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| Top Row Lieutenants King, Cushing, and Evans at Antietam |
On November 7, 2014, President Obama bestowed the Medal of
Honor on First Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing for his actions in stemming the
Confederate advance known as Pickett’s Charge. Young Cushing, age 22 gave his life when he refused to
withdraw to a safer position after being grievously wounded. Instead, Cushing advanced two of his
guns to a stone wall into the very teeth of the surging Confederates. In agony from a wound to the abdomen,
and his left thumb burned to the bone while venting the guns without a
thumbstall, Cushing fired a last round of canister point blank into the faces
of the Confederates before being killed instantly by a shot to the mouth.[1]
After the action subsided, Cushing’s First Sergeant, Frederick Fuger tenderly
carried his young commanders body several yards to the rear and buried the
gallant lieutenant under an oak tree.
While it took 151 years for Cushing to receive his, First Sergeant
Fuger, a native of Goppingen Germany was awarded the Medal of Honor in April
1897. [2]
Alonzo Cushing is perhaps the best known of an amazing group
of young officers who lead the regular artillery companies in the Union Army
during the Civil War. These young men, mostly in their early to mid twenties,
were a mix of West Point graduates, former non commissioned officers, and
civilian appointees. They served in sixty batteries in five U.S. Artillery
regiments. Together, they not only lead their own companies but also were
responsible for the training and development of the volunteer batteries making
them a formidable force in their own right. Men like Randol, Terrill, Du Pont,
and Guenther, mostly unknown today, were present in so many battles, great and
small and made the Union artillery a feared and respected force everywhere.
This Veteran’s Day, let us follow the action of some other
gunners who fought with the very same Second Corps that Cushing supported at
Gettysburg. This however is nine
months earlier on America’s bloodiest day, the Battle of Antietam.
Covering the
advance of John Sedgwick’s division down the Smoketown Road were two Second
Corps regular batteries. One of
these was Battery A&C/4th Artillery (Evan Thomas [Civ-1861, age
19). These unit was a combination
of two severely understrength batteries and had been combined to have a
sufficient number of men to man the six guns assigned to one battery. Neither of the two captains was present
to command the consolidated unit. Francis N. Clarke of A Company was on
detached service with Sumner as his Chief of Artillery. Company C’s command slot was vacant
with the recent death of George Hazzard from wounds suffered in the Seven Days
battle of White Oak Swamp. This
left 19 year old Evan Thomas from Company C in command. Family connections (his
father was Lorenzo Thomas, the Adjutant General of the army) secured the young
man an appointment in the regular artillery the year before. Thomas was a spirited and even
hotheaded young officer. The other officer present from Company C that day was
Rufus “Junior” King, scion of another influential family. His uncle Rufus was
the first commander of the famed Black Hat Brigade. Thomas and King are but two examples of how family
connections secured many young men coveted appointments in the regular army in
the first year of the Civil War.
As the battery
moved forward down the Smoketown Road, it started banging away at the surging
Confederates who had waylaid Sedgwick’s division in the West Woods. Evans
opened on the advancing enemy with spherical case, and then, as the
rebels approached nearer, with canister.
He reports that only the arrival of the advance elements of the Sixth
Corps saved him from being overwhelmed. Lending a hand was the Second Corps ordnance officer Alonzo
Cushing. Cushing, assigned to
Company C was like Captain Clarke also on detached service on the Sumner’s
staff.
Not far away
stood Battery I, First US Artillery.
Considered one of the elite batteries of the army artillery
establishment, the command was rebuilt from scratch after being wrecked and its
guns lost at First Bull Run.
Unlike A/C/4US led by former civilians, Battery I had West Point
leadership. First Lieutenant
George “Little Dad” Woodruff USMA 1861 age 22 was in command that day standing
in for Lieutenant Edmund Kirby who was sick. Battery I’s captain wasn’t with the battery but he was not
far away. James Ricketts, now a
brigadier general of volunteers
commanded a division in the Cornfield 500 yards
to the north. Woodruff had a full
complement of officers so all three gun sections were commanded by
lieutenants. They included recent
West Point graduates Lieutenants Tully McRea (USMA 1862 age 23) and John Egan (USMA
1862 age 25). Also assigned to the
battery was Frank Sands French (CIV-1861 age 20). Frank’s father William French (USMA 1837) was another legacy
of the First Artillery in the old Army.
Like Ricketts that day, the elder French was also nearby commanding the
3rd Division, Second Corps in the Sunken Road. Like Evan Thomas,
Woodruff had to contend with surging Confederate infantry in the West
Woods. Alternating between counter-battery
fire and interdicting rebel infantry, Woodruff had little infantry support
around his guns. McCrea said that “it [the battery] worked like a machine and
we put two rounds of canister a minute in their faces at short range.” Egan
described Woodruff’s handling of the battery as “masterful.”[3] At
Gettysburg, “Little Dad” Woodruff would fall mortally wounded not far from his
colleague Alonzo Cushing.
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| Lieutenant George Woodruff |
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| Lieutenant Samuel Elder |
The
concentration of Second Corps artillery behind Sedgwick’s division left little
to support the attacks of French and Richardson further to the left in the
Sunken Road. The absence of
artillery and the persistent and effective rebel fire from the Reel Ridge and
around the Piper orchard led General Richardson to request a battery from the
Artillery Reserve. Battery K, 1st
Artillery, commanded by Captain William M. Graham (CIV-1855 age 27) was soon
dispatched. Graham’s was not a
West Point graduate himself but his father James D. Graham was a member of the West Point class of 1817, and a
lieutenant colonel in the topographical engineers. His uncle and namesake,
Colonel William Montrose Graham, was killed during the Mexican-American War
while commanding the 11th U.S. Infantry at Molino del Rey. Graham was appointed to the First
Artillery in 1855 during the expansion of the Regular Army that year. As a measure of his ability he was in
just six years promoted to captain.
Graham’s battery took position
in the plowed field earlier occupied by the Irish Brigade. The battery came under severe artillery
fire from rebel batteries. Graham
managed to silence one battery 700 yards away and repelled several infantry
charges but his Napoleons were outranged by Confederate rifled guns on the Reel
Ridge. General
Richardson ordered Graham to save the battery as much as possible and was
mortally wounded by a fragment of spherical case while standing near the
guns. Under this galling fire stood
Lieutenant Theophie Bhryd von Michalowski from Prussia (ENL 1861
age 23). The former sergeant major
of the 11th US Infantry for a long time served one of his pieces
with but one cannoneer, alternating with this man in loading and firing.
Lieutenant Maynadier (CIV-1861 age 25) returned with First Sergeant Cooney and
brought off the two caissons, under a heavy artillery fire. Captain Graham saved his finest praise
for First Lieutenant Samuel Elder (ENL-1861 age 33). Elder, several years older than the other officers was a
former non-commissioned officer in the Second Artillery with five years prior
enlisted service. Appointed in
1861, Lieutenant Elder at Antietam served his section with remarkable effect,
and was principally instrumental in silencing the battery first engaged. His
conduct, under an extraordinarily heavy fire, was cool and gallant in the
extreme.[4]
[1]
Made of
leather, the thumbstall is used by the gunner to stop the vent when the barrel
is being swabbed out so that no residue or hot ashes blow up the vent and
prematurely ignite the next powder load.
The thumbstall protects the gunner’s thumb from the hot escaping
gases. Not wearing one causes
serious burns to the thumb and repeated thumbing of the vent without a
thumbstall will certainly burn the flesh away to the bone. It must have been excruciating.
[2] Fuger’s citation read: “
All the officers of his battery having been killed or wounded and five of its
guns disabled in Pickett's assault, he succeeded to the command and fought the
remaining gun with most distinguished gallantry until the battery was ordered
withdrawn.” Four months later, Fuger
was appointed a second lieutenant in the 4th Artillery rising to the
rank of Major in 1899 retiring in 1900. He died in 1913.
[3] Haskin, First Artillery
page 540
[4] Graham OFFICIAL RECORDS:
Series 1, Vol 19, Part 1, Pages 343 - 344
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