Jun 15 , 2026

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

The roar of cannon smoke chokes the July air.

Blood seeps from Alonzo H. Cushing’s wounds, but his hands grip the wheel of his gun carriage with iron will.

“Keep firing. Hold this line.”

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The Battle That Defined Him

July 3, 1863. The gunpowder haze over Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg clings to every soldier’s breath. Captain Alonzo Cushing commands Battery A, 4th U.S. Artillery, pinned down by the relentless Confederate assault known later as Pickett’s Charge.

His position is critical. If the guns fall silent, the Confederate tide could break the Union line. Wounded not once, but twice, Cushing stays at his gun, refusing evacuation. He is the last to fire on that doomed field.

“My God, am I shot? Thank God — but the battery must not be given up,” he said, words seized from a dying man’s grit. Hours later, he bleeds out at the gunwheel, his command unbroken till the end.

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Background & Faith

Born into a military family in Wisconsin, Cushing graduated from West Point in 1861, steeped in discipline and sacrifice. His father, Maj. Alonzo Cushing Sr., instilled in him a fierce sense of honor, duty, and faith.

In the words of Cushing, “To die for one’s country is a glory.”

Raised under the shadow of Christian conviction, he carried a quiet faith that fortified his steel nerves under fire. Prayer and purpose were weapons as real as the cannon his battery mans.

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The Battle / Action

At Gettysburg, Battery A was arrayed on Cemetery Ridge’s slope, a lynchpin against Confederate artillery and infantry.

July 3, the day of Pickett’s Charge, was hell’s furnace.

Confederate forces surged against Cushing’s guns in waves. Explosions tore earth and men apart. When his first wound shattered his right arm, he refused to yield. Command transferred to his second-in-command briefly but Cushing reclaimed it, rallying his men through sheer force of presence.

A second bullet tore his leg, and blood flow slowed, but he stayed, shouting orders, directing fire at point-blank range. His battery’s relentless barrage helped break the assault’s momentum, a turning point sealing the Union’s survival at Gettysburg.

Witnesses like Lieutenant Louis M. Twining recalled, “Captain Cushing fought with superhuman courage to the last moment.”

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Recognition

Cushing died on that smoking field that day, July 3, 1863, never receiving his highest honor in his lifetime.

It was a century and a half before justice came. In 2014, after decades of advocacy anchored by eyewitness reports and wartime dispatches, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Alonzo Cushing the Medal of Honor.

“Captain Cushing’s extraordinary courage and unyielding devotion to duty are an enduring example,” the citation reads.

He stands as a rare Medal of Honor recipient from the Civil War, recognized for holding the line against overwhelming odds and mortal wounds.

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Legacy & Lessons

From the bloodsoaked soil of Gettysburg emerges a raw truth: courage is not absence of fear, but will forged through purpose and faith.

Alonzo Cushing gave his all not for glory or fame, but because he believed in something greater than himself—the preservation of a nation and principles worth dying for.

His scars are not just physical but spiritual, a testament to the cost of war and the cost of peace. His story whispers a command to every soldier, every citizen:

Stand firm when all seems lost. Fight for what is right—even at your last breath.

Psalm 23:4 breaks the dark silence:

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.”

Cushing’s legacy is a summons—a call from history’s smoldering edges that sacrifice, faith, and grit leave footprints for generations to follow.

There is no greater honor than to stand unwavering amid hellfire, to fight through the pain, and to die knowing your fight mattered.

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