A Civil War hero raised in Fredonia has been recommended by the Army for the nation’s highest military honor.

Secretary of the Army John McHugh last week said he will ask Congress to posthumously award Lt. Alonzo Cushing the Medal of Honor for gallantry shown at the Battle of Gettysburg, where Cushing died at age 22 on July 3, 1863.

Cushing, born in 1841 in Delafield, Wis., moved to Fredonia at age 6 and later graduated from West Point. He died on the third day of battle defending Cemetery Ridge against Pickett’s Charge.

He was wounded three times during the battle before he was fatally shot, according to Civil War historian Kent Masterson Brown, author of “Cushing of Gettysburg: The Story of a Union Artillery Commander.”

One shell fragment hit him in the shoulder, and another tore into his abdomen and groin, forcing Cushing to hold his intestines in place with one hand as he continued to command his soldiers.

In an extraordinary demonstration of self-sacrifice, Brown wrote, Cushing refused to fall back when a higher-ranking officer told him to. Instead, he continued to pass commands to 1st Sgt. Frederick Fuger while Fuger held him aloft until he was fatally shot to the head.

“This award is long overdue. During the Civil War, the Medal of Honor was never given posthumously, so he was never considered. I’m absolutely thrilled it’s happened now,” said Brown, a former chairman of the Gettysburg National Military Park Advisory Commission who lives in Lexington, Ky.

Brown was one of several people — mostly from Wisconsin — who over the past seven years lobbied for Cushing to receive the award. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., one of the sponsors, was first informed of the award by the Army secretary.

A monument to Cushing and his three brothers, who all wore the Union uniform, is in Delafield, where both he and younger brother William were born. William Cushing devised and executed a daring nighttime raid to sink the CSS Albemarle, an ironclad ship stationed in North Carolina in 1864, by detonating a torpedo under the wooden hull.

Alonzo Cushing is the 33rd Civil War veteran to receive the Medal of Honor after his death. He joins Fuger and Alexander Webb, a New York infantry brigade commander at the Battle of Gettysburg, in receiving it for heroism during that battle. He is the 3,448th to receive the medal, the 618th posthumously.

Christopher Smith of Buffalo, one of Cushing’s cannoneers, wrote the only memoir of Cushing’s enlisted men in the early 1890s, Brown said.

The Cushing family has deep roots in Fredonia. Zattu Cushing, Alonzo’s grandfather, was the first to permanently settle in what would become the Town of Pomfret, where Fredonia is located, in spring 1805.

“The family is definitely the backbone of the history of this community,” said Fredonia Mayor Michael Sullivan. “His grandfather was the first permanent settler. On his mom’s side was the Barker family, which ultimately gave us the land for the parks downtown and the building that became the library and is now the [Darwin R.] Barker Museum.”

Alonzo Cushing is buried in West Point, but in June 2006, a monument featuring his picture and biographical information was built by students at Fredonia High School in the southwest corner of Pioneer Cemetery. Teachers and students have continued to maintain the monument.

William Cushing was honored in the 1860s with a monument next to Fredonia’s Village Hall, one reason that his service has until now been better known than his brother’s, outside of Civil War buffs, according to Pomfret Town Historian Todd Langworthy.

That should change with the Medal of Honor, he said.

“This is going to be tremendous. I just wish we could have had more of a part in it, I guess, in getting it awarded to him,” said Langworthy, who wrote letters several years ago to both New York’s U. S. senators in an unsuccessful attempt to get them involved.

Langworthy said he has tried to raise Alonzo Cushing’s profile for the past several years by portraying him in schools and on cemetery tours.

Sullivan said the belated award to the fallen soldier is also an honor to the town where he was raised.

“So many young families of that era lost children in that war,” Sullivan said. “To have them recognized years later, especially when it comes from your hometown, is a great tribute to the community.”

The mayor said he hopes the medal can be temporarily displayed in the Barker Museum.