Just in time for Veterans Day, the United States Military Academy has rededicated Cullum Hall’s Pershing Room, which was gifted in 1976 by the Class of 1926, and renamed it the West Point War Memorial Room. In doing so, the Academy removed the hundred or so plaques for the Permanent Professors of USMA and replaced them with 1,157 2-inch by 8-inch nameplates (showing rank and class year) of graduates killed in action, died of wounds in combat or died as a POW in our Nation’s wars. During the ceremony, Colonel Ty Seidule, Department Head of History and Chair of the Museum and Historical Memorialization Committee, said that the new room both speaks to the Academy’s past and highlights its future. “I take all my classes here to understand the vital role West Point played and continues to play in the professionalization of the Army,” Seidule said, “and all the names speak to the sacrifice and the competence of USMA’s graduates.” Thus, in the room’s re-dedication, 100 or so professors have given away to more than 1,000 graduate teachers, and the first to “instruct” cadets was First Lieutenant Alonzo H. Cushing, Class of 1861 June, who posthumously just received the Medal of Honor last week, 151 years after his valorous act in the Battle of Gettysburg during the Civil War.
Serving as an artillery commander in Battery A, 4th U.S. Artillery, Army of the Potomac, Cushing ignored severe wounds to his shoulder and abdomen and, as noted in the first edition (1868) of the Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the United States Military Academy, “continued to pour grape and canister into the advancing columns of Rebels until they reached the very muzzles of his pieces.” Cushing’s gallant final act directly impacted the Union Army’s ability to repel the Confederate advance known as “Pickett’s charge” and turned the tide of the Civil War. Addressing the nearly 100 cadets attending the re dedication ceremony, Lieutenant General Robert Caslen ’75, the 59th Superintendent of West Point, said, “With the weight of the Nation on his back, Cushing responded to the call of duty and should remain today as an inspiration to us all.”