THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL E. 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]
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
Commission's publications (whether Reprints or Original Narratives)
have not been modified or corrected by the Commission. For all
statements, of whatever character, the Author 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
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.
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
MAJOR-GENERAL E. V. SUMNER AND STAFF,
1862 _Frontispiece_
FACSIMILE OF PART OF LETTER BY ALONZO H.
CUSHING, 1862 40
PORTRAIT OF HOWARD B. CUSHING 56
PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM BARKER CUSHING 86
FACSIMILE OF PART OF LETTER BY HOWARD B.
CUSHING, August 6, 1863 88
PORTRAIT OF ALONZO HERSFORD CUSHING 94
FACSIMILE OF PART OF LETTER BY WILLIAM B.
CUSHING, May 15, 1871 102
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 O. DAVIDSON
_Governor of Wisconsin_
FREDERICK J. TURNER
_Professor of American History in the University of Wisconsin_
REUBEN G. THWAITES
_Secretary of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin_
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
RECORDS AND APPRECIATIONS
_Howard B. Cushing_
_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 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 officers 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 Crook_ (N. Y., 1891), pp. 106, 107.
_Alonzo Hersford Cushing_
_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.
_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 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. "Minnesota;" 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;" July 16, promoted to lieutenant; April 27,
1863, commissioned; Sept. 5, detached from the "Shockokon" and to
command the "Monticello;" Oct. 19, 1864, detached and to the North
Atlantic 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 17, 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 11,
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 examination; Feb. 9, detached and wait orders;
May 16, 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
orders; April 27, to duty as assistant to executive officer, Navy Yard,
Washington, D. C.; Aug. 25, detached and to duty as senior aid to
commandant of the Navy Yard, Washington, D. C.; Dec. 17, died this day
at the Government Hospital for the Insane, Washington, D. C.
_Appreciation_--"_To the Senate and House of Representatives_: 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, Albemarle, on
the night of the 27th of October, 1864, at Plymouth, North
Carolina. * * * This recommendation 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 recommendation 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."
THREE WISCONSIN CUSHINGS
_A Great New England Exodus_
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 of the great emigration 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
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 battles of their country in the War
for Independence, and their creditors would not accept in settlement
the worthless Continental currency with which their country had paid
them for their services 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 encouragement of bloodshed by
staying out of the army in the "times that tried men's souls." The
returning soldiers were disgusted 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
culminated in a rebellion against the government--and particularly
the judicial branch of the government--of the state of Massachusetts,
led by one Daniel Shays, who had attained the rank of captain in the
Continental forces in active service.
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
appearance of such migrations from early boyhood, and gives a lively
picture in his _Knickerbocker's History of New York_ (though somewhat
distorted for purposes of burlesque entertainment), of the way in which
the Yankees moved westward, accompanied 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 probable that he had observed among the immigrant
wagons passing his father's house, the young ship-carpenter, Zattu
Cushing, who attained his majority in 1791, and soon after left his
native home at Plymouth, Mass., reaching the neighborhood of Ballston
Spa, New York, before 1795, the year of his marriage there to Miss
Rachel Buckingham.
It seems most likely that the trip from Plymouth to the headwaters
of the Hudson was entirely by water; the young man's relations with
seafaring, together with the frequency of coastwise 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 1799
neither tradition nor record points out the character or direction
of his movements. In the last-mentioned year he is said to have been
superintending the construction of a ship, the "Good Intent," 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, on
the site of the village of Fredonia, his home in subsequent years.
_The Cushing Family in Western New York_
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 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 modern 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 his fate, which
may be handed out to him at any instant without the possibility of
resistance or escape.
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 occupant 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 their old homes of the emigrating
New Englanders had been such that they retained strong prejudices
against regularly-trained members of the learned professions. They
were quite generally inclined to prefer the illiterate exhortations
of revivalist ministers to the teachings of such clergymen 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 practitioners, 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 presiding 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 miles between Fredonia and the lake, by
ox-teams; there were said to have been about a hundred 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 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 wife died, was the father of four children, none of whom
long survived their early manhood or womanhood.
Not long after the death of Mrs. Cushing, Dr. Cushing removed his
business and home to Columbus, 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 practicable 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
evidence 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 days previous to the event,
Mrs. Cushing was impressed with the presentiment of death, and wrote in
her Bible the verses following, under the heading, "To Milton, with the
Legacy of his Mother's Bible."[1]
[1] E. M. H. Edwards, _Commander William Barker Cushing_ (N. Y., 1898),
pp. 22, 23.
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!
_God keep thy spirit undefiled!_
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 undergo privations more difficult to
encounter than those of a residence at the confluence of the Milwaukee
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
hostile camps, whose differences were always apparently on the point
of breaking out into actual violence. 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 Rhine 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 Phillipses. 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 campaigns 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 resembling in
aspect the most carefully tended English 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 openings," extending for scores of miles to the westward, and
jeweled with lovely lakelets, from Pewaukee to beyond the "Four Lakes,"
between 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[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 emphatically 'God's country,' without
sight or sound of human habitation, from the house where we dined [in
the present town of Brookfield] till we reached our home in the woods,
thirty miles from Milwaukee."
[2] _History of Waukesha County, Wis._ (Chicago, 1880), pp. 473, 474.
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, and ended not far from the subsequent home of the Cushings.
Indeed, it was most probably followed by the Cushings early in 1839,
and one may feel no hesitation in believing that the latter breathed
in with delight the clear, sweet atmosphere 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 Wisconsin'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 Theological Seminary, some of which
are also visible 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 15, 1840, in a case tried before 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 chairman of its first board of supervisors.
The town meeting at which he was elected was held January 5, 1842, at
the schoolhouse; and over it presided George Paddock, whom we have
already noted as guiding his daughter to this locality.
More than two years before, on December 28, 1839, a second son had
been born to Mrs. Cushing 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
born on January 19, 1841.
Neither store nor post office had yet been established 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 1840, and was deemed a great blessing by
immigrants on their way westward along the lately-cleared Territorial
Road; but there were no table supplies to be found on sale nearer than
Prairieville (now Waukesha), a dozen miles back towards Milwaukee.
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 outlet of Nagawicka Lake, while not long after a gentleman
named Delafield arrived there, purchased the water power and its
improvements, and erected a flouring mill where the village mill has
ever since been a conspicuous figure in the landscape. 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 former 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 1825, and
therefore may have become fairly well qualified to take charge of the
household during any temporary incapacity on the part of Mrs. Cushing
herself.
Mrs. Edwards states in her life of the naval commander[3] that there
were four children of Dr. 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 1844,
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. Edwards'
volume, however, Mrs. Cushing is credited 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.
[3] Edwards, _op. cit._, p. 15.
_Removal to Chicago_
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 the Territory of Wisconsin. Waukesha
County had not yet been accorded a separate civic organization, and
Wisconsin did not become a state until 1848. Mrs. Cushing's choice
for the name of the place was stated by her to have been influenced
by what she considered the more euphonious sound of the name adopted,
when compared with the family name that was to be immortalized and
made resplendent 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 1846, since which date there has been nothing of an
historical character to remind one of the origin of the local name.
There is no available information of the events of the three years
ending with 1847 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 1839. 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 walking off into Lake Michigan, and
informing his rescuer that his name was "Bill Coon," so that he could
not be immediately identified. He consequently was lost to his family
for the succeeding thirty-six hours. It is also mentioned incidentally
that Dr. Cushing resumed the practice of medicine at Chicago, but
he could hardly have attained much success in it, on account of his
declining 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.
_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 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 Mrs. Cushing's personality becomes more
distinctly visible to the investigator 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 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
performance of such slight tasks as the neighbors called upon them
to accomplish--driving cows to pasture, 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 Chicago, 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 from either of my brothers.
They always displayed toward 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 overwhelming 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]
[4] _Ibid_, p. 38.
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 delightful
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
distance and saw Master Will waving an oar and shouting to us:
"Next time you want to row, don't forget to ask your friends."
Mrs. Horton also tells an anecdote of how the future commander followed
her and one of his brothers to a prayer-meeting, seating himself behind
them and singing improvised personalities instead 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 acquaintances 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, receiving promotion,
until he was retired for disability, as paymaster of the fleet then in
the Mediterranean, and died January 1, 1886. He married, but left no
issue.
Of the younger lads, Howard appears to have been endowed with an
unusual aspiration for independence of action, so that at fourteen
years of age he took the position of "devil" in the office of _The
Censor_, in his home village of Fredonia. As soon as he had obtained
enough of the technique 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, upon which he returned to Fredonia to
recover under his mother's ministrations. When that result was attained
he started for Chicago, memories 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 remembered 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 obligations 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 in that capacity and place he worked until
his enlistment in 1862 as a private soldier in an Illinois volunteer
artillery regiment.
_All the Boys Established_
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, 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 relative,
Commodore Joseph Smith of the Navy, afterwards admiral, who took
measures to have the 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
establishment of all her sons in positions in which they were tolerably
well assured of a good equipment 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 be here noted, that the all-important feature of
personal character was and is requisite in the making of an American
whose existence 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 something higher and more sacred than that of their own
individual personality, and could not be 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 advancement of the common
welfare. It was the prevalence 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 building up of character of this kind, women were
most potent, and among American women Mary Cushing stands in this
respect in the very front rank. This was evidenced by her furnishing to
the country 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
incidents of absorbing interest in the lives of the young Cushings.
At West Point, Alonzo was approved by his superiors and beloved by
his fellows. Modest in demeanor, but always efficient in his work,
and kindly towards under-classmen, General Morris Schaff's "Spirit of
Old West Point"[5] 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.
[5] _Atlantic Monthly_, February, 1907.
William's cadet experience was somewhat more eventful, for the reason
that the spirit of mischief was more dominant with him at that time
than with his brothers. The culmination of his pranks was reached
towards the close of the winter 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 youngster 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 evidently not the intention of the officers to
allow him to pass permanently out of the navy. In a month after his
enforced resignation he was acting master's mate on board the frigate
"Minnesota," from which he wrote a letter dated May 7, 1861, 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 moving 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, during 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 familiar 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 foregoing 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-five 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, although in a boy of eighteen it
may have seemed rather extravagant. Before completing his twentieth
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 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 West Point he had proceeded without delay
to Washington, and on reaching the capital had applied himself most
assiduously 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 volunteer 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 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 conduct on that occasion was
said to have been admirable, 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 responsibility, whether in command of his battery or detached 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 expectations 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
soldier as any of the contestants of the Civil War. His assignment
to duty as a first lieutenant of artillery 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 company with some thousands of other infantry soldiers,
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, sending out scouting parties from time
to time, and establishing picket outposts in what appeared to our
uneducated eyes to be appropriate points of vantage. 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 plodded 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
distinguished for its fine appearance, however; and that was Battery
A of the Fourth regular artillery. Cushing was in command of it when
it met and passed us, and even the events of the preceding 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 September, from the front line of the troops around
Washington, and found that wonderful organization 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 construction, 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 excellent bearing of the 70,000 men who might easily
have marched to Centerville the next day and squelched the Virginia
section of the rebellion with not a hundredth part of the effort that
was required for that purpose in the years following. It must have been
with a heavy heart that Alonzo Cushing, always longing for effective
action, saw the splendid opportunities of the winter of 1861 squandered
in useless delays.
Although he made no complaint, the experience of Howard during 1861
afforded ground for greater personal vexation. He had raised a company
from among the newspaper men of Chicago. They had elected him captain,
but for some reason 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 entitled to, through several strenuous campaigns, including the
operations about Vicksburg. There can be no reasonable doubt that his
services as a private would furnish material for a story of interest
and instruction; but no record of them is attainable, 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 birthday 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 Rappahannock River to cut out a vessel loaded
with wheat, which was burned on being found hard and fast on shore.
Returning, the boat was bombarded by cannon and musketry along the
river bank. Of the concluding scenes of this expedition, he gives the
following account: