WISCONSIN HISTORY COMMISSION ORIGINAL PAPERS NO. 3 □ Cl4-2-^7?Bk. 1 1$..5~M 8 TRINITY COLLEGE LIBRARY 0 01 RHAM : NORTH CAROLINA Rec’dAu^*/, 1910* &batk~ eJtja^. * • ,'Vu’ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from Duke University Libraries https://archive.org/details/threewisconsincu01haig THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS I Major-General B. V. Sumner and Staff, 1862 See facsimile of A. H. Cushing’s letter, facing p. 40. From left to right; Capt A. H. Cushing, Capt. L. Kipp, Major Clarke, Lieut. -Col. Joseph Taylor, General Sumner, Capt. Sam Sumner, Surgeon Hammond, and Lieutenant-Colonel Lawrence £■ y 8 L Wisconsin History Commission: Original Papers, No. 3 THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS A sketch of the lives of Howard B., Alonzo H. and William B. Cushing, children of a pioneer family of Waukesha County BY THERON WILBER HAIGHT Private, Corporal. First Sergeant, Second and First Lieutenant U. S. V., in the War between the States WISCONSIN HISTORY COMMISSION APRIL, 1910 TWENTY-FIVE HUNDRED COPIES PRINTED Copyright, 1910 THE WISCONSIN HISTORY COMMISSION (in behalf of the State of Wisconsin) Opinions or errors of fact on the part of the respective authors of the Commis- sion's publications (whether Reprints or Original Narratives) have not been modified or corrected by the Commission. For all statements, of whatever character, the Au- thor is alone responsible DEMOCRAT PRINTING CO STATE PRINTER Contents PAGE Wisconsin History Commission ix Records and Appreciations xi Three Wisconsin Cushings: A great New England exodus ... 1 The Cushing Family in Western New York . 5 The father of three Wisconsin heroes . . 8 From Milwaukee to the Nemahbins . . 13 Removal to Chicago ..... 18 The mother in charge of the family . . 21 All the boys established .... 26 The beginning of the War .... 31 The last year of Alonzo’s life 39 Later naval services of William B. Cushing . 58 William’s letter to his mother ... 62 After Gettysburg ..... 66 The destruction of the “Albemarle” . . 67 At Fort Fisher and afterwards ... 81 Howard Cushing with the Artillery . . 88 Transferred to the Cavalry .... 94 Death of the young cavalryman ... 98 Index 105 Illustrations PAGE Major-General E. V. Sumner and Staff, 1862 ...... Frontispiece Facsimile of part of letter by Alonzo H. Cushing, 1862 . . . . . .40 Portrait of Alonzo Hersford Cushing . . 56 Portrait of William Barker Cushing . . 86 Facsimile of part of letter by Howard B. Cushing, August 6, 1863 . . . .88 Portrait of Howard B. Cushing . . .94 Facsimile of part of letter by William B. Cushing, May 15, 1871 102 Erratum The portrait at p. 56, entitled “Alonzo Hersford Cushing,” is that of Howard B. Cushing. The portrait at p. 94, entitled "Howard B. Cushing," is that of Alonzo Hersford Cushing. Wisconsin History Commission (Organized under the provisions of Chapter 298, Laws of 1905, as amended by Chapter 378, Laws of 1907 and Chapter 445, Laws of 1909) JAMES 0. DAVIDSON Governor of Wisconsin FREDERICK J. TURNER Professor of American History in the University of W isconsin REUBEN G. THWAITES Secretary of the State Historical Society of Wis- consin MATTHEW S. DUDGEON Secretary of the Wisconsin Library Commission CHARLES E. ESTABROOK Representing Department of Wisconsin, Grand Army of the Republic Chairman, COMMISSIONER ESTABROOK Secretary and Editor, Commissioner Thwaites Committee on Publications, COMMISSIONERS THWAITES and Turner [ix] RECORDS AND APPRECIATIONS Howard B. Cushing Record — Wisconsin. Private Co. B., 1st Illinois ar- tillery, March 24, 1862 to November 30, 1863; private in B artillery (regular) November 30, 1863; second lieutenant, 4th artillery, November 30, 1 863 ; transferred to 3rd cavalry, September 7, 1 867 ; first lieutenant, De- cember 16, 1867; killed May 5, 1871, in action with Apache Indians in Whetstone Mountains, Arizona. Appreciation — “Of the distinguished services rendered to Arizona by Lieutenant Howard B. Cushing, a book might well be written. It is not intended to disparage anybody when I say that he performed herculean and more notable work, perhaps, than had been performed by any other officer of corresponding rank either before or since. Southern Arizona owed much to the gallant offi- cers who wore out strength and freely risked life and limb in her defence; * * * but if there were any choice among them I am sure that the verdict, if left to those officers themselves, would be in favor of Cushing.” — John G. Bourke, On the Border with Croo (N. Y., 1891), pp. 106, 107. [xi] THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS Alonzo Hersford Cushing Record — Wisconsin and New York. Cadet at Mili- tary Academy, July 1 , 1857 (12); second lieutenant and first lieutenant of the 4th artillery, June 24, 18,61 ; brevet captain, December 13, 1862, for gallant and meritorious service at the battle of Fredericksburg, Va. ; major, May 2, 1 862, for gallant and meritorious service at the Battle of Chancellorsville, Va. ; and lieutenant colonel, July 1, 1863, for conspicuous gallantry at the Battle of Gettys- burg, Pa., where he was killed July 3, 1863. Appreciation — “On the field of Gettysburg, more than once I stood where the brave Cushing gave up his life, right at the peak of Pickett’s daring charge. Oh that day and that hour! History will not let that smiling, splendid boy die in vain; her dew will glisten forever over his record as the earthly morning dew glistens in the fields. Fame loves the gentleman and the true-hearted, but her sweetheart is gallant youth.” — Morris ScHAFF, “Spirit of Old West Point,” in Atlantic Monthly, February, 1907. William Barker Cushing Record — September 25, 1857, appointed acting mid- shipman, from 33rd N. Y. district; March 23, 1861, res- ignation accepted; April 1, appointed master’s mate in volunteer navy — served on board the U. S. S. “Minne- [xii] RECORDS AND APPRECIATIONS sota;” Sept. 13, resignation accepted; Oct. 19, war- ranted as a midshipman in the navy from the 1 st day of June, 1861 ; Oct. 25, to duty in North Atlantic blockad- ing squadron; March 27, 1862, detached from U. S. S. “Cambridge” (sick) and leave of one month; May 14, to the U. S. S. “Minnesota;” July 16, promoted to lieu- tenant; April 27, 1863, commissioned; Sept. 5, detached from the “Shockokon” and to command the “Monti- cello;” Oct. 19, 1864, detached and to the North At- lantic blockading squadron; Nov. 22, again ordered to North Atlantic blockading squadron; Oct. 27, promoted to lieutenant-commander from this date; Feb. 20. 1865, commissioned; Feb. 24, detached from command of the “Monticello” and wait orders; May 1 7, to the navy yard. New York, N. Y. ; June 13, detached and to the U. S. S. “Hartford;” June 24, detached and to the U. S. S. “Lancaster,” Pacific station; March 1 1, 1867, detached and wait orders; July 5, to the U. S. S. “Quinnebaug,” 15th instant; July 25, previous order revoked and to command the U. S. S. “Penobscot” when found; Oct. 7, detached and to command the U. S. S. “Maumee;” Jan. 19, 1870, detached November 12th last, and leave three months from 13th instant; March 30, to ordnance duty. Navy Yard, Boston, Mass., April 30th; Jan. 31, 1872, promoted to commander from this date; Feb. 2, to exami- nation; Feb. 9, detached and wait orders; May 16, [ xiii ] THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS commissioned; June 17, 1873, to command the U. S. S. “Wyoming” per steamer 28th instant; June 21, previous order suspended; July 11, to command the U. S. S. Wyoming;” April 24, 1874, detached and wait or- ders; April 27, to duty as assistant to executive officer, Navy Yard, Washington, D. C. ; Aug. 23, detached and to duty as senior aid to commandant of the Navy Yard, Washington, D. C. ; D ec. 1 7, died this day at the Government Hospital for the Insane, Washington, D. C. Appreciation — “To the Senate and House of Repre- sentatives: In conformity to the law of July 16, 1862, I most cordially recommend that Lieutenant William B. Cushing, United States Navy, receive a vote of thanks from Congress for his important, gallant, and perilous achievement in destroying the rebel ironclad steamer, Al- bemarle, on the night of the 27th of October, 1864, at Plymouth, North Carolina. * * * This recom- mendation is specially made in order to comply with the requirements of the aforesaid act which is in the following words, viz. : That any line officer of the Navy or Marine Corps may be advanced one grade if upon recommenda- tion of the President by name he receives the thanks of Congress for highly distinguished conduct in conflict with the enemy, or for extraordinary heroism in the lines of his profession. (Signed) ABRAHAM LINCOLN.” [ xiv ] THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS A Great New England Exodus Beginning with the last decade of the eight- eenth century, and continuing through the first de- cade of the nineteenth, the northern and western borders of the state of New York were punc- tuated with settlements of a peculiar people along the entire distance, and reaching inland from the edges of the lakes and rivers along the line, for a number of miles. These settlements were from New England; but their population differed somewhat from the aggregate of those who were left behind. Sires and sons of the great emigra- tion were, in all their movements, much influenced,, no doubt, by the views of their wives, mothers., and sisters, but the partiality of history takes, notice only of the former. They were the men, and the offspring of the men, whose sturdy strokes, supplemented by their more delicate and elaborate strokes, had turned *i [i] THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS New England from a wilderness into fertile fields and flourishing towns, but who were not permitted to reap the fruits of their past endeavors in their old homes. Debts had accrued against them while they had been helping fight the bat- tles of their country in the War for Independence, and their creditors would not accept in settle- ment the worthless Continental currency with which their country had paid them for their serv- ices and sacrifices. In many instances they found their homesteads taken from them and turned over to lawyers and other professional men who had abstained from encouragemnt of bloodshed by staying out of the army in the “times that tried men’s souls.” The returning soldiers were dis- gusted and amazed by what looked to them like a less tolerable condition than that which they had opposed of late with powder and ball. Within a very few years all this feeling cul- minated in a rebellion against the government — and particularly the judicial branch of the gov- ernment — of the state of Massachusetts, led by one Daniel Shays, who had attained the rank of captain in the Continental forces in active service. [ 2 ] THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT When this uprising was suppressed, as in less than a year it was, an exodus of the dissatisfied classes began and continued as people could get ready for their passage over the Hudson and into the wilderness of what was then the Far West, reaching by way of the Mohawk Valley even to Lake Erie itself, and up the eastern shore of Lake Ontario to the St. Lawrence. Washington Irving was evidently familiar with the appear- ance of such migrations from early boyhood, and gives a lively picture in his Knickerbocker’s Hist- ory of New York (though somewhat distorted for purposes of burlesque entertainment), of the way in which the Yankees moved westward, ac- companied by their families, and with all their belongings packed away in covered wagons drawn by jaded horses or toiling oxen. The History was published in 1809, when Irving was twenty-six years old; but it is not prob- able that he had observed among the immigrant wagons passing his father’s house, the young ship- carpenter, Zattu Cushing, who attained his ma- jority in 1791, and soon after left his native home at Plymouth, Mass., reaching the neighborhood [ 3 ] THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS of Ballston Spa, New York, before 1795, the year of his marriage there to Miss Rachel Buck- ingham. It seems most likely that the trip from Ply- mouth to the headwaters of the Hudson was en- tirely by water; the young man’s relations with seafaring, together with the frequency of coast- wise voyages from the eastern ports of the old Bay State, would naturally have led him to prefer that route. From the time of his marriage until 1 799 neither tradition nor record points out the charac- ter or direction of his movements. In the last- mentioned year he is said to have been superin- tending the construction of a ship, the “Good In- tent,” at the island opposite Erie, Pennsylvania, although his residence at the same time was in the town of Paris, a few miles south of Utica, New York. On his return home from Erie he took back a team of horses, perhaps the fruit of his ship-building on the lake. The horses claim a a place in history on account of the escape of one of them in the neighborhood of Dunkirk, and the camping-out of the owner, while searching for it. [ 4 1 AT FREDONIA on the site of the village of Fredonia, his home in subsequent years. The Cushing Family in Western New Y orJi It was not until 1 805 that the young man finally settled at Fredonia, bringing with him his wife and five children, of whom Milton Buckingham, bom in 1800, was to become the father of per- haps the most conspicuously daring trio of sons of one mother of any — not excepting the Roman Horatii or Judean Maccabees — whose exploits have been noted in the pages of history. For, in the days of early champions, personal strength and dexterity counted for so much in battle that it did not appear very extraordinary for Walter Scott’s “Fitz- James” to set his back against a rock and defy a whole tribe of armed Highlanders to a close contest. The more modem fighting man can not see the death that he hears whistling and humming about his head in the vicious flight of bullets; or, tearing the atmosphere apart by means of shell that burst into whirring fragments of cast- iron, destroying everything they touch, whether animate or inanimate. He has to be ready for [51 THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS his fate, which may be handed out to him at any instant without the possibility of resistance or es- cape. The journey from Oneida County was made in the early winter by ox-sleighs, and must have taken several days, perhaps running into weeks, as the route led the emigrants to Dunkirk by way of Buffalo and the frozen waters along the Erie shore. While spending one night on the ice, a little way off shore, a thaw came on, in company with a strong east wind, and the party had some difficulty in reaching land. Fredonia is only three or four miles inland from the port of Dunkirk, and the family soon found themselves domiciled in the log hut which in those days almost always served as the temporary shelter, at least, of the first occu- pant of a tract of land in the backwoods of New York. The Cushings were evidently well-thought-of by their neighbors, so the former ship-carpenter soon received the appointment of associate judge of the Niagara County court. It may seem rather odd at present that this position should have been conferred upon a layman; but the experience at [ 6 ] AN UNTRAINED JUDGE their old homes of the emigrating New England- ers had been such that they retained strong preju- dices against regularly-trained members of the learned professions. They were quite generally inclined to prefer the illiterate exhortations of re- vivalist ministers to the teachings of such clergy- men as were accounted orthodox in the Eastern states; to consider, home-bred lawyers as more likely to strive for the triumph of justice than those who had devoted their lives to the study of technicalities ; and even in respect to medical prac- titioners, the self-taught empiric was as likely to achieve a financial success among them as would be the graduate of a long-established medical school. That the choice of Mr. Cushing as a judge was approved by the people, became evident when Chautauqua County was set off from Niagara. In 1811, Judge Cushing took the place of presid- ing judge in the new organization, and held it for fourteen years. In 1826, after the opening of the Erie Canal, the judge, in company with other citizens of Fredonia, built a boat for traffic on the new waterway, and had it hauled over the three [71 THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS miles between Fredonia and the lake, by ox- teams; there were said to have been about a hun- dred in the string. The jurist therefore did not retire from the activities of life on retiring from the bench ; he found somewhat with which to occupy himself until his death in 1839, respected and honored by the community where he lived. The Father of Three Wisconsin Heroes In the meantime his son Milton had grown to maturity, had taken the degree of doctor of medi- cine after a classical course of study at Hamilton Literary and Theological Institute, not far from the early boyhood home of the student — a school founded in 1 820, and now become Colgate Uni- versity. The duties of a physician were too ex- acting for his own health, however. After a few years of practice at Zanesville, Ohio, where he married his first wife, he became a local mer- chant, and in 1833, when the wife died, was the father of four children, none of whom long sur- vived their early manhood or womanhood. Not long after the death of Mrs. Cushing, Dr. Cushing removed his business and home to Co- 18 ] REMOVAL TO WISCONSIN lumbus, where in 1836 he married Miss Mary Barker Smith of Boston, who was visiting in the West at the time. She was then 29 years old, of splendid physical and mental constitution, and fortunately endowed with a passionate love for life in an open, free atmosphere, as near as prac- ticable to nature itself. After the birth of their eldest son, named for his father, in 1837, the young couple prepared for their removal into the far west of Wisconsin, where the Potawatomi still fished and hunted, and whence the Sauk leader, Black Hawk, had recently been driven. Neither documentary evi- dence nor tradition show the manner of travel of the young couple — whether through the prairies of Indiana and Illinois, and down the east shore of Lake Michigan, or by sailing vessel around through the straits of Mackinac. Either of the two routes was then available, and neither was especially dangerous. What seems certain is, that on the 22nd of August, 1838, Howard B. Cushing, the eldest of the three Wisconsin-born members of that family, first saw the light at Milwaukee. Nine [9l THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS days previous to the event, Mrs. Cushing was im- pressed with the presentiment of death, and wrote in her Bible the verses following, under the head- ing, “To Milton, with the Legacy of his Mother s Bible.” 1 I have no gold, my darling son. No wealth to leave to thee — Yet never light hath shone upon A richer, costlier, holier one Than this my legacy; “Bought with a price,” this guide of youth — And gemmed with wisdom, light, and truth. Should’st thou live on through many years, Of pilgrimage below. Full well I know that earthly fears And human woe and human tears. Attend the path thou’lt go. And that thy soul may well endure — • Drink deeply of this fountain pure. Farewell, my son! perchance through grace We’ll meet again above — Thine infant memory may not trace Thy mother’s form, thy mother’s face; But O, that mother’s love Burns deep for thee, my first-born child! Cod f^eep thy spirit undefiled! ' E. M. H. Edwards, Commander William Barker Cushing N. Y., 1898), pp. 22, 23. EARLY MILWAUKEE If this is to be understood as an indication of despondent gloom, on the part of the writer, it is the only one left by this conspicuous exemplar of fine American womanhood. In later years, as will appear in these pages, she was obliged to un- dergo privations more difficult to encounter than those of a residence at the confluence of the Mil- waukee and Menomonee rivers — then a forlorn waste of swamps and hills, that looked as though they would successfully defy the efforts of man for transformation into the fairest of the cities along the shores of the Great Lakes. In 1838 the little village contained not more than about eight hundred inhabitants, and these were divided by Milwaukee River into two hos- tile camps, whose differences were always appar- ently on the point of breaking out into actual vio- lence. The stream was still unbridged, and it seemed likely that this watery frontier would long remain a boundary line as fixed as that of the Rh me in Europe. Mrs. Cushing had been reared among the most highly-cultivated people of Boston, and was related to such distinguished families as the Adamses, Hancocks, and Phil- [ ii 1 THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS lipses. It was not at all strange, therefore, that with three or four children of her husband by a former wife to care for, besides her own baby of sixteen months, she should have been attacked by the nostalgia that has often dragged grown men to untimely graves. It was an evidence of the strength of character of this city-bred lady that she so soon recovered her elasticity of spirit after the birth of Howard, and again faced the hardships of frontier life as fearlessly as her sons faced death in the cam- paigns of the great Civil War. It must have been soon after her convalescence that she paralleled the shout of Hannibal’s soldiers, “Beyond the Alps lies Italy!” with the thought, at least, that beyond the Menomonee marshes lay a country re- sembling in aspect the most carefully tended Eng- lish parks, but swarming with more delicious and satisfying game of earth, water, and air than could be found in any open hunting grounds of Europe. This was the country of the “oak open- ings,” extending for scores of miles to the west- ward, and jeweled with lovely lakelets, from Pe- waukee to beyond the “Four Lakes,” between [ 12 ] MIGRATION TO DELAFIELD two of which latter was to rise the capital of the nascent state. From Milwaukee to the Nemahbins In 1838 there was no elaborate road between Milwaukee and Waukesha, but the intervening twenty miles presented no serious obstacles to travel. A pioneer woman who made the trip that year, Mrs. Talbot C. Dousman, wrote of it' that her pen was inadequate to a description of the beautiful scenes. The prairie grasses stood as high as the horses’ knees, and thick with lovely flowers. Often, says she, “we found ourselves looking about for the house belonging to these beautiful grounds; but it was emphatically ‘God’s country,’ without sight or sound of human habita- tion, from the house where we dined [in the pres- ent town of Brookfield] till we reached our home in the woods, thirty miles from Milwaukee.” The route taken by the Paddock family, and thus depicted by one of its daughters, passed the site of Waukesha rather more than a mile north, 2 History of Waukesha County , Wis. (Chicago, 1880), pp. 473, 474. [ 13 1 THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS and ended not far from the subsequent home of the Cushings. Indeed, it was most probably fol- lowed by the Cushings early in 1 839, and one may feel no hesitation in believing that the latter breathed in with delight the clear, sweet atmos- phere of the “openings,” as they passed from hill to hill, skirting the south shore of Pewaukee Lake and the southern point of Nagawicka, under the shadow of the magnificent semi-mountain of Wis- consin’s Kettle Range, and then into the charming valley surrounded by lakelets and now occupied by the beautiful little village of Delafield. At that time there was no obstruction to the free flowage of Bark River from Nagawicka to the upper Nemahbin, two miles to the westward. The site of the log cabin chosen by Dr. Cushing is about half way between those lakes, and only a few rods north of the river. It may still be recognized by travellers on the interurban trolley, by means of two beautiful elm trees across the river, from a point half a mile west of the trolley station at Delafield. Less than a mile farther north, are the buildings of the Nashotah Theo- logical Seminary, some of which are also visible [Hi DR. CUSHING from the electric road. Then, however, oak openings extended north and south without visible termination. It was an ideal place for rest from the busy employments of the world, and Mrs. Cushing long afterwards said that her sojourn there was the happiest period of her life. Almost immediately, Dr. Cushing took a prominent place in this community. Appointed justice of the peace, he made the first entries in his docket February 1 5, 1840, in a case tried be- fore him, between G. S. Hosmer, plaintiff, and Russell Frisby, defendant. What is now the township of Delafield was then the south half of the town of Warren, but it was the next winter set off by an act of the legislature under the name of Nemahbin, and Dr. Cushing was placed at the head of the new municipal organization as chair- man of its first board of supervisors. The town meeting at which he was elected was held Janu- ary 5, 1842, at the schoolhouse; and over it pre- sided George Paddock, whom we have already noted as guiding his daughter to this locality. More than two years before, on December 28, 1 839, a second son had been born to Mrs. Cush- [i5l THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS ing and her husband, and named Walter. The date of the death of this child is not preserved, but he could not have outlived very early childhood, since the burial place was on the farm from which the parents removed within the next five years. Alonzo was also born on the Delafield farm, as shown by a family Bible lately brought to light. Until this discovery his birth had been credited to Milwaukee, like that of his elder brother, Howard. He was bom on January 19, 1841 . Neither store nor postoffice had yet been estab- lished in the little hamlet, nor was either of those conveniences to be found there for more than two years afterward. The original Hawks’s tavern was built and opened to the public in 1 840, and was deemed a great blessing by immigrants on their way westward along the lately-cleared Ter- ritorial Road; but there were no table supplies to be found on sale nearer than Prairieville (now Waukesha), a dozen miles back towards Mil- waukee. The year 1842 was an eventful one for the frontier township of Nemahbin, since in the early part of the summer, a milldam was built at the [16] BIRTH OF WILLIAM outlet of Nagawicka Lake, while not long after a gentleman named Delafield arrived there, pur- chased the water power and its improvements, and erected a flouring mill where the village mill has ever since been a conspicuous figure in the land- scape. But of far greater importance was the birth, in the cabin north of the river of which we have already spoken, on November 4, of that later glory of the American navy, William Barker Cushing. As Dr. Cushing s first wife died in 1833, it follows that the youngest of her children could not have been at this time less than nine years old. Although nothing is told of the date of the for- mer marriage in any writings accessible to me, it seems likely that the eldest of the children of that connection may have been born as early as 1823, and therefore may have become fairly well quali- fied to take charge of the household during any temporary incapacity on the part of Mrs. Cushing herself. Mrs. Edwards states m her life of the naval commander 0 that there were four children of Dr. Edwards, op. cit., p. 15. * 2 [ 17 ] THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS Cushing’s first marriage, but gives the names of only three of them, who were all members of the family in Wisconsin. The Milwaukee County records show the purchase, in 1 844, by Mrs. Cushing from Dr. Castleman, to whom the farm had then been sold, of a burial lot, 6 feet by 4, including a grave, undoubtedly that of her third son, Walter; and William was the youngest of her sons and the youngest of the family except a daughter, born in Chicago and still living there — Mrs. Isabel Cushing Bouton. In Mrs. Ed- wards’ volume, however, Mrs. Cushing is cred- ited with being the mother of seven, though she names only five. The last conveyance by Dr. Cushing himself appearing in the register’s office at Waukesha, is a deed to Dr. Castleman of part of his holdings, dated April 13, 1843. It may be pretty safely assumed that he became aware at about that time of the inroads of a disease in his own system which some four years later proved fatal. Removal to Chicago In 1844, then, it is probable that the wife and mother left the little town that she had learned to [ 18 ] A MISNAMED TOWN love so well, and wended her way to Chicago with her own children and those of her husband’s former marriage. It is said that she had sug- gested the name of Delafield for the township, because the Nemahbm lakes were not within its boundaries. The change in designation was made by the legislature in 1843. During all the time of the residence of the family here, they lived in Milwaukee County, in the Territory of Wis- consin. Waukesha County had not yet been ac- corded a separate civic organization, and Wiscon- sin did not become a state until 1 848. Mrs. Cush- ing’s choice for the name of the place was stated by her to have been influenced by what she con- sidered the more euphonious sound of the name adopted, when compared with the family name that was to be immortalized and made resplend- ent by her three sons born in Wisconsin. It is a pity that the town had not been called Cushing, for Mr. Delafield died soon afterwards, and the mill property was sold with the rest of the estate of the deceased in 1 846, since which date there has been nothing of an historical character to re- mind one of the origin of the local name. [ 19 1 THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS There is no available information of the events of the three years ending with 1 847 and relating to the Cushing family in Chicago — a town not then as satisfactory from an aesthetic view-point as the Milwaukee they had left in 1 839. Perhaps an exception should be made to this statement of lack of information, in favor of an anecdote told by Mrs. Edwards of the young William walk- ing off into Lake Michigan, and informing his rescuer that his name was “Bill Coon,” so that he could not be immediately identified. He conse- quently was lost to his family for the succeeding thirty-six hours. It is also mentioned incident- ally that Dr. Cushing resumed the practice of medicine at Chicago, but he could hardly have attained much success in it, on account of his de- clining health. Early in 1847 he returned to Ohio, perhaps arranging there for the future of the two sons by his first marriage, one of whom became a lawyer and partner of Salmon P. Chase, and the other a physician; but both died several years before the outbreak of the war. DEATH OF THE FATHER The Mother in Charge of the Family Dr. Cushing himself died at Gallipolis, Ohio, on April 22, 1847. He must have been a man of considerable force of character, and of great personal attractiveness, as well as of cor- rect conceptions of right and wrong, with sym- pathies always for the right side of public ques- tions. His physical constitution was not robust, however, and he therefore passed away without leaving any memory of important action of his own, and without provision for his widow and her children. It is at this point that Mrs. Cushing’s person- ality becomes more distinctly visible to the inves- tigator of the family annals. Having to lay out a course of life with particular reference to the welfare of her little ones, she wisely decided, like Ruth in the ancient story, to go back to the home of her husband’s relatives, and there to begin life anew. She loved her independence and had no intention of quartering herself upon the charity of those well-disposed people; but it was reasonable to hope that they, or some of them, would take [ 21 ] THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS sufficient interest in the boys, at any rate, to point out ways and means for their development into good citizens, and opportunities of which they might take advantage to win places of honor and usefulness among their fellow men. She was very soon enabled to establish a school for children at Fredonia, by means of which, with the practice of strict economy, she maintained her family in a respectable manner. The indulgence of social vanities was of course not within the scope of her plans. Her boys were required to help in the support of the family by the perform- ance of such slight tasks as the neighbors called upon them to accomplish — driving cows to past- ure, and other “chores” of a similar character. All moneys earned by this work were handed over to the mother and employed to the common advantage of the family. Mrs. Bouton, of Chi- cago, the youngest of the children, and the only one now surviving, writes this, of her early life at home : One trait, I think, was very remarkable in our family — the respect and courtesy manifested toward each other. I never received a reproof or heard an impatient word [ 22 ] william’s characteristics from either of my brothers. They always displayed to- ward each other and my mother and myself, the same courtesy they would show to a commanding officer. The petting and love I received was enough to have spoiled me for life for contact with the world. In the case of William, at least, the spirit of courtesy would not appear to have been so over- whelming as to prevent an occasional exuberance of spirits, an instance of which is told of in a letter from Mrs. Julia G. Horton of Buffalo, cited by Mrs. Edwards as follows: 4 Will was never happier than when playing some joke upon one of his elder brothers. One summer evening I accompanied his brother Alonzo (Allie, as we used to call him) “to the mill-pond,” upon his invitation to take a row in a forlorn old scow which was much patronized by the young people for what they considered delight- ful trips over the smooth pond. When we reached the bank we found that some one had untied the boat and set it adrift. No other boat was to be had and so we sat down on a log, wondering if some one had tricked us out of our row. Soon we heard a wild whoop in the dis- tance and saw Master Will waving an oar and shouting to us: “Next time you want to row, don’t forget to ask your friends.” [AH 4 Ibid , P . 38. THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS Mrs. Horton also tells an anecdote of how the future commander followed her and one of his brothers to a prayer-meeting, seating himself be- hind them and singing improvised personalities in- stead of the approved words of the hymns that were being sung by the worshippers, so that he was discovered by a church official and led out of the congregation in disgrace. There are other like narratives surviving among the relatives and ac- quaintances of the Cushings, but none of them throw additional light upon the young men in whom we are at this time most interested. With Milton, the eldest, tradition has not seemed to busy itself. He was not a native of Wisconsin; and it may be enough to say here that in due time he became a paymaster in the Union navy, receiv- ing promotion, until he was retired for disability, as paymaster of the fleet then in the Mediterran- ean, and died January 1 , 1 886. He married, but left no issue. Of the younger lads, Howard appears to have been endowed with an unusual aspiration for in- dependence of action, so that at fourteen years of age he took the position of “devil” in the office [ 2 4 ] HOWARD A PRINTER of The Censor, in his home village of Fredonia. As soon as he had obtained enough of the tech- nique of the trade to imagine himself able to hold his own among strangers, he went to Boston, where flourished the aristocratic relatives of his mother. Here he continued his labors at the press and in the composing room until affected with some illness that made him homesick as well, up- on which he returned to Fredonia to recover un- der his mother’s ministrations. When that re- sult was attained he started for Chicago, mem- ories of which progressive town doubtless had haunted him all through his sojourn in the East. He had left Chicago before he was ten years old. The Cushing traits of character were shared by him in such measure, however, as to make it reasonably certain that he was remem- bered affectionately by former acquaintances, and the road towards independence was doubtless made as easy for him as it could be made with a youth whose dread of being under personal obli- gations to his friends was in any instance hard to overcome. A situation as typesetter was given him in the office of The Farmer's Advocate, and [ 25 ] THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS in that capacity and place he worked until his en- listment in 1862 as a private soldier in an Illi- nois volunteer artillery regiment. All the Boys Established In the meantime, Alonzo was bravely attend- ing to such home duties as would be valuable in lightening his mother’s work. In 1855 her brother-in-law, Francis S. Ed- wards, took his seat as member of Congress from the Thirty-fourth New York district, and ^he next year procured the appointment of William as a page on the floor of the House. Towards the end of the session he also secured the appointment of Alonzo as a cadet at West Point, where he entered in 1857, in the seven- teenth year of his age, being described in the Academy records as 5 feet and 5 inches tall. William was; then fourteen, and a favorite among the congressmen with whom he came into touch. He also attracted the notice of a rela- tive, Commodore Joseph Smith of the Navy, af- terwards admiral, who took measures to have the [26] CHARACTER-MAKING boy entered as a cadet at the Naval Academy at Annapolis. Milton was employed in a pharmacy at Fitchburg, Mass., where he remained until the outbreak of the war. Mrs. Cushing henceforth had only herself and her young daughter to provide for. She had fought a good fight, and had succeeded in the es- tablishment of all her sons in positions in which they were tolerably well assured of a good equip- ment for life work, in which the ordinary young American of that era only needed a sound mind in a sound body and a fair field, with no favor, in order to accomplish something worth while, whether in war or in peace. But it should he here noted, that the all-import- ant feature of personal character was and is requi- site in the making of an American whose exist- ence is to be of advantage to his country. In such a republic as ours, the nation would surely fail of long endurance if a considerable proportion of its citizens did not hold the national welfare as some- thing higher and more sacred than that of their own individual personality, and could not be [ 27 ] THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS found able and willing when the emergency should arise, to give their best efforts, even at the imminent peril of life and limb, to the advance- ment of the common welfare. It was the preva- lence of such elements of character among great numbers of our citizens that carried us through the stress of the Civil War in a manner that left us afterwards stronger and more respected by the whole world than before its beginning, and which now bids fair to place us beyond dispute at the head of all the nations of the earth. In the build- ing up of character of this kind, women were most potent, and among American women Mary Cush- ing stands in this respect in the very front rank. This was evidenced by her furnishing to the coun- try in its day of need at least three youthful sons so equipped in intellect, nerve, and unflinching will as to be among the most serviceable of all the soldiers and sailors of the Union army and navy. The four years following the entrance of Alonzo and William to the military and naval academies respectively, were devoid of any inci- dents of absorbing interest in the lives of the young Cushings. At West Point, Alonzo was ap- [28] TWO CADETS proved by his superiors and beloved by his fel- lows. Modest in demeanor, but always efficient in his work, and kindly towards under-classmen, General Morris SchafFs “Spirit of Old West Point’’ 0 shows the esteem in which he was held by all. He was graduated June 24, 1861, and on the same day commissioned second lieutenant in the Fourth Artillery, being promoted to first lieutenant before leaving the hall. William’s cadet experience was somewhat more eventful, for the reason that the spirit of mis- chief was more dominant with him at that time than with his brothers. The culmination of his pranks was reached towards the close of the win- ter of 1861, when he fixed a bucket of water at the top of the doorway through which his teacher of Spanish was to pass on his way to an evening party. The teacher was deluged, but the young- ster was given permission to resign his cadetship, which he did on March 23. This release was necessary for the sake of discipline, but it was evi- dently not the intention of the officers to allow him to pass permanently out of the navy. In a month 0 Atlantic Monthly, February, 1907. [ 29 ] THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS after his enforced resignation he was acting mas- ter’s mate on board the frigate “Minnesota,” from which he wrote a letter dated May 7, 1 861 , to his cousin, Miss Mary B. Edwards, at East Troy, Wisconsin, that may serve to indicate his feeling as to his chosen profession at the beginning of its really serious work. He says: I can write but a few hasty lines. I am an officer on board of the splendid steam frigate, Minnesota. We have just left our moorings, and as I write, we are mov- ing under steam and sail, out of Boston harbor. I am going to fight under the old banner of freedom. I may never return, but if I die it shall be under the folds of the flag that sheltered my infancy, and while striking a blow for its honor and my own. * * * Wherever there is fighting, there we will be, and where there is danger in the battle, there will I be, for I will gain a name in this war. I must now say. Good-by ; God bless you, Mary. I will write you from homeward bound vessels as often as possible. The young lady to whom this and many other letters were written by William B. Cushing, dur- ing his stay at Annapolis and subsequently, was a daughter of the congressman who took the boy to Washington in the first instance, and it is likely that the two young people were on terms of fa- [30] A YOUTHFUL COMMANDER miliar acquaintance with each other while they were at the capital. He writes to her as though she were his confidential friend as well as his cousin. Seven weeks after sending the forego- ing he wrote again from the “Colorado,” that he had been to the North twice in command of valuable prize ships captured from the enemy. I am now on my return trip from one of these expeditions. One of my prizes was worth seventy-live thousand dollars, while the last was nearly double in value to that. I have gained considerable honor by taking them safely to New York and Philadelphia, and I expect promotion before long. His expectation proved well grounded, al- though in a boy of eighteen it may have seemed rather extravagant. Before completing his twen- tieth year, as will appear later, he had the unique distinction (for one of his age) of being given absolute command of one of the Union gunboats. But that story will properly wait. The Beginning of the War From another account it seems that one of the prizes, “The Delaware Farmer,” was taken in by Cushing himself, and was the first taken in the [ 3i 1 THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS war by anybody. During most of July the young sailor was on duty with the blockading squadron off the coast of the Carolinas. In August he was once more on the waters of the Chesapeake, en- gaged in storming a land battery and destroying some small supporting vessels at the same place. In the meantime, Alonzo was just as rapidly ob- taining distinction. From West Point he had proceeded without delay to Washington, and on reaching the capital had applied himself most as- siduously to the work most necessary at that time to be performed. When the writer of this sketch arrived at Washington as a member of a volun- teer regiment early in July, 1861, Alonzo’s smooth, swarthy face and supple figure were to be seen wherever there was a volunteer battery in need of instruction and drill. Although he worked his pupils hard, they all loved him for his radiant smiles and frequent infectious laughter, which were potent factors in smoothing the grim front of grizzled war. He was then only in his twenty-first year and looked still younger. Standing 5 ft. 9 in. in his stockings, his length of limb was such as to give f 32 ] ALONZOS SUCCESS him the appearance, when on horseback, of being under middle height. His good nature was so unusual on the part of young regular officers, that it captivated every volunteer with whom he came in contact. On July 18 he was at the front in the battle, or rather reconnaissance, at Blackburn’s Ford, near the stone bridge over Bull Run, and three days later was in the thick of the disastrous fight on the farther side of that stream. His con- duct on that occasion was said to have been ad- mirable, but his position was not yet sufficiently advanced to secure him mention in the reports of general officers, such as became a mere matter of course as soon as he fought on his own responsi- bility, whether in command of his battery or de- tached for important staff duty at corps and grand division headquarters. In no instance is there record of failure on his part to meet the utmost expectations of his superior officers, while generally he exceeded those expec- tations by a great margin. Although not at the very head of his class at the Military Academy, all who knew him concur in the opinion that he came as near realizing the ideal of a perfect sol- * 3 [ 33 ] THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS dier as any of the contestants of the Civil War. His assignment to duty as a first lieutenant of ar- tillery on leaving the Academy, was strong proof that high expectations were already formed as to his future. Within less than a month after he left West Point (July 22, 1861, to be specific), in com- pany with some thousands of other infantry sol- diers, I was floundering along the vile wagon way from the Long Bridge to Bailey’s Cross Roads, where our regiment was to make its headquarters for several weeks afterwards, send- ing out scouting parties from time to time, and es- tablishing picket outposts in what appeared to our uneducated eyes to be appropriate points of vant- age. On the Monday just mentioned, a copious rain set in at a very early hour, and the roadsides were strewn with knapsacks, blankets, and other impedimenta of the returning soldiers who plod- ded along towards Washington from the battle of the day before. Many of them had marched all night, and very few of them had taken more than short intervals of rest during their night exit from the vicinity of Bull Run. One battery was dis- [ 34 ] SOLDIER-MAKING tinguished for its fine appearance, however; and that was Battery A of the Fourth regular artil- lery. Cushing was in command of it when it met and passed us, and even the events of the preced- ing twenty-four hours had not been sufficient to take away his smile — although it might have shown a sarcastic side to a closer observer than I then was. The infantry regiment in which I was a private retired to Arlington, about the first of Sep- tember, from the front line of the troops around Washington, and found that wonderful organi- zation of volunteers west of the Potomac, plastic under McClellan’s skillful hand, in the full bloom of its evolution. Cushing entered into the spirit of soldier-making and of earthwork con- struction, and his labors were of acknowledged value. But what McClellan was competent to do was soon done. The great review at Bailey’s Cross Roads was a source of astonishment to the expert spectators from other nations who observed the accuracy of its military movements and the ex- cellent bearing of the 70,000 men who might easily have marched to Centerville the next [ 35 1 THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS day and squelched the Virginia section of the re- bellion with not a hundredth part of the effort that was required for that purpose in the years follow- ing, It must have been with a heavy heart that Alonzo Cushing, always longing for effective ac- tion, saw the splendid opportunities of the winter of 1861 squandered in useless delays. Although he made no complaint, the experi- ence of Howard during 1861 afforded ground for greater personal vexation. He had raised a com- pany from among the newspaper men of Chicago. They had elected him captain, but for some rea- son their services were not accepted by the Illinois state authorities, and he reluctantly resumed his regular work, pursuing it until he could no longer resist the call of his country to the field. He therefore enlisted (March 24, 1862) as a private soldier in Battery B, First Illinois Artillery, in which he afterwards served faithfully and with as much credit as a private is usually thought en- titled to, through several strenuous campaigns, in- cluding the operations about Vicksburg. There can be no reasonable doubt that his services as a private would furnish material for a story of in- [ 36 ] ON THE RAPPAHANNOCK terest and instruction ; but no record of them is at- tainable, and the outline of his military life must here be postponed until after the earlier notable achievements of his younger brothers shall have been narrated. With William, events were shaping themselves as he desired, except that the fighting was not quite as plentiful as he wished. On November 22, 1861, eighteen days after his eighteenth birth- day anniversary, he wrote to his cousin Mary (at East Troy, Wisconsin, then recently married to Mr. C. W. Smith), from the “Cambridge,” a lively account of an expedition into the Rappa- hannock River to cut out a vessel loaded with wheat, which was burned on being found hard and fast on shore. Returning, the boat was bom- barded by cannon and musketry along the river bank. Of the concluding scenes of this expedi- tion, he gives the following account: The Southerners had stationed a company of their riflemen in a house, and watching them I fired canister till I had for the time silenced their great gun. I then threw a thirty-pound shell which burst directly in the house, tearing it in pieces, and as I afterwards learned, killing and wounding some twenty-five men. This dis- [ 37 1 THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS heartened the rebels, and a few more rounds from the gun and the rifles finished the work, and we quietly steamed down the river to the ship. * * * Of course I was glad to learn that I had been mentioned with credit in the official dispatch to the Navy department. There was nothing else that winter in the way of adventure of his own that he thought worth mention; but he was a spectator (March 9, 1862), of the battle in Hampton Roads between the “Monitor” and the “Merrimac,” wherein the destiny of wooden ships was settled for all time. Alonzo was prone, with the anonymous poet, to, Count that day lost whose low-descending sun Saw at his hands no worthy action done. The test of worthiness with him was usefulness to the Union cause. So when the defenses of the capital were completed, he took up the duties (January 21, 1862) of ordnance officer for the Second Corps, at General Sumner’s headquar- ters — until the return, in March, of the Army of the Potomac from its fruitless promenade to Cen- terville, and to the vacant quarters of the Confed- erate army there. On March 21 he was com- manded to act as an aid-de-camp to Sumner, in [38] BEFORE RICHMOND charge of topographical work, which was con- sidered particularly important in the operations at Yorktown. This lasted from April 5 to May 4, when it was again discovered that the Confeder- ates had declined to wait for the annihilation pre- pared for them if they would delay moving until McClellan should get all his parallels in shape according to Vauban, or whomever the authority on earthworks then in vogue may have been. The last year of Alonzo’s Life In the “seven days” before Richmond, his con- duct was such as to receive very high praise from Sumner. Before the end of July, an order of transfer was made for him to become an officer of the Topographical Engineers, the most intellectu- ally elevated of all the branches of the army. To foregather with the military high-brows was not an aspiration of this soldier, however, and he respectfully declined the honor. Notwith- standing his preference for artillery work, Me Clellan ordered him to perform the duties of as- sistant topographical engineer at his own head- quarters when he set out on the Maryland [ 39 ] cam- THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS paign, and kept him at the work as long as he himself was in command of the Army of the Po- tomac. The general had a keen eye for un- usual merit in young soldiers; one of the causes of the personal affection felt towards him by the great bulk of his officers and men was his prompt- ness to acknowledge their merits. On November 5, McClellan was superseded by General Burnside, and the Army of the Po- tomac was soon after re-organized by separation into three “grand divisions” under the respective commands of Generals Sumner, Franklin, and Hooker, for the right, the left, and the centre. The right grand division was naturally to take the initiative in future movements, and Sumner wanted Cushing for topographical work at his headquarters. The required surveying and map- making were not objectionable to the young man, so long as no active operations were in sight, and his labors in this direction also received warm commendation from the commanding officers. Indeed, no task was ever placed upon the shoul- ders of Alonzo Hersford Cushing, whether in civil or in military life, so far as I have been able [ 40 ] ~Ccm,^yyx S2A • -&rt(£ & -CAx €^y>t^J^o^iLrn^ /tAyW at£e_ ra^£ f ymy (L/a^° J V £ _ z<.-/^> qu^-v /r,. *■ <£* 4*6 C^^£/_ a.-yxY^^ V • Azuze. 4XrrJmX^ ^ ’ ~u*JJL . /fyyJ ■ttWJLJ ~to ~Xi/TXjCa^ -&s> 1 cxuLJ^ru^J^, ^ ~/^\ ^ ^Xu. dv~VL tr iiAi^C-oJ’ 'ilhiusy-i’ ^ 1 1 xJ!^J 'ts &V+U& (fz CLA-t, JjOLL /tL-mv ~i^ \ aJL CL++K, Ix^t/jL.. £thn£ euT ^rP h^.c^aJL, n-tfanZ, _ ^lic .c/Wy 4L*t 'i£^ y ^ V. ~^d^j (thszJL^ - td ^C (o t <--<) ^<« ^ foi^ud -vtj tfci c i- AV' -Av» — o^« . Ct^-^CA? o-Z {yL+- •**_ a* JLr-c a- Cs>^fn~lUJZi Facsimile of part of letter from Alonzo H. Cushing to his brother Mil- ton; written after the fights before Richmond in 1862. For group photograph alluded to in postscript, see frontispiece to this volume. FREDERICKSBURG to ascertain, that was not well and cheerfully done. The disastrous battle of Fredericksburg occur- red on December 13, and Lieutenant Cushing cut loose for the day from grand division headquar- ters, taking position by the side of General Couch, commanding the Second Corps, with whom he found ample opportunity for deeds of heroic dar- ing, which were acknowledged in a general way in Couch’s report of the part taken by his corps in the fight. “Lieutenant Cushing,” he says, “was with me throughout the battle, and acted with his well-known gallantry.” Such further represen- tation of Cushing’s conduct was made to the War Department that President Lincoln brevetted him captain, to date from the 1 3th of December, “for gallant and meritorious services at the battle of Fredericksburg, Va.” A leave of absence for a three weeks’ visit home was also accorded to him from January 26, 1 863 — his last opportunity for a glimpse of life among his relatives and friends. On returning to Virginia, Cushing resumed com- mand of his battery, and never afterwards left it THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS until his glorious death on the third day at Gettys- burg. The battle of Chancellorsville was prefaced by several tentative actions, beginning at Fitzhugh’s Crossing on the Rappahannock, below Freder- icksburg (April 29, 1863), and continuing at Spottsylvania Court House, Fredericksburg, Sa- lem Heights and Marye’s Heights before culmi- nating in “The Wilderness” on May 3. What Cushing did in this fighting, I have not been able to ascertain; but that it partook of the character of his service is evident because the President gave him the brevet of major, dating from May 2, 1863, “for gallant and meritorious services at the battle of Chancellorsville.” It may incidentally be mentioned that in those days a presidential brevet was of more importance than it afterwards became under subsequent acts of Con- gress. Originally it entitled the officer, if he pleased, to wear the uniform of his brevet rank, to be addressed by his brevet title, and to serve as of his brevet rank when specially detailed. Under later laws he could not properly wear the uniform [ 42 ] WATCHING LEE of rank above that which belonged to him by regu- lar commission. It was a short two months from Chancellors- ville to Gettysburg, and the concluding two weeks were full of incident for the men engaged, though history has not considered it worth while to note the incidents in any length of detail. Even the Rebellion Records published by the national gov- ernment have little to say of the marches of the two great opposing armies from the Rappahan- nock to the sources of the Monocacy and beyond. But the destiny of the Republic was entwined in the serpentine paths of Lee’s army going down the west side of the Blue Ridge, and Hooker’s on the east side, both headed towards the north. A change of commanders of the Army of the Po- tomac was also impending, of which the soldiers knew nothing, but which was all the time a puzzle and worry to the corps and division leaders. Cushing, with an ever cheerful face, was found with his battery in front of each successive moun- tain pass reached by the advance of Lee’s forces, as the latter moved along the valley of the Shen- andoah on the western side of the range. [ 43 1 THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS On June 25, Hancock concentrated the Second Corps, of which he was now the head, at Hay- market, only a few miles from Manassas and Thoroughfare Gaps. There the Confederate cavalry general, Stuart, was surprised to find so large a force and went back over the mountains — again northward, in the track of Lee, instead of delaying the Union army by a raid on its rear, as he had expected to do when he was detached from the main Confederate army before crossing the Potomac. That Hancock should parallel Stuart s march was a matter of course, and on June 30 he was in bivouac at Taney town, half a dozen miles south of Gettysburg. The next day the curtain was partially withdrawn from the most magnificent spectacle of a conflict of ideas, supported by fight- ing men, that the Western Continent, at least, ever witnessed. Hancock’s corps, to which Cushing was attached, was resting at Taney town all day; but after the death of General Reynolds, Hancock was on the battlefield north of the town; and although the battery was with the rest of the corps, there can be little doubt that Cushing was [ 44 ] Gettysburg’s third day with him personally as a temporary aide. My reason for assuming this is, that the brevet of lieu- tenant-colonel, made out for him the next day, stated that the honor was conferred “for conspicu- ous gallantry at the battle of Gettysburg, Pa., July 1, 1863.” I wish that I had even one letter written by Lieutenant Cushing between Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, but I have knowledge of none. Such a document would admit us to his inner feel- ings. From his acts alone, and from what his most intimate acquaintances in the army have written, our judgment must be formed. A his- tory of the great battle can not be given here; but fortunately no account of the engagement by a reputable writer fails to take notice of the part taken by the brave young son of Wisconsin in stemming the high tide of rebellion on the third day of the conflict. In Colonel Haskell’s absorb- ing story, a tribute is also paid to Cushing’s en- deavors on the second day. J To that narrative Frank Aretas Haskell, The Battle of Gettysburg (Wiscon- sin History Commission: Reprints, No. 1 , November, 1 908), pp. 102, 116, 120, 121. [ 45 ] THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS the reader is referred for that, among other living pictures of the deadly struggle. For me, it must be sufficient to portray as well as I can the final stand of Battery A and its commander at the focus of the last day’s fighting. Our line of battle stretched along the ridge over- looking the valley between it and the southern armies; along its whole length, fighting was either imminent or actually in evidence. The thunder of artillery was like a continuous roar that filled the atmosphere. The fire of most of the one hundred and fifteen Confederate cannon then in action seemed to be directed by a kind of instinct towards the point in our line where the batteries of Cushing, Woodruff, and Rorty were belching destruction in the faces of their assailants, a mile and a half away. The artillery practice of the Southerners was good. Between the afternoon hours of 1 and 3, many of our artillery organiza- tions suffered severe losses L y the bursting of am- munition chests, the breaking of wheels of gun carriages, and the overthrow of horses that lay in death struggles on the ground. Men were hit, also. Among the first to receive a serious wound [46] Gettysburg’s third day that fateful afternoon was Cushing himself. Both thighs were torn open by a fragment of shell — under which ill fortune, said General Webb in his report, “he fought for an hour and a half, cool, brave, competent.” The commander of his brigade, Colonel Hall, reported that: he challenged the admiration of all who saw him. Three of his limbers were blown up and changed with the caisson limbers, under fire. Several wheels were shot off his guns and replaced, till at last, severely wounded him- self, his officers all killed or wounded, and with but can- noneers enough to man a section, he pushed his gun to the fence in front and was killed while serving his last canister into the ranks of the advancing enemy. Hall’s last reference is to a later hour of July 3 than that to which I at present wish to call atten- tion. It is near 3 o’clock in the afternoon. To give them an opportunity to cool off somewhat, our eighty cannon have been ordered to cease firing. The artillerymen throw themselves on the ground to rest, or help clear away dead horses and other debris from about the guns. Our infantry line is closely fronted by stone walls and other fences along the Emmetsburg road, or a short distance [ 47 1 THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS back from that thoroughfare. The protection thus afforded is not at all certain, even when sods are packed against the fences, for a solid cannon shot or fragment of shell may penetrate such an earthwork, when reinforced only by a wooden fence, as though it were a row of cigar boxes. It affords some defense, however, against bullets which strike diagonally, or are fired over a con- siderable distance. Down in front of the hill called “Round Top,” Kilpatrick’s cavalry are worrying the right of the enemy; but that fails to disturb those in the neighborhood of Cushing, who was almost in the middle of the outstretched line of Union troops. Now Pickett s splendid column of 1 7,000 Vir- ginians emerge from the woods on the farther side of the valley, and direct their course towards the point where Cushing is holding a front place. Other Union batteries are hurling solid shot at the enemy, as they start on their fatal journey across the valley. Confederate cannon send volleys of shell over the heads of their infantry, into the groups of our cannoneers, who continue to pelt the advancing column. The iron shells burst in mid- US] Gettysburg’s third day air, with puffs of smoke, like sporadic ejections from the smoke-pipe of a locomotive engine, but with resounding clangs. If the puff from a burst- ing shell is behind you, or directly overhead, you are safe from the effects of that explosion; but if seen in front, the iron fragments are likely to cut through the flesh and bones of some of you; for the forward motion of the shell is not lost by its explosion, although the pieces acquire additional directions of flight. There is a composite of de- moniac noises, every missile splitting the atmos- phere with its own individual hum, whir, or shriek; the musketry rattle like hail, and the deep boom of cannonry lends its all-pervading basso to the symphony of thousands of instruments and voices. As the grim column hurries on, our batteries change from solid shot to shell, tearing great gaps in the advancing lines; but these resolutely close up, and move forward to attain a distance from which their rifled muskets shall be used effectively against us. This reached, they begin blazing away. Cushing and his neighbors open upon them with canister and case, every discharge send- THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS ing a shower of small metal into the approaching ranks. However, the survivors press onward, firing as they come, and the batteries behind them send their shell among our cannon, killing horses and men, and overthrowing guns, but not yet harming afresh the young hero whom we are par- ticularly noting. Woodruff and Rorty are slain, though, at the head of other batteries close at hand. At last a bullet pierces Cushing s shoulder. He simply laughs at the hurt, calling to Webb, his division commander, “1 11 give them one more shot. Good-by!” As he serves the last round of canister, another bullet strikes him in the mouth, passing through the base of his brain, and he falls forward, bereft of life, into the arms of his clar- ion-voiced, resolute, and fearless orderly sergeant, Frederick Fuger, whom he has called to his side to convey his orders to the men. The Union line of infantry was also making use of its muskets, in trying to stop the Confeder- ate assault. The aim of the soldiers was more or less accurate in proportion to the nerve-control ex- ercised by the respective individuals engaged. [ 50 ] GETTYSBURG’S THIRD DAY For not all of the forces attacking or attacked are fully conscious of what they are doing, when the surrounding air is pregnant with death. Some try to shoot with their eyes shut, and others for- get to place a percussion cap on their firearm. Out of over thirty-seven thousand muskets left on the Gettysburg battle-ground by soldiers of both sides, no longer able to carry them, nearly a third were loaded with more than one cartridge each, and many with more than two. We pardon the confusion of mind exhibited before his audience, by a young actor or speaker, and it surely is no less to be expected that unaccustomed soldiers should often feel trepidation when face to face with death. Despite the firing from our side, a hundred of Armistead’s men kept close to their chief, leap- ing the fence next to Cushing’s battery, just be- hind him, and in time to see their leader lay hand on Cushing’s last cannon and fall dying with a bullet through his body — only a few yards from where his late indomitable opponent lay dead. By the side of that field-piece, went out the lives of two as gallant warriors as ever wielded [5i] THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS sword on battlefield, and Cushing still lacked six months of completing his twenty-third year of life. The Southern soldiers who thought they had taken the battery, now rushed back or surrendered on the spot, and the flood tide of rebellion began to recede, never again to attain so dangerous a height, although often rising somewhat uncomfort- ably. The loss of a son so high in aspiration and so capable for the achievement of necessary tasks, must have been a grievous stroke for his mother to bear — she who had placed her greatest reliance upon him, rather than upon his brothers. For her compensation for such a loss, she was allowed a pension of seventeen dollars per month until the year of her death (which happened March 26, 1891), when the allowance was increased to fifty dollars. In this case the national government was certainly very much the reverse of liberal in its recognition of the services of a noble mother, who had formed the character of a noble son whose life was joyfully laid upon the altar of his country. It is pleasant to be able to state that Sergeant Fuger, who took command of the battery after the [52] ALONZO S DEATH death and disablement of its three commissioned officers taking part in the battle, was promoted to a lieutenancy in the regiment. He served in the regular order of grades until retired (about 1 900) on account of age, as colonel, since which he has lived in the city of Washington. From a letter recently written by him to Mrs. Bouton, I am permitted to make the following transcript: In answer to your letter received yesterday morning, I would say that the best friend I had was your dear brother, Alonzo H. Cushing, First Lieutenant 4th Ar- tillery, commanding Battery A, 4th Artillery, at the bat- tle of Gettysburg. On the morning of July 4, 1863, I received an order from Gen. Hancock, commanding 2d Corps, to send your brother’s body to West Point for burial. I placed the body in care of two non-commis- sioned officers who were slightly wounded, to take it to West Point. The manner of your brother’s death was this: When the enemy was within about four hundred yards, Bat- tery A opened with single charges of canister. At that time Cushing was wounded in the right shoulder, and within a few seconds after that he was wounded in the abdomen; a very severe and painful wound. He called and told me to stand by him so that I could impart his orders to the battery. He became very ill and suf- fered frightfully. I wanted him to go to the rear. THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS “No,” he said, “I stay right here and fight it out, or die in the attempt.” When the enemy got within two hundred yards, double and triple charges of canister were used. Those charges opened immense gaps in the Confederate lines. Lieut.' Milne, who commanded the right half-battery, was killed when the enemy was within two hundred yards of the battery. When the enemy came within about one hundred yards, Lieutenant Cushing was shot through the mouth and instantly killed. When I saw him fall for- ward, I caught him in my arms, ordered two men to take his body to the rear, and shouted to my men, as I was left in command, to fire triple charges of canister. Owing to dense smoke, I could not see very far to the front, but to my utter astonishment I saw the Confederate General Armistead leap over the stone fence with quite a number of his men, landing right in the midst of our battery, but my devoted cannoneers and drivers stood their ground, fighting hand to hand with pistols, sabers, handspikes and rammers, and with the assistance of the Philadelphia brigade, the enemy collapsed and Pickett’s charge was defeated. The gall and behavior of the men in Battery A was entirely due to your brother’s training and example set on numerous battlefields. Lieutenant Cushing, my commander, was a most able soldier, of excellent judgment and great decision of char- acter. Devoted to his profession, he was most faithful in the discharge of every duty, accurate and thorough in its performance. Possessed of mental and physical [ 54 ] alonzo’s death vigor, joined to the kindest of hearts, he commanded the love and respect of all who knew him. His superiors placed implicit confidence in him, as well they might. His fearlessness and resolution displayed in many actions were unsurpassed, and his noble death at Gettysburg should present an example for emulation to patriotic de- fenders of the country through all time to come. General Armistead fell, mortally wounded, where I stood, about seven yards from where Lieutenant Cush- ing, his young and gallant adversary, was killed. In height your brother was five feet nine inches, in weight about one hundred and fifty pounds, good long limbs, broad shoulders, blue eyes, dark brown hair, smooth face, without beard or mustache, and rather swarthy com- plexion. From other communications of the colonel, ad- dressed to myself, I learn that Lieutenant Cushing personally saved the battery from capture at the battle of Antietam ; that its loss at Gettysburg was two officers killed and one wounded, seven en- listed men killed and thirty-eight wounded, and eighty-three horses killed out of ninety taken into the action. Not an uninjured wheel remained, and nine ammunition chests were blown up. Ninety enlisted men belonging to the battery were on duty at the beginning of the fight. THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS Corporal Thomas Moon has also written his recollections of the day, and although his memory seems somewhat at fault in relation to certain mat- ters, his description is worth reading. He says: Cushing was a small-sized man with blue eyes, smooth face and auburn hair, and looked more like a school girl than a warrior; but he was the best fighting man I ever saw. Our battery arrived on the field July 2 and took position on the left of the 2d corps. I was sent to the rear with the 4th caisson. We went back over the hill close to General Meade’s headquarters. When the heavy cannonading commenced on the 3d we went further to the rear. About the time that Pickett was ordered to charge, I was ordered to the battery. I was informed by the courier that I would find the battery on the right of the 2d corps, at the grove and angle. My horse made a good run for about a mile. I found my piece, the 4th, still on her wheels, and all the canister we had piled up around her. I had been on the ground but a few min- utes before I found the gun hot and firing slow. A very few minutes passed until the smoke raised, and we saw the head of Pickett’s column within three hundred yards of us. We had the opportunity of our lives; just what an artilleryman wants. We had a flank fire on them and enough canister to stop them, but before they got to the stone wall in front we were out of ammunition and my gun was dismounted. Lieutenant Cushing was on the right. We both got to the piece in front about the same [ 56 ] Alonzo Hersford Cushing ALONZOS DEATH time. I found the piece out of canister, started back to the limber, looked back and saw General Armistead with his hat on his sword yelling to his men, and Cushing be- ing held up by some infantry officer. If I had stayed at the gun as long as Cushing did, I would have been there yet. Our guns were all disabled, limbers and caissons blown up, men and horses killed and wounded, and the battery under command of a First Sergeant (afterwards lieutenant) Frederick Fuger, a 10-year man, and as fine a soldier and officer as ever faced an enemy. I was on duty that night — had three men under me. All we had to guard was a few dead men. We took Lieutenant Cushing and three or four men off the field. It rained all night. Now, as to Cushing’s wounds. One piece of shell struck him in the thighs; another piece struck him in the shoulder ; but he stuck to the guns until a ball struck him right under the nose. He fell on one side of the piece and General Armistead on the other. His right thumb was burned to the bone, serving vent without a thumb- pad. We were all tired, powder-burned and bruised; so we laid the dead men together and lay atop of them all night. The next morning we took Cushing’s fatigue blouse off, and his cook got that after I took off the shoulder-straps. I carried them till the next winter, and gave them to his brother (Howard) at Brandy Station. THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS Later Naval Service of William Cushing Up to the day of Alonzo Cushing’s death, the reputation of his younger brother William kept pretty even pace with his own. William’s judg- ment in moments of imminent peril seemed to be unerring, so that a venture with him appeared to his companions to have but one chance of fail- ure — the death of the adventurer himself. But this had been challenged with so many styles of defiance, as to cause the more superstitious among the sailors to believe him invulnerable. They were always ready and anxious to accompany him on those of his expeditions that appeared the most desperate. The unlimited devotion of his men and under-officers is one of the most valuable as- sets of a military or naval officer. This, with his other qualities, procured for him a commission as lieutenant on July 16, 1862, nearly four months before he attained the age of twenty years. William was thereupon given the position of second officer on the gunboat “Perry,” on the North Carolina coast, at an age when a midship- man or master’s mate, or even a lieutenant, is us- [58] WILLIAM ON THE BLACKWATER uaily content to play a very subordinate part in warfare. Soon after this (September following), his su- perior officer, Lieutenant-Commander Flusser, was ordered up the Blackwater River with his own and two other boats to co-operate with a land force in preventing the escape of about seven thou- sand Confederates stationed at Franklin, with Norfolk as their ultimate object. The naval con- tingent was at the rendezvous at the agreed time; that from the army failed to make connection. It was an unpleasant predicament for the boats, but they fought theii way back, down the narrow channel of the river, the banks of which for many miles were lined with infantry and artillery. At one point, when the decks were being swept by the enemy’s bullets, and a boarding party was making a dash for the “Perry,” Cushing called a half dozen of his men to help him get a howitzer into position, to meet the boarders with canister. When his volunteers were all killed or disabled, he look the gun alone and trained it upon the as- sailants with such effect that they ran away. In THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS Flusser’s report of the affair he took occasion to say: I desire to mention as worthy of praise for great gal- lantry, Lieutenant W. B. Cushing, who ran the field- piece out amid a storm of bullets, took a sure and delib- erate aim at the rebels and sent a charge of canister among them that completely silenced their fire at that point. On October 26, 1 862, Admiral S. P. Lee re- ports : Lieutenant W. B. Cushing has been put in command of the gunboat Ellis, and is increasing his reputation by active operations. On October 1 8, William had written to his cousin : I am alone, inside the outer bar. The nearest friendly vessel or citizen is forty miles away. Three miles off, up the inlet, is the rebel town of Swansboro. I am going to run up and take possession in a few days, when I have burned up enough coal to lighten my vessel so I can cross the other bar. * * * You see I have a sort of rov- ing commission and can run around to suit myself. * * * If under these circumstances I can not stir the rebels up in more places than one, it will be strange indeed. He ran up to Swansboro in due time and burned the “Adelaide” with a $100,000 cargo, besides destorying salt works. On November 23, he worked his vessel to Jacksonville, a depot for [ 6o ] WILLIAM ON THE BLACKWATER blockade runners, and on the way caused a ship loaded with turpentine to be burned. At the town he captured a lot of guns and other public property, and started back. About 5 o’clock p. m. he found and shelled a camp of Confederate troops on the river bank, and came to anchor at nightfall, staying all night with his prizes, two large schooners. The next morning Cushing moved on. Reach- ing a difficult passage in the river, he was attacked by shore artillery, but replied so vigorously that the gunners on shore were driven away, and he passed along. Shortly after, however, the “Ellis” ran aground and had to be burned, but not before her outfit had been mostly removed to one of the schooners, amid some hours of fighting. Then Cushing and his companions escaped in a small boat to the schooner which, with its companion, was taken back to open water. He asked for a court of inquiry on account of the loss of his gunboat, but the admiral said there was no need, and the Navy Department at Wash- ington approved, saying, “We don’t care for the loss of a vessel when fought so gallantly as that.” [ 61 ] THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS A much thicker volume than this would be re- quired to tell the stories of the young sailor’s var- ious adventures during the ensuing year. The reader must be content with relations of occasional adventures, sometimes in Cushing’s own language. Our hero was now given command of the “Com- modore Barney,’’ a steamer of five hundred and thirteen tons with a very powerful battery, and, according to his own statement, a good crew of over one hundred men and thirteen officers. He continues, in his letter (written April 5) to his cousin, Mrs. Smith, at East Troy: “Of course I am as proud as a peacock at being the only lieu- tenant in the regular navy who has a [separate] command.’’ William’s Letter to His Mother On the 1 5th he writes his mother a letter which is given here nearly in full, for it indicates better than almost anything else some of the prominent traits of his character as developed at that time, when boyish impulses were mixed with striking elements of manliness. He talks with the inti- mate frankness of a son who is still in love with his mother and wishes her to share in his triumph : [62] HIS OWN ACCOUNT Another fight and another victory! Again I have passed through the ordeal of fire and blood, and again I thank God for being safe in life and limb. Suffolk is besieged by the enemy, thirty thousand strong, and con- tains an army of fifteen thousand to defend it. The town is situated on this river (the Nansemond) and its water communication must remain open or our force will be in a desperate position. Who do you suppose was se- lected to perform the dangerous task of guarding the rear, and preventing the crossing of ten thousand of the flower of the southern army? Who but your son, that ex-mid- shipman, ex-master’s mate, hair-brained, scapegrace, Will Cushing! Yes, it is even so. I am senior officer com- manding in the Nansemond river. I have my vessel and two others now. I had two more, but they were disabled in action, and have been towed to Hampton Roads. I am six miles from the city, at a place called Western Branch, the point most desired by the enemy. I draw too much water to go up further, but sent my light boats up above. Yesterday morning, as they were on their way down, they encountered a battery at a distance of three hundred yards, and swarms of riflemen in the bushes on the banks. A sharp action ensued, in which two of the boats were disabled, and but one left uninjured, but the captain of her, like a brave fellow as he is, got them around the point out of range, and we managed to get them as far as the bar here when one, the Mount Washington, got aground. The rebels soon appeared in force, bent upon driving us [63] THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS and crossing the river. They opened with artillery from two positions a cross-fire, and their seven pieces sent a hail of shot and shell around us. I had but two vessels afloat, but I silenced their fire in an hour. In a short time they again went into action; this time unmasking a regularly constructed battery not five hundred yards from us, and so situated as to rake the narrow channel completely. It was impossible to get our disabled steamer off from the bar until high water, five hours ahead, and I determined to fight on the spot as long as the Barney [his own vessel] was above the water. I sent the light steamer down to guard another coveted point, and was soon exchanging death calls with the enemy. Well, it was a hard fight and at close quarters most of the time; so close that their infantry riddled the two ves- sels with bullets. Crash! go the bulkheads; a rifle shell was exploded on our deck, tearing flesh and woodwork. A crash like thunder is our reply — and our heavy shell makes music in the air, and explodes among our traitor neighbors with a dull, sullen roar of defiance. Up goes the battle-flag and at once the air is filled with the smoke of furious battle, and the ear thrills with the unceasing shriek and whistle of all the shell and rifled bolts that sin- ful man has devised to murder his fellow creatures. Crash! Crash! Splinters are flying in the air; great pools of blood are on the deck, and the first cry of wounded men in agony rises on the soft spring air. The dead can not speak, but there they lie motionless, [64] A VIVID DESCRIPTION lifeless and mangled, who a moment ago smiled on the old flag that floated over them, and fought for its glory and honor. Sprinkle ashes over the slippery deck; the work must still go on. The rifled gun — my best — is disabled, for three shots have struck it; the muz- zle is gone, the elevator is carried away and the carriage is broken. Steady, men, steady; fill up the places of the killed and wounded. Don’t throw a shot away. The wheel of the howitzer is torn off by the shell and the gun ren- dered useless. Never mind; work the remaining guns with a will, for we can and must be victorious. And so the time wore away until the rising river promised to re- lease the imprisoned steamer, when I signaled to the light steamer to move up and take her in tow. This duty was gallantly performed, and the old Barney remained alone under the rebel cannon. * * * My vessel is riddled with cannon balls and bullets, and I have lost three killed and nine wounded — four of them mortally — men who lost legs and arms. The loss on the other vessels is proportionally severe. I am no brag- gart, but I challenge the world to furnish a more deter- mined fight, or a victory more richly earned. The enemy shall not cross here. I will not give way an inch. Even now the thickets on the banks are alive with their sharp- shooters, and as I write, the quick whirr of the rifle bul- let is often heard, sent from the bank five hundred yards ahead in the vain hope of injuring the hated Yankee. A good providence seems to watch over my fortunes, tho’ [65] * 5 THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS I do not deserve its protection. I may go into action again at any moment, probably tomorrow. I have every confidence in my gallant crew and officers and do not doubt the result if my life is spared. Love to all. In haste, Your affectionate son, Will. After Gettysburg When General Lee crossed the Potomac on his way to Gettysburg, William was called to Wash- ington to be ready for action in defense of the cap- ital, should it need defense. Hearing of his brother’s death on the night of its occurrence, he obtained permission and left for the battlefield, in- tending to ask the privilege of handling Alonzo’s guns, which undoubtedly he was perfectly capa- ble of doing. Those guns were out of the busi- ness, however, and he had to satisfy himself with looking through the field, of which he said long afterwards, “My mind fails to bring up any pic- ture that is so grand, or solemn, or so mournful as that great theater of death.’’ A month afterwards, William was in command of the “Shoboken,’’ a former ferry boat made over into a vessel well-adapted to the shallow waters [ 66 ] ATTACKING BLOCKADE RUNNERS of the Carolina coasts. With her he "destroyed the blockade runner “Hebe,” after a fight with a land battery. A few nights later he took a crew of six men in a dingey, to a point on the beach four miles from the mouth of the inlet which was separated from the waters outside by a long and very narrow stretch of sandbank. Here he and his men car- ried the boat across the neck of land, and pro- ceeded with it up the inlet to the anchorage of an- other blockade runner, where he took ten prison- ers, burned the vessel and some valuable salt works, threw the shore armament into the water, and returned by the same route, regaining the “Shoboken” without loss of any kind. The next day, William rejoined the squadron outside, which was engaged with a shore battery. Landing with twenty men, he captured the battery and took two rifled cannon back with him to the squadron. The Destruction of the “Albemarle ” As it is impossible to crowd into this sketch any considerable proportion of the adventures of Lieu- [67] THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS tenant Cushing, it seems best in illustration of the extraordinary quality of his bravery, to proceed at once to the narrative of his famous exploit in the destruction of the Confederate ironclad “Albe- marle,” which earned for him further promotion, the engrossed thanks of Congress, and congiatu- latory addresses from civic bodies in every part of the North. This ironclad was built on the lines of the old “Merrimac,” and like the latter had met the fire of our biggest guns without injury. In April, 1 864, she had attacked and recaptured the town of Ply- mouth, situated near the head of Albemarle Sound, eight miles above the place where the Sound receives the waters of Roanoke River. She had beaten off our fleet at that place, sunk its principal boat, the “Southfield,” and killed the commander, Flusser, of whom we have spoken in connection with an earlier conflict. In May, the “Albemarle” steamed out into the Sound and si- multaneously engaged seven of our vessels, des- troying the “Sassacuse,” which had unsuccess- fully tried to overwhelm her by ramming beneath the water-line. The Union ironclads were not [ 68 ] GETTING READY light enough to cross the bar in front of the en- trance to the Sound, and the officers of our fleet were much puzzled as to how to be rid of the an- noyance. Cushing finally submitted two plans to Ad- miral Lee, either of which had, he thought, a fair chance of success. One was for him to take a hundred men, with India-rubber boats ready for inflation, lead them through the dense thickets of the swamps adjoining Plymouth, and after inflat- ing the boats turn the sailors into a boarding party that should overpower the “Albemarle’s” crew. The other was the one adopted, although with many misgivings on the part of the admiral and of the assistant secretary of the navy, Mr. Fox. It looked like a modern repetition of the dramatic episode of David and Goliath, and they permitted themselves to hope that this youth of twenty-one might have as good fortune as his Biblical prede- cessor. In brief, it was arranged that William should proceed to New York and select two very small, low-pressure steamers, each carrying a how- itzer and a torpedo. These he was secretly to convey along the coast to the Sound and there at- [69] THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS tack the big ironclad by night, in such manner as might appear best when the time was ripe for ac- tion. The boats were secured. Each was about thirty feet long and carried a 1 2-pound howitzer, with a torpedo fastened to the end of a boom at the bow, the boom being fourteen feet long and supplied with a “goose-neck” hinge where it rested on the bow. One of the boats was lost be- fore reaching Norfolk; but with the other Cush- ing went through the Chesapeake and Albemarle Canal to the Sound. Starting at midnight, he found the Union fleet fifty miles up the Sound, expecting a visit from the enemy’s ironclad. Here he explained the daring plan to his officers and men, and told them they were at liberty to go with him or not, as they might choose. All wished to go, and a few from other vessels also volunteered. On the night of October 27, the party steamed up the river. What happened thereafter, is told so tersely by Cushing himself, in his formal report to Ad- miral Porter, that it seems fair to use his own words. Under date of October 30, he writes: [70] william’s own story Sir: I have the honor to report that the rebel ironclad Albemarle is at the bottom of the Roanoke river. On the night of the 27th, having prepared my steam launch, I proceeded up towards Plymouth with thirteen officers and men, partly volunteers from the squadron. The distance from the mouth of the river to the ram is about eight miles, the stream averaging in width some two hundred yards, and lined with the enemy’s pickets. A mile below the town was the wreck of the South- field, surrounded by some schooners, and it was under- stood that a gun was mounted there to command the bend. I therefore took one of the Shamrock’s cutters in tow, with orders to cast off and board at that point if we were hailed. Our boat succeeded in passing the pickets, and even the Southfield within twenty yards without discovery, and we were not hailed until by the lookouts on the ram. The cutter was cast off and ordered below, however, while we made for our enemy under a full head of steam. The rebels sprang their rattles, rang the bell and com- menced firing, at the same time repeating their hail and seeming much confused. The light of a fire ashore showed me the ironclad, made fast to the wharf, with a pen of logs around her, about 30 feet from her side. Passing her closely, we made a complete circle so as to strike her fairly, and went into her, bows on. By this time the enemy’s fire was very severe, but a dose of canister at short range served to moderate their zeal and disturb their aim. Paymaster Swan of the [ 7 1 1 THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS Otsego was wounded near me, but how many more I know not. Three bullets struck my clothing and the air seemed full of them. In a moment we had struck the logs, just abreast the quarter port, breasting them in some feet, and our bows resting on them. The torpedo boom was then lowered, and by a vigorous pull I succeeded in driving the torpedo under the overhang, and exploded it at the same time that the Albemarle’s gun was fired. A shot seemed to go crashing through my boat, and a dense mass of water rushed in from the torpedo, filling the launch and completely disabling her. The enemy then continued his fire at fifteen feet range, and demanded our surrender which I twice refused, ordering the men to save themselves, and removing my own coat and shoes. Springing into the river, I swam with others into the mid- dle of the stream, the rebels failing to hit us. The most of our party were captured, some drowned, and only one escaped besides myself, and he in a different direction. Acting Master’s Mate Woodman, of the Commodore Hull, I met in the water half a mile below the town and assisted him as best I could, but failed to get him ashore. Completely exhausted, I managed to reach the shore, but was too weak to crawl out of the water until just at day- light, when I managed to creep into the swamp, close to the fort. While hiding a few feet from the path two of the Albemarle’s officers passed, and 1 judged from their conversation that the ship was destroyed. Some hours traveling in the swamp served to bring me out well below the town, when I sent a negro in to gain [ 72 ] WILLIAM S OWN STORY information, and found the ram was truly sunk. Pro- ceeding through another swamp, I came to a creek and captured a skiff belonging to a picket of the enemy, and with this by 1 1 o’clock the next night made my way out to the Valley City. Acting Master’s Mate William Howarth of the Monticello showed as usual conspicuous bravery. He is the same officer who has been with me twice in Wilmington harbor. I trust he may be pro- moted when exchanged, as well as Acting Third Assist- ant Engineer Stotesbury, who, being for the first time un- der fire, handled his engine promptly and with coolness. All the officers and men behaved in the most gallant man- ner. I will furnish their names to the Department as soon as they can be procured. The cutter of the Shamrock boarded the Southfield, but found no gun. Four prisoners were taken there. The ram is now completely submerged, and the enemy has sunk three schooners in the river to obstruct the pas- sage of our ships. I desire to call the attention of the ad- miral and the Department to the spirit manifested by the sailors on the ships in these sounds. But few men were wanted, but all hands were eager to go into the action, many offering their chosen shipmates a month’s pay to re- sign in their favor. I am, sir, very respectfully your obedient servant, W. B. Cushing, Lieutenant United States Navy. THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS So much by way of requisite and necessary for- mality from an inferior officer who does something, to a superior who has the right to know all about what the other has been doing. Still, the young man who has not yet attained the maturity of twenty-two years discloses the ability on his part to say clearly and concisely what conveys his meaning, although not always in strict conformity with rhetorical rules. Of course he does not pre- sent himself as a candidate for honors in a class in rhetoric; but he does possess the essential of suc- cess in that direction also, if he cares for it. The language that is for use, rather than for ornament, is the language of lasting character. But from motives of modesty and discipline combined, the lieutenant did not tell his superiors in office all the items of fact that other people would like to know. Matters of interest omitted in the formal report, are noted in many cases in Cushing’s private journal, and that document was handed over to Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford for use in an extended magazine article.' From that 1 Harper's Monthly , June, 1874. [ 74 ] A DARING SCHEME and other sources I will add somewhat to the story told officially to the admiral. Cushing had a way of rapidly and judiciously thinking for himself. On approaching near enough to the 'Albemarle” to make out her pres- ence, he concluded to board her and take her down the river to the Union lines, trusting to the confusion of a night surprise to help the daring scheme to a successful issue. His view was cor- rect; but just as he was about to put it into execu- tion a challenge rang out from the ironclad, fol- lowed by the rattle of musketry from the guards who stood at their stations. Luckily for the as- sailants, the flame of a bonfire of pine knots and other light-wood flared upward, and Cushing saw what without it he would have been unable to see — a surrounding semicircular boom of logs, fas- tened end-to-end by iron links and hooks, making futile any attempt at boarding. He was standing on the deck, in full view of the enemy, who were doing their best to kill him; but the whistling bullets could not disturb the quickness and accuracy of his judgment. In front of him lay two signal lines, one of which was at- [ 75 1 THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS tached to the engineer’s ankle, and one to the arm of the officer in charge of the torpedo beam — be- sides other lines, one of which was arranged to push the torpedo under the vessel to be attacked, while still another was to explode the torpedo at the supreme moment. A mistake in relation to either of these would have been fatal to the under- taking. But Cushing made no mistake. On being sig- naled, the engineer below backed the boat out in- to the stream, and then headed straight on to the middle of the line of logs, carrying the bow of the launch partly over, so that the torpedo when let down would be within reach of the ironclad. The officer in charge of the sweep was then sig- naled, and lowered the torpedo boom, which Cushing caused to be crowded under the “Albe- marle’s’’ side. Then he pulled a cord that re- leased a suspended iron ball, which in its turn fell upon a percussion cap, thus exploding the infernal machine and blowing a hole through the side of the ram. To me, this perfection of action in the midst of death-dealing missiles, seems almost be- yond the scope of mere human endeavor. [ 76 ] PHENOMENAL COOLNESS Plenty of men in both armies could, without flinching, march up to the mouths of cannon and into a storm of bullets; but under such circum- stances as surrounded young Cushing when des- troying the “Albemarle,” such an exhibition of coolness absolutely imperturbable was neither seen nor imagined by me, in what I saw of the War. I doubt much if there ever was a parallel instance. Possibly the exploits of the elder brother, Alonzo, at Gettysburg, were as remarkable ; but if so, they lacked a minute chronicler. With the latter, no complicated calculations nor deliberate weighing of comparative probabilities were apparently necessary to be employed, in order to accomplish what he wanted to do. Although among the bravest of the brave, it is not shown that Alonzo was in every respect as unquestionably the com- plete master in battle, of the lesser, equally with the greatest, of his mental faculties as was the case with his younger brother. William was as alert, resourceful, indefatigable as he might have been at a game of whist, or in the solution of a mathe- matical problem in the quietude of his chamber. But escape from the Southern soldiery at Ply- [ 77 ] THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS mouth was purchased at the price of misery — and, ten years later, of a lamentable death. In a pub- lished paper by him, he refers to his experience in the river, after the explosion of the torpedo: s I directed my course towards the town side of the river, not making much headway, as my strokes were now very feeble, my clothes being soaked and heavy, and little chop-seas splashing with a chocking persistence into my mouth every time that I gasped for breath. Still there was a determination not to sink, a will not to give up ; and I kept up a sort of mechanical motion long after my bodily force was in fact expended. At last, and not a moment too soon, I touched the soft mud, and in the ex- citement of the first shock I half raised my body and made one step forward ; then fell, and remained half in the mud and half in the water until daylight, unable even to crawl on hands and knees, nearly frozen, with brain in a whirl, but with one thing strong in me — the fixed determination to escape. The prospect of drowning, starvation, death in the swamps — ali seemed less evils than that of sur- render. At twenty-two, one does not think of remote consequences, but human constitutions are not so made up as to remain uninjured by such violent usage. The commander of the “Albemarle,” 8 Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (N. Y., Century Co., 1884-88), vol. 4, P . 638. [78] A CONFEDERATE ACCOUNT Captain A. F. Warley, contributed the following note to Cushing’s paper, which should not be omitted here, in the interest of fairness : 9 The crew of the Albemarle numbered but sixty, too small a force to allow me to keep an armed watch on deck at night and to do outside picketing besides. Moreover, to break the monotony of the life and keep down ague, I had always out an exhibition of ten men, who were uni- formly successful in doing a fair amount of damage to the enemy. It was about 3 a. m. The night was dark and slightly rainy, and the launch was close to us when we hailed and the alarm was given — so close that the gun could not be depressed enough to reach her; so the crew were sent in the shield with muskets, and kept up a heavy fire on the launch as she slowly forced her way over the chain of logs and ranged by us within a few feet. As she reached the bow of the Albemarle I heard a report as of an unshotted gun, and a piece of wood fell at my feet. Calling the carpenter, I told him a torpedo had been exploded, and ordered him to examine and report to me, saying nothing to any one else. He soon reported “a hole in her bottom big enough to drive a wagon in.” By this time I heard voices from the launch: “We surrender,” etc., etc. I stopped our fire and sent out Mr. Long, who brought back all those who had been in the launch, ex- cept the gallant captain and three of her crew, all of whom took to the water. Having seen to their safety, I [ 79 1 9 Ibid, P . 642. THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS turned my attention to the Albemarle, and found her rest- ing on bottom in eight feet of water, her upper works above water. That is the way the Albemarle was des- troyed, and a more gallant thing was not done during the war. A special message came from President Lin- coln, recommending a vote of thanks by Congress, so that the young hero might be advanced to the grade of lieutenant-commander. This was im- mediately followed by the vote requested, and by his promotion to that rank, under the law provid- ing “That any line officer of the Navy or Marine Corps may be advanced one grade, if upon recom- mendation of the President by name he receives the thanks of Congress for highly distinguished conduct in conflict with the enemy, or for extra- ordinary heroism in the lines of his profession.” The importance, as well as the “highly distin- guished” character, of the exploit with the “Al- bemarle” may be understood when it is learned that not only were the Carolina Sounds thereafter free to all such of our vessels as were of sufficiently light draft, but the town of Plymouth fell a few days later also, without a struggle. Even Cush- ing’s coat, which he had cast off when he leaped [ Bo ] PERILOUS SERVICE from the launch into the river, was returned to him. The back of it was shot away, and there were other bullet holes through it ; but a gold chain re- mained safely sewed under the collar, where he had caused it to be placed in honor of the girl to whom it belonged. At Fort Fisher and Afterwards After this promotion, Cushing took command of the admiral’s flagship, the “Malvern,” and in December was engaged in the operations at Fort Fisher, where in various attempts to capture that stronghold, so many failures had been recorded against both our army and navy. In an open skiff there, he performed a service as perilous as be- fore, although less spectacular. This was the buoying the channel for the fleet, which task oc- cupied him for about six hours under a shower of shot and shell from the fort. On January 12, 1865, the bombardment was resumed from sixty vessels, and after three days of that exercise an assault was ordered, in which Lieutenant-Commander Cushing was permitted to take part. It proved to be one of the bloodiest THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS little affrays of the war. Two of his classmates at Annapolis, Lieutenants B. H. Porter and S. W. Preston, were killed by his side; which caused him, he said, the bitterest tears he had ever shed. No other officer being near him, he rallied a few hundred men and was about to resume the assault, when he received orders to join the land forces un- der General Ames. He then had the satisfaction of witnessing the surrender of the fort before mid- night. After the works had been taken, Cushing pro- ceeded to round up all the pilots in the vicinity, and by threatening to hang them procured all necessary information about the signals used for the guidance of the blockade runners who were in the habit of coming in at that point. Within four or five days, one of that class, the “Charlotte,” commanded by a British ex-naval officer, steamed up to her anchorage, bringing two English army officers as well as a valuable cargo of arms and ammunition. Gratified at their successful trip, the officers were enjoying a banquet in honor of the event. Cushing, who liked surprises, stepped into the cabin and informed them that they were [82] MADE COMMANDER prisoners, but that he would join them in a glass of the champagne with which the table was loaded. The Englishmen made the best of the predicament, but the feast was interrupted by the announcement that another steamer, the “Stag,” was coming up the river, whereupon their young captor excused himself to attend to the fresh ar- rival. The war was now practically over, and during the few additional months of its continuance no further adventures appear to Cushing’s credit. In 1 867 he was given command of the “Maumee,” and attached to the Pacific squadron, where life was no longer strenuous. On January 31 , 1872, he was made full commander, and in July, 1873, placed in charge of the “Wyoming.” In Novem- ber of the same year he heard of the execution of several of the crew of the insurgent vessel, “Vir- ginius,” at Santiago de Cuba. Steaming for that port without orders, he stopped the executions, pending instructions from Spain by which they were entirely discontinued. The following year, and the day before Cush- ing’s untimely death (at Washington, December [83 1 THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS 17, 1874), the “Virginius” was handed over to the United States authorities. For three days, without medical attendance, the young com- mander had suffered indescribable tortures from sciatic inflammation. The servants in the house at last recognized the serious character of his ail- ment, and called a physician. Soon the inflam- mation reached the patient s brain, and he was re- moved to the government hospital for the insane, where, universally lamented, he expired some days later. Of this young hero’s personal appearance we have his own statement. In an early letter to his cousin he says that he was “tall and slim.” In one of his published letters the poet Longfellow described his face as of a beauty resembling Schil- ler’s. Since all of the foregoing was written, however, I have received from the widow of Com- mander Cushing (still living with their two daughters at Fredonia, New York), a letter con- taining a description of him so admirably lifelike that I am glad to reproduce it in full. For rea- sons appearing elsewhere, however, it would seem that her recollection of what she heard forty years [84] WILLIAMS appearance ago as to Alonzo’s stature is not so perfect as her remembrance of her husband. She writes under date of January 1, 1910: Mr. Theron W . Haight, My Dear Sir: Your letters of kind inquiry regard- ing Commander Cushing’s personal appearance, height, etc., have unavoidably remained too long unanswered. I trust you will pardon the delay, and that the informa- tion I send will be satisfactory and not too late for your use. I met Mr. Cushing for the first time in the late spring of 1867 — a few months before I acted as bridesmaid at his sister’s wedding. Mr. Cushing was tall, slender and very erect. His movements easy and graceful, at the same time indicating force and strength. His head was well poised, his look clear, direct, and steady. His features were regular and clear cut, with a fascinating expression about the mouth when he smiled which attracted one’s attention to that feature. His hair was of a medium brown, soft, fine, dark, and straight, without a suggestion of curl. His rather delicate mustache was of a lighter brown, suggest- ive of golden lights, never of reddish tints. His animation and enthusiasm in conversation lent a glow to his light, blue-gray eyes that made them seem dark. His brilliant mind was expressed in choice and facile diction — he was a fluent and charming writer. All his impulses were fine, noble. He was generous to a [85] THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS fault, tender and affectionate, and exemplified the senti- ment. The bravest are the tenderest; The loving are the daring. What he achieved and lived through in the Civil War, the perilous tasks he assumed and accomplished for his country in her time of greatest danger, form a background from which his figure stands out in vivid relief. It beams with his indomitable courage and is gilded with his heroic character. I have often heard Mr. Cushing speak of his brother Alonzo, who was two years his senior and two inches taller. My husband was exactly six feet without shoes. They were as intimate and devoted as girls, and quite the opposite in manner and speech, I should say. Alonzo and Howard I never saw, but the picture of the former stands out in my mind as a tall, gentle, dark- haired, reticent man (he was only 22 when he died), as against the younger, more lively and more impressionable brother. When I became acquainted with Mr. Cushing, he seemed to have become the head of the family. I mean that he assumed and bore the responsibility of the family. He had been more fortunate in financial matters and was therefore in a position to help all the others, which he did on occasions with the most open-handed liberality. Alonzo died at Gettysburg in ’63, long before I knew the family. Howard was killed by the Apaches after I was married. I well remember what a shock it was to [ 86 ] William Barker Cushing From oil portrait (1865) by A. Bradish. See Mrs. Cushing’s letter, p. 87. . - william’s appearance my husband, and how he grieved for him, and tried to comfort his mother, obtaining all possible details of his brilliant service and lamentable death in Arizona through correspondence with the commanding general and offi- cers, and with the War Department at Washington. I wish to thank you most cordially for the fine photo- gravure you sent. It arrived in excellent condition. It is an admirable copy of the Bradish portrait, which we have, but the portrait itself does not seem correctly pro- portioned on the side turned away, being a trifle too broad under the eye, and so represents the face as too pointed. The photo shows it more clearly than the painting. My criticism of the portrait, however, does not affect your fine copy or the kindness that prompted you to send it. I thank you sincerely for it. I wish also to thank you for the work you are doing, and trust your history of the Three Wisconsin Cushings will be admirable in every way, and fully meet your own expectations, as well as receive the merited reward of the approbation of the State Historical Society and of the public. Respectfully yours, Kate L. Cushing. Forest Place, Fredonia, N. Y. [87] THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS Howard Cushing With the Artillery Of Howard Cushing, the attainable memorials are very meagre. Indeed, whatever may have been the achievements of a private soldier in a vol- unteer regiment in war time, they are not com- monly mentioned in official reports. In the case of Howard it is only apparent on the face of the records of the Illinois regiment with which he served, that his conduct there was at least suffi- ciently creditable to warrant his promotion (No- vember 30, 1863) to a second lieutenancy in the regular artillery. His claim to distinction was not made conspicu- ously emphatic during his artillery service. However, it is probable that this was due rather to circumstances than to any failure on his part to do what might be done by a soldier of very high class under the conditions which he found after entering the regular service. At his own request he was assigned to Battery A of the Fourth, in which his brother Alonzo lost his life. But he had not the eclat with which his brother was sig- nalized on his graduation from West Point; more- [ 88 ] •J&t A r('>s> 9^r>-e/ c r y^~ -S — *> --'Hr I7^~ iy ~&f*c^cis'j (Z^T'Cy o-ts~&~> &-< -.c> sv^Lj^ .z^An c^u^u. ->~r p? y'-X^-yy^d) CC^J) l/J^ ^ ' I~^J "ppp ■ / PT'"Lt^ A %ljj: . ,, , -Ay>-c< fa 1 -Ppp.-G 1 < j^M ^ " (Oou, (dJc folLCo ^fo>ci&iuu fouy^ui (foU. rffoe^r m. ini, -fo(Cuuu fodfofo- / (0m / (fo-cuL fo md t y.i'U.r t/CMi Ills? Ivr 7 i*jl - y^eddeocyy (L) »C- LyU, dfoyu. V'L'Z-isiL - foy/. -4/1,3 foefo <(fo OlUAy td^yy^Llfoy (UJL. - ■ fodfotau /fo? Lcutjfo l fofor i Ay L Irrctcf fofyfofofox^ ^ Trefofo- Facsimile of part of letter from William B. Cushing to his brother Mil ton; dated May 15, 1871 THE REWARDS OF BRAVERY you through when he spoke and gave a slight hint of the determination, coolness and energy which had made his name famous all over the southwestern border. p ism bn£ fSiofiw So long as such men can be produced in the re- public, there is little danger of its decline and fall. Without such, or men of stamina approximating to their standard, our country would be likely to meet the fate of its predecessors, and become the prey of stronger peoples. It would therefore be foolish indeed to withhold from our fighting men the honor and the more substantial rewards which tend to encourage bravery and, when necessary, the upholding of our national solidarity by force of arms. To a considerable degree this is accom- plished by our national pension system ; but that is faulty, in respect that it makes no distinction, as to the amount of his quarterly stipend, between a four-years’ fighting soldier and a ninety-days’ malingerer in or about hospitals. That it was difficult to provide for advance- ment in the army, in accordance with desert, is evident from the fact that Howard Cushing served as a private soldier in the same battery for twenty months. That was, indeed, keeping talent hid- [ 103 ] THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS den in a very inconspicuous napkin. It may be that such bad fortune was unavoidable on the whole, and that a just grading of pensions would be still more difficult to attain than logically-just promotions in the army. At all events, it is clear to me that whatever does tend most effectually to keep alive in our citizenship such devotion to the country as to make men willing to strive to the ut- termost and to die for its sake, is what ought to be practised — and where possible, improved. [ 104] INDEX “Adelaide”, 60. “Albemarle”, xiv, 67-80. Albemarle Sound, 68-70. Ames, Gen. Adelbert, 82. Apache Indians, 86; in Arizona, 95-100. Arlington, Alonzo Cushing at, 35. Armistead, Gen. Lewis A., 51, 54, 55, 57. Battles: Antietam, Alonzo Cushing at, 55. Bailey's Cross Roads, 34, 35. Blackburn's Ford, 33. Bull Run, 33, 34. Chancellors ville, xii, 42, 43, 45. Fitzhugh’s Crossing, 42. Fredericksburg, 41, 42. Gettysburg, xii, 42-45, 51, 66. Hawes's Shop, 89. Long Bridge, 34. Marye's Heights, 42. Meadow Bridge, 89. Mine Run, 89. Salem Heights, 42. Spottsylvania Court House, 42. Strawberry Hill, 89. Todd’s Tavern, 89. Wilderness, 42. Yellow Tavern, 89. Bear Springs (Ariz.), 98. Black Hawk, Sauk leader, 9. Bladensburg (Md.), 90. Bourke, John G., xi, 94-96, 102. Bouton, Isabel Cushing, 18, 22, 53, 100, 101. Brandy Station (Va.), 89. Brookfield, 13. Burnside, Gen. Ambrose, 40. “Cambridge”, xiii, 37. , Castleman, Dr. A. L., 18. Centreville (Va.), 35, 38. “Charlotte”, 82. Chase, Salmon P., 20. Chiricahua Indians, 98. Cochise, Apache chief, 98-100. “Colorado”, 31. “Commodore Barney”, 62. “Commodore Hull”, 72. Couch, Gen. Darius N., 41. INDEX Cushing, Alonzo H., born, 16; youth, 16-26; at West Point, 26, 28, 29, 33; Washington, 32; Long Bridge, 35; Arlington, 35; ■with Gen. Sumner, 38, 39; McClellan, 39, 40; at Fredericks- burg, 41, 42; on furlough, 41; at Fitzhugh’s Crossing, 42; Spottsyl vania Court House, 42; Salem and Marye’s Heights, 42; Wilderness, 42; with Hooker, 43; Hancock, 44; at Gettys- burg, 45-50, 53-57, 77; death, 50, 102; personal appearance, 32, 56, 85; record, xii; appreciations, xii, 41, 42, 45, 47, 54- 57; facsimile of letter, 40; portrait, 56. Cushing, Howard B., born, 9; youth, 9-16: enlisted, 26, 36; pro- moted, 88; with Sheridan in Virginia, 89; in Washington, 90; Elmira (N. Y.), 91-93; Fort Meyer, 93; joined cavalry, 94; in Arizona and Texas, 95-98; expedition against Cochise, 98; killed, 86, 87, 99; personal appearance, 102, 103; record, xi; appreciation, xi; facsimile of letter, 88; portrait, 94. Cushing, Kate L., 84-87, 101. Cushing, Mary Barker Smith, 9-19, 21, 22, 27, 28, 52, 62, 101. Cushing, Mary Isabel, 18. Cushing, Milton, 9, 10, 24, 27. Cushing, Milton Buckingham, 5-21. Cushing, Rachel Buckingham, 4-8, 12, 17; children of, 17, 18. Cushing, Walter, 15, 16, 18. Cushing, William Barker, born, 17; youth, 17-26; at naval acad- emy, 28, 29; on “Minnesota”, 30; “Colorado”, 31; “Cam- bridge”, 37; “Perry”, 58; “Ellis”, 60; burned “Adelaide”, 60; at Jacksonville, 60, 61; on “Commodore Barney”, 62-66; “Shoboken”, 66, 67; destroys “Albemarle”, 69-81; promotion, 81; at Fort Fisher, 81-83; on “Maumee”, 83; “Wyoming”, 83; death, 84; personal appearance, 84-87; letter on Howard's death, 101; record, xii-xiv; appreciations, xiv, 58, 60, 76, 77, 80, 94, 95, 102, 103; facsimile of letter, 102; portrait, 86. Cushing, Zattu, 3-5. Cushing family, in New England, 3; in New York, 3-8; at Mil- waukee, 9-13, 16; removal to Waukesha County, 12-15; at Chicago, 18-20; in Ohio, 20; at Fredonia (N. Y.), 22, 25, 84. Delafield, , town named for, 17, 19. Delafield, Cushings at, 14-19. “Delaware Farmer”, 31. Dousman, Mrs. Talbot C., 13. Early, Gen. Jubal, 90, 91. East Troy, 30, 62. [io61 INDEX Edwards, Francis S., 26. Edwards, Mary B., 30, 37, 60, 62. “Ellis”, 60. Elmira (N. Y.), Howard Cushing at, 91-93. Finance, Continental currency, 2. Fitchburg (Mass.), Milton B. Cushing at, 27. Flusser, Com. Charles W., 59, 60, 68. Forts: Fisher, 81. Meyer, 93. Totten, 90. Franklin, Gen. William B., 40. Franklin (Va.), 59. Fredonia (N. Y.), Cushings at, 22, 25, 84. Frisby, Russell, 15. Fuger, Sergt. Frederick, 50, 52-55, 57, 89. Gallipolis (Ohio), Dr. Milton Cushing at, 21. Gaps: Manassas, xiii, 44. Thoroughfare, 44. Geronimo, Apache chief, 98. Hall, Col. George B., 47. Hampton Roads, 38, 63. Hancock, Gen. Winfield S., 44, 53. “Hartford”, xiii. Hawks, N. P. , 16. Haymarket (Va.), 44. "Hebe”, 67. Hooker, Gen. Joseph, 40, 43. Horton, Julia G., 23, 24. Hosmer, G. S., 15. Jacksonville (N. C.), 60. Lakes: Nagawicka, 14, 17. Nemahbin, 14, 16, 19. 12, 14. “Lancaster”, xiii. Lee, Gen. Robert E., 43, 44, 66. Lee, Admiral S. P., 60, 69. Lincoln, Abraham, xiv, xv, 41, 42, 80. McClellan, Gen. G-eorgeB., 35, 39, 40. Madison, 12, 13. Maryland, campaign in, 39, 40. Meade, Gen. George G., 56. “Merrimac”, 38, 68. Milwaukee, Cushings at, 9-13, 16. “Minnesota”, xiii, 30. “Monitor”, 38. Pewaukee, [ 107 ] INDEX “Monticello”, xiii, 73. Moon, Corporal Thomas, 56, 57. Mott, Sergt. John, 98. “Mount Washington”, 63. Nashotah, Theological Seminary, 14. Naval Academy, William Cushing at, 27, 30. Nemahbin, Cushings in, 15. New England, emigration to Wisconsin, 1-4. New York, Cushings in, 3-8. Norfolk (Va.), 59, 70. “Otsego,” 72. Paddock, George, 15. Paddock family, 13-15. “Penobscot”, xiii. “Perry”, 58. Pickett, Gen. George E., xii, 48, 54, 56. Plymouth (N. C.), captured by “Albemarle”, xiv, 68, 69, 71, 77, 78. Porter, Lieut. B. H., 82. Porter, Adm. David D., 70. Potawatomi Indians, in Wisconsin, 9. Potomac, Army of, 35, 38, 40, 43, 89. Prairieville. See Waukesha. Preston, S. W., 82. “Quinneboug”, xiii. Reynolds, Gen. John F. , 44. Richmond (Va.), 39. Rivers: Blackwater, 59. Bark, 14. Menomonee, 11, 12. Mil- waukee, 11. Monocac-y, 43, 90. Nansemond, 63. Potomac, 33, 44, 66. Rappahannock, 37, 42, 43. Roanoke, 68, 71. Shenandoah, 43. Rorty, James M., 46, 50. Santiago de Cuba, 83. “Sassaeuse”, 68. Sauk Indians, in Wisconsin, 9. Schaff, Gen. Morris, xii, 29. “Shamrock”, 71, 73. “Shoekokon”, xiii. Sheridan, Gen. Philip, 89. Smith, C. W., 37. Smith, Commodore Joseph, 26. [ io8] INDEX “Southfield”, 68, 71, 73. “Stag”, 83. Stotesbury, Asst. Engineer William, 73. Stuart, Gen. J. E. B., 44, 89. Sumner, Gen. Edwin V. , 38^0. Swan, Paymaster , 71, 72. Swansboro (N. €.), 60. Taneytown (Md.), 44. Tucson (Ariz.), Howard Cushing at, 95, 97-99. “Valley City”, 73. Vicksburg (Miss.), Howard Cushing at, 36. “Virginius”, 83, 84. Warley, Capt. A. F., 79. Warren, Cushings in, 15. Washington (D. C.), Alonzo Cushing at, 32. Waukesha, 13, 16, 19. Waukesha County, History, 13. Webb, Gen. Alexander S., 47, 50. Western Branch (Va.), 63. West Point, Alonzo Cushing entered, 26; buried at, 53. Wilkeson, Lieut. Frank, 92. Woodman, Acting Master's Mate — — , 72, 73. Woodruff, George A., 46, 50. “Wyoming”, xiv. Yorktown (Va.), 39. [ 109 ] Date Due L. B. Cat. No. 1137 Duke University Libraries D00922955W