It was a short two months from Chancellorsville 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 government have little to say of the marches of the two great opposing armies from the Rappahannock 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 Potomac 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 mountain pass reached by the advance of Lee's forces, as the latter moved along the valley of the Shenandoah on the western side of the range.
On June 25, Hancock concentrated the Second Corps, of which he was now the head, at Haymarket, 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 Taneytown, 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 The next day the curtain was partially withdrawn from the most magnificent spectacle of a conflict of ideas, supported by fighting men, that the Western Continent, at least, ever witnessed. Hancock's corps, to which Cushing was attached, was resting at Taneytown 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 with him personally as a temporary aide. My reason for assuming this is, that the brevet of lieutenant-colonel, made out for him the next day, stated that the honor was conferred "for conspicuous 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 feelings. From his acts alone, and from what his most intimate acquaintances in the army have written, our judgment must be formed. A history 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 absorbing story, a tribute is also paid to Cushing's endeavors on the second day.[6] To that narrative the reader is referred for that, among other living pictures of the deadly struggle.
[6] Frank Aretas Haskell, The Battle of Gettysburg (Wisconsin History Commission: Reprints, No. 1, November, 1908), pp. 102, 116, 120, 121.
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 overlooking 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 organizations suffered severe losses by the bursting of ammunition 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 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 himself, his officers all killed or wounded, and with but cannoneers 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.