Alonzo Cushing's Last Stand at Gettysburg and Medal of Honor

Aug 30 , 2026

Alonzo Cushing's Last Stand at Gettysburg and Medal of Honor

He lay against a battered cannon, the world bleeding around him, bullets sparking in a hailstorm of death. His right arm shattered, his body torn, yet Alonzo Cushing kept that gun firing. No surrender. No retreat. He was a ghost amidst the chaos at Cemetery Ridge, his life bleeding away with every shell launched into the Confederate lines. This was not just war. It was sacrifice carved into the very earth beneath him.

The Boy from Wisconsin—Steel and Spirit

Alonzo Cushing wasn’t born into battle. Born in Delafield, Wisconsin, 1841, his childhood was marked by strict discipline and deep-rooted faith. The son of a West Point graduate and artillery officer, young Alonzo inherited not just a military pedigree but a personal code. Duty was sacred. Honor was everything.

He entered West Point at 17, eyes sharp, resolve firmer. Even then, his faith walked side by side with him. He read scripture; he carried a Bible. Psalms and promises under firing lines. This wasn’t about glory. It was about a higher purpose. To him, the Union cause was righteous—preserving a nation fractured but worth saving.

Last Stand at Gettysburg

July 3, 1863.

The third and final day of Gettysburg. The air thick with smoke and the screams of dying men. Cushing, a Captain in the 4th U.S. Artillery, commanded Battery A atop Cemetery Ridge. Pickett’s Charge thundered towards them—15,000 Confederate troops in full assault.

The line faltered. Artillery crews scattered under onslaughts of lead and iron. But not Cushing. Despite a wound that nearly severed his arm at the elbow, he refused evacuation. He took personal command of the remaining guns. Staff Sergeant Frederick Füger described him:

“Captain Cushing calmly gave his orders in the face of the enemy’s concentrated fire... and continued to direct the guns though mortally wounded.”¹

Circling Death, Cushing fought through the pain, urging men to load and fire. The cannon roared.

Bullets tore his flesh; splinters shredded his uniform. His finger was shattered beyond recognition. But the guns never stopped.

He collapsed three times, only to rise again. The artillery barrage broke the Confederate momentum, repelling Pickett’s Charge, altering the course of the war.

As he breathed his last, the future of the Union pressed on.

Posthumous Honor — A Medal Worth Waiting For

For decades his courage was noted, revered within military history circles, yet the highest recognition eluded him.

Finally, in 2014—151 years after the battle—Alonzo Cushing received the Medal of Honor. Posthumously awarded by President Obama, the citation bore witness to "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty."²

General Alexander Webb, his division commander, called Cushing’s final stand “one of the most brilliant displays of courage and devotion to duty I saw during the entire war.”³

The medal recognized what fellow soldiers already knew: a man who gave everything, body and soul, to hold the line.

Redemption in Scarlet and Smoke

Cushing’s story is etched into the scars of Gettysburg, a testament carved from blood and iron. It speaks to the warrior who stands when all others fall, driven not by hate or ambition—but by a code deeper than the battlefield.

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

His legacy challenges us: What do we hold sacred? The living owe it to the fallen—not just to remember, but to embody the relentless spirit of sacrifice they bore. It teaches that valor is not found in flash and noise, but in the quiet will to persevere when all seems lost.

Alonzo Cushing fired his cannons into the jaws of death, not for fame, but so that a nation might heal and a promise endure. His blood still stains that ridge, calling us to live with that same grit, integrity, and faith.

Sources

1. U.S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion: Official Records, Series I, Vol. 27, Pt. 3 (1889) 2. White House Briefing Room, "President Obama awards Medal of Honor to Captain Alonzo H. Cushing," 2014 3. General Alexander S. Webb, Gettysburg Report and Correspondence, 1863–1864