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 Commission's publications (whether Reprints or Original Narratives) have not been modified or corrected by the Commission. For all stateme

Record —Wisconsin. Private Co. B., 1st Illinois artillery, March 24, 1862 to November 30, 1863; private in B artillery (regular) November 30, 1863; second lieutenant, 4th artillery, November 30, 1863; transferred to 3rd cavalry, September 7, 1867; first lieutenant, December 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 i

Record —Wisconsin and New York. Cadet at Military Academy, July 1, 1857 (12); second lieutenant and first lieutenant of the 4th artillery, June 24, 1861; brevet captain, December 13, 1862, for gallant and meritorious service at the battle of Fredericksburg, Va.; major, May 2, 1862, for gallant and meritorious service at the Battle of Chancellorsville, Va.; and lieutenant colonel, July 1, 1863, for conspicuous gallantry at the Battle of Gettysburg, Pa., where he was killed July 3, 1863. Appreciat

Record —September 25, 1857, appointed acting midshipman, from 33rd N. Y. district; March 23, 1861, resignation accepted; April 1, appointed master's mate in volunteer navy—served on board the U. S. S. "Minne sota;" Sept. 13, resignation accepted; Oct. 19, warranted as a midshipman in the navy from the 1st day of June, 1861; Oct. 25, to duty in North Atlantic blockading squadron; March 27, 1862, detached from U. S. S. "Cambridge" (sick) and leave of one month; May 14, to the U. S. S. "Minnesota;"

Beginning with the last decade of the eighteenth century, and continuing through the first decade of the nineteenth, the northern and western borders of the state of New York were punctuated 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 o

It was not until 1805 that the young man finally settled at Fredonia, bringing with him his wife and five children, of whom Milton Buckingham, born in 1800, was to become the father of perhaps 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 extraord

In the meantime his son Milton had grown to maturity, had taken the degree of doctor of medicine 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 1820, and now become Colgate University. The duties of a physician were too exacting for his own health, however. After a few years of practice at Zanesville, Ohio, where he married his first wife, he became a local merchant, and in 1833, when the wi

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 [2] 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 e

In 1844, then, it is probable that the wife and mother left the little town that she had learned to 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 suggested the name of Delafield for the township, because the Nemahbin 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 th

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 correct conceptions of right and wrong, with sympathies always for the right side of public questions. 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 Mr

In the meantime, Alonzo was bravely attending to such home duties as would be valuable in lightening his mother's work. In 1855 her brother-in-law, Francis S. Edwards, took his seat as member of Congress from the Thirty-fourth New York district, and the 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 seventeenth year of his age, be

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 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, engaged in storming a land battery and destroying some small supporting vessels at the same place. In the meantime, Alonzo was just as rapidly obtaining distinction. From We

In the "seven days" before Richmond, his conduct 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 intellectually 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. Notwithstanding his preference for artillery work, McClellan ordered him to perform th

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 judgment 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 failure—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

On the 15th 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 intimate frankness of a son who is still in love with his mother and wishes her to share in his triumph: Another fight and another victory! Again I have passed through the ordeal of fire and blood, and again I th

When General Lee crossed the Potomac on his way to Gettysburg, William was called to Washington to be ready for action in defense of the capital, should it need defense. Hearing of his brother's death on the night of its occurrence, he obtained permission and left for the battlefield, intending to ask the privilege of handling Alonzo's guns, which undoubtedly he was perfectly capable of doing. Those guns were out of the business, however, and he had to satisfy himself with looking through the fi

As it is impossible to crowd into this sketch any considerable proportion of the adventures of Lieu 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 "Albemarle," which earned for him further promotion, the engrossed thanks of Congress, and congratulatory addresses from civic bodies in every part of the North. This ironclad was built on the lines of th

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 before, although less spectacular. This was the buoying the channel for the fleet, which task occupied him for about six hours under a shower of shot and shell from the f

Of Howard Cushing, the attainable memorials are very meagre. Indeed, whatever may have been the achievements of a private soldier in a volunteer regiment in war time, they are not commonly 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 sufficiently creditable to warrant his promotion (November 30, 1863) to a second lieutenancy in the regular artillery. His claim

It was not until he had completed his twenty-ninth year that Howard obtained a transfer to the cavalry, which was then engaged in subduing Indians, the only warlike enterprise then in operation. On September 7, 1867, he became second-lieutenant of troop F of the Third cavalry, probably with reasonable certainty of early promotion, for about three months later he received a commission as first lieutenant. Alonzo Hersford Cushing From the border annals, it would appear that thenceforward he was pr

Cushing was riding at the head of the party with three soldiers and a citizen or two near him, when Sergeant John Mott saw movements of some Apaches who were trying to get to the rear of the detachment. He sent word to the lieutenant, inducing him to fall back, although already engaged with an ambush of Cochise's followers in front. The latter had succeeded in entirely surrounding the little party, and Cushing, with four at his side, were all slain before they could get back to the rest of their