The Gettysburg Hero Who Waited 151 Years for the Medal of Honor

On this episode of Our American Stories, Alonzo Cushing was just 22 years old when he fell at Gettysburg, standing firm as Confederate troops charged across the field. His courage earned him the respect of his men, but not the honor he deserved. More than 150 years later, advocates carried his name all the way to the White House to secure the Medal of Honor.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
To search for the Our American Stories podcast, go do
the iHeartRadio app to Apple Podcasts or wherever you get
your podcasts. In twenty fourteen, Union Artillery officer Alonzo Cushing
was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor one hundred and

(00:33):
fifty one years after the fact. Here's Army Chaplain Major
General Donald L. Rutherford to start things off with the
invocation he gave at Cushing's Hall of Heroes induction ceremony,
followed by Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob work.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Lord's Faithful God, there is glory for the brave fallen soldier,
as the honor for Settendant Alonzo H. Cushing. Knowledge that
the passage of time has failed to darken the luster
of a life lived and given in service to a
proud and a grateful nation. On the fields at Gettysburg,
the men he led fired the final shots that ensured

(01:13):
both a victory and battle and the preservation of our
sacred republic. We recognize that on the theater of combat,
which secures the eye and applause of history, a comrade
performed his duty just as we his younger brothers and
sisters are expected to perform ours, faithfulunto death, with the
words written in stone by a proud and aggrieving mother.

(01:36):
In truth, his death was but a beginning your hollow name.
We pray this day.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Amen now on astonishing and twenty two medals of Honors
were awarded to those who fought in the Civil War,
but the heroic deeds of Lieutenant Cushing on that bloody
day at Gettysburg were overlooked, probably because he did not
live to share his own account. In those times, most

(02:04):
of the wardes of the honor lived, and they were
there to advocate for their award. Just two percent of
all these fifteen hundred brave American soldiers who were awarded
the Medal of Honor died. I mean, it's understanding that
Lieutenant Cushing's heroic deeds were kind of forgotten. So one
hundred and fifty one years later, which is the longest

(02:26):
gap ever between the awarding of a Medal of Honor
and the act of valor for which the medal was given,
we finally have been able to address that mistake and
honor him for the role that he played at such
a decisive moment in that decisive battle in the Civil War.

(02:47):
Bartillerman are a unique bunch. They adore their cannon, which
they treat with loving care. So when the time comes
and at that decisive moment in battle, their guns were
able to operate and able to fire and support in
the Civil War of the infantry and the cavalry. The
Civil War correspondence wrote that while Americans might be an

(03:08):
unmilitary people, the mechanical aspects of artillery appealed to a
nation of tinkerers, and the American soldier seems to take
naturally to artillery. Now that was certainly true of Alonzo Cushion.
He was only twenty two years old, but he was
already at that tender young age a veteran of some
of the greatest and most bloodiest battles of the Civil War,

(03:29):
included Malvern Hill, Antietam, and Fredericksburg. And on the third
day of the Battle of Gettysburg, Cushing and his battery
as artillery battery positioned on a critical ridge, the anchor
of the entire Union position Cemetery Ridge. For two days,

(03:51):
General Lee's army battered itself against this line of brave
Union soldiers searching for a weakness, but the Northern Nurse
held firm, rushing reinforcements from one part of the threatened
battlefield to the other. But on the morning of July third,
eighteen sixty three, General Lee and his commanders took a
look across that field and said it was time to

(04:12):
try to force the issue. So he decided he would
roll the dice, throw all of his fresh troops under
General Pickett, and have them charged straight at the line
on Cemetery Bridge. Twelve thousand men in gray began to
converge on the Union defenses, right where Lieutenant Cushion and
his battery stood waiting. Now Lee had his own artillery.

(04:40):
It was called the Grand Cannon Battery, and he blasted
away at the Union lines try to soften up their defenses.
Lieutenant Cushion one found himself with only two workable cannon
left at the end of this barrage. Most of the
artillerymen who served the guns were either dead or wounded.
But Cushion, without even thinking about it, rolled his two

(05:00):
remaining cannon right up to the stone wall. They created
the Bloody Angle, and he stood there and fired in
the oncoming mass of infantry as they charged across the field.
First it was solid shell, then it was great and
then it was canister. But the Southern troops were brave
that day, as brave as the Union troops, and they

(05:22):
came on until they had reached the very muzzle of
Lieutenant Cushion's guns. Now Lieutenant Cushion had already been shot twice.
He was grievously wounded, and his comrade said, Lieutenant, it's
time for you to leave. We can take over from here.
But like any truly dedicated artilleryman or any dedicated soldier,

(05:43):
he refused to leave his guns. No, he said, I
stay right here and fight it out or die in
the attempt. Minutes later, the Confederate wave crashed over the
position and Lieutenant Cushion was cut down, and he joined
the race and followship of the fallen as Gettysburg veteran

(06:04):
Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, who himself won the Medal of
Honor and so welcome we put it. And although he
didn't know it or his comrades didn't know it at
the time, his valor was worthy of being awarded the
highest medal that our nation bestows on its men and women,
even if it took a little time to do it.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
And thanks to Monty Montgomery for producing that piece, and
thanks to Armie Chaplin, Major General Donald L. Rutherford, and
also Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work the story of
Alonso Cushing, a Medal of Honor recipient, one hundred and
fifty one years after the fact, and not a second

(06:45):
too late. Here on our American stories. Folks, if you

(07:30):
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(07:52):
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