Cushing of Gettysburg Quotes

“The situation in the angle was critical. Faint from loss of blood and terribly ill, gritting his teeth in a vain attempt to withstand the severe pain, Lon asked Fuger to order the two remaining guns double-shotted with canister.94”
― Kent Masterson Brown, Cushing of Gettysburg: The Story of a Union Artillery Commander

“Lon assisted his cannoneers in loading the number four gun. Finding the leather thumbstall charred and ruined through frequent use and no replacement anywhere to be found, he stoppered the gun’s vent with his bare thumb. The escaping gases from the swabbing of the barrel burned his thumb to the bone. Lon grabbed his thumb, grimacing in pain. His agonies were indescribable.87”
― Kent Masterson Brown, Cushing of Gettysburg: The Story of a Union Artillery Commander

“aide-de-camp.”
― Kent Masterson Brown, Cushing of Gettysburg: The Story of a Union Artillery Commander

“To Lt. Alonzo H. Cushing and his men, the first sign of Hooker’s intention to abandon the Fredericksburg-Falmouth front came in the form of a telegram received at Second Corps headquarters on June 6, which directed that the soldiers of the corps have three days’ rations in their haversacks, and that all wagons be loaded with stores and the trains put in readiness for any order to move. The order, the telegram stated, “may possibly be given to move early tomorrow.”8”
― Kent Masterson Brown, Cushing of Gettysburg: The Story of a Union Artillery Commander

“8 “Forward into Battery!” At Guinea Station, Virginia, tragedy struck Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia in the wake of the spectacular victory at Chancellorsville. There, on May 10, the wounded Stonewall Jackson died. For days thereafter Union army telegraphers were busy tapping out the news.1”
― Kent Masterson Brown, Cushing of Gettysburg: The Story of a Union Artillery Commander

“Forward into Battery!” At Guinea Station, Virginia, tragedy struck Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia in the wake of the spectacular victory at Chancellorsville.”
― Kent Masterson Brown, Cushing of Gettysburg: The Story of a Union Artillery Commander

“Lon had lost another West Point friend and comrade-in-arms. The war seemed far from resolution, and the humiliations of the most recent battle made the deaths of the noble Dimick and Kirby difficult to accept.”
― Kent Masterson Brown, Cushing of Gettysburg: The Story of a Union Artillery Commander

“Never had Lon seen such carnage, such suffering. For all his youth and his excitement for war, Lon was glad to see the sun set on September 17, 1862. 6 “The Army Is Extremely Disgusted”
― Kent Masterson Brown, Cushing of Gettysburg: The Story of a Union Artillery Commander

“The whole West Woods erupted in a volcano of gunfire so heavy that the color-bearer of the 34th New York was hit five times in rapid succession before he toppled to the ground. The attack of Sedgwick’s division had turned into a crimson nightmare. Men were falling everywhere.75 As the gap widened between Greene’s Twelfth Corps brigades and Sedgwick’s left, the situation became critical. Early’s and Anderson’s Confederate brigades, along with Barksdale’s Mississippians, surged around the church, up the Hagerstown Turnpike and into the fields in the rear of Sedgwick’s hapless division.76”
― Kent Masterson Brown, Cushing of Gettysburg: The Story of a Union Artillery Commander

“Little did the soldiers of the Second Corps know at that time that General Joseph E. Johnston, commander of the formidable Confederate army ahead of them, had been wounded and disabled in the day’s action. Temporarily, Maj. Gen. Gustavus W. Smith had assumed command, but within days a new commander would take over the reins of the butternut and gray legions—none other than Gen. Robert E. Lee.53”
― Kent Masterson Brown, Cushing of Gettysburg: The Story of a Union Artillery Commander

“Lon not only lost his horse; he was struck in the breast by a bullet, but his dispatch book and pistol, which were tucked in his breast pocket, took the full impact of the projectile. “It only knocked the breath out of my body,” he remembered.”
― Kent Masterson Brown, Cushing of Gettysburg: The Story of a Union Artillery Commander