assault. A second wound felled him again. But he stayed.

Even as comrades fell on either side, Cushing drove his men onward, firing rounds into the surging enemy, refusing aid.

“Must keep up the fire!” he shouted.

Truth is, Alonzo Cushing died at his gun, courage burning his final breath. A teenage lieutenant recorded seeing him drag himself back to the gun—a crimson figure who would not surrender.

Recognition in Blood and Bronze

The Medal of Honor did not come quickly. Though his valor was known at the time, official recognition waited over a century—posthumous and hard-earned through rigor and testimony.

On November 6, 2014, Alonzo H. Cushing was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Barack Obama.

“You held steady when so many faltered. You had courage in the face of death,” the citation read.

His heroism was described as “above and beyond the call of duty.”

His sacrifice became a beacon for artillerymen and infantry both—proof that courage is measured in relentless defiance against dark tides.

Legacy Etched in Earth and Soul

Alonzo Cushing’s story is not just about a man or a gun crew. It’s the bloodline of grit and faith. His stand at Gettysburg echoes louder than rifles can fire.

He teaches us that valor is not the absence of fear, but the refusal to bow to it.

Combat veterans know this truth well—that battle scars are maps of stories worth telling, stories of sacrifice that must never fade.

“And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap,” 2 Thessalonians 3:13 whispers over the chaos.

Cushing’s final stand shows us redemption isn’t given; it’s earned in the fire of selflessness.

The legacy he left is a call to bear witness—to honor those who stand bleeding in no-man’s land, to remember that courage presses on even when our bodies break.

Alonzo Cushing died young, but in that agonizing July at Gettysburg, he was immortal.

His story survives in the thunder of artillery fire and the silence that follows, reminding us all: some fight not for glory—but for the brother beside them, for the land they love, and for the hope that outlasts even death.

Sources

1. U.S. Army Center of Military History, Medal of Honor Recipients: Civil War (2014 Ceremony) 2. H. Charles McBarron, Alonzo Cushing: A Biography of the Gettysburg Hero (2003) 3. National Park Service, Battle of Gettysburg Unit Histories and Personal Accounts