Lieutenant Alonzo H. Cushing

The monument to Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing is south of Gettysburg inside The Angle, north of the Copse of Trees

From the monument:

Erected in honor of
Lt. A.H. Cushing
And his 4th U.S. Battery A.
by
Col. R. Penn Smith
and his Regiment
71st PA. Vol's.

Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing was 22 years old when he commanded Battery A of the 4th United States Artillery at the Battle of Gettysburg. Born in Wisconsin in 1841, he moved with his family to New York and attended West Point, graduating with the class of 1861.

Cushing's battery was at the focal point of the Confederate attack on July 3rd. The intense bombardment preceding the charge left Cushing wounded by shell fragments, many of his men also wounded, and only two working guns.

Rather than withdraw the remnants of the shattered battery, he obtained permission from General Webb to move his remaining pieces up to the stone wall, where he and the handful of survivors of the battery fired canister into the advancing Virginians of Pickett's Division.

The legend that Cushing fired the last double-shotted gun seconds before being struck in the mouth with his fatal wound is a small exaggeration. First Sergeant Frederick Fuger (who received the Medal of Honor for his actions at Gettysburg) fired the shot after laying the dying Cushing on the ground.

Cushing is buried at West Point next to John Buford and Benjamin "Grimes" Davis.

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