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Published: December 14th 2012
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LT HOWARD BASS CUSHING
It is difficult site to reach because of locked gates, and it may not even be the correct site. We navigated to it using gps and the Fort Huachuca quad sheet. Read Sgt Mott's report and go to 31 40' 18" north latitude and 110 24' 00" west longitude. Be sure your gps is set to the same coordinate system as the map. LT HOWARD BASS CUSHING
Cushing Street in downtown Tucson near the convention center is named for LT Howard Bass Cushing. Howard was born in 1838 in Milwaukee to a family that raised a passel of gallant sons. His younger brother, Alonzo, was killed commanding a battery of the 4
th Artillery during Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg. Another younger brother, William, was a graduate of Annapolis and served with distinction in the federal navy throughout the Civil War The youngest brother, Milton, also joined the navy. Howard did not have the advantage of higher education and enlisted as a private in Company B of the First Illinois Light Artillery. He first tasted the sting of battle at Shiloh and soldiered on through the siege of Vicksburg. When he learned of Alonzo’s death he applied for transfer to the 4
th Artillery as a replacement for his brother. After some political and legal heartburn his application was approved on November 18, 1863 and he travelled to Washington DC to resign as a private and obtain a commission as 2
nd Lt to Battery A of the 4
th Artillery. Reporting for duty on Dec 18 at Brandy Station, VA he found himself the only officer present. He was second in command of Battery A during the Battle of Yellow Tavern in which the Confederate General J. E. B. Stuart was killed. Battery A chased the wily reb around Virginia awhile longer and then was posted to the defensive perimeter around the capitol. Howard, as a junior officer, was detached to oversee a camp of Confederate prisoners near Elmira, NY. Upon his return from that detail he served as Acting Adjutant, Headquarters Battalion, 4
th Artillery at Fort Washington, MD. Up until that time Howard participated in twenty battles and never lost a gun or been driven from a position. Six months after the war ended Howard found himself in the middle of a drunken altercation with the civilian police that led to a court martial and he was suspended from rank and pay for one year commencing on April 17, 1866. When he returned to service he sought a transfer to the Third Cavalry and was posted to New Mexico as a First Lieutenant commanding Troop F. They were posted to Fort Stanton and participated in a few lively scraps with tribesmen who opposed the notion of Manifest Destiny. One of those scraps took place in Sanguinara Canyon in southeast New Mexico. The group that Cushing attacked happened to be in mourning over the loss of family members wounded a few days previously during a fight in which Cushing’s second in command was also wounded. The attack on a camp in mourning enraged an Apache named Juh, and Juh was not the forgiving kind. When fresh hostilities broke out in Arizona in February of 1870 Troop F was shifted to duty out of Fort Lowell near Tucson and then detached to Camp Grant. In late May of 1870 the Israel-Kennedy supply train was attacked and massacred on its way to Camp Grant from Tucson. The attack was made very near to the same site where John Page was ambushed in 1861. Lt Cushing and 11 of his men were among the group of soldiers who attacked the miscreants on June 6 near Signal Peak and killed 30 of them. The poor devils had been drinking some patent medicine they found in the destroyed supply train and were all drunk as hell. Through the summer Cushing and his men located and destroyed two additional Apache Rancherias. Since joining the cavalry Lt Cushing had demonstrated remarkable success as an aggressive and determined Indian fighter. Special Orders came down in August making Troop F, 3rd Cavalry a “flying squad” allowed to operate independently of other commands in pursuit of hostile Apaches. Troop F continued to operate successfully until February 11, 1871 when Cushing was replaced as commanding officer by Captain Alexander Moore, an unassigned infantry officer. On April 26 Moore ordered Cushing to take a detachment on a scout down Sonoita Creek and up the Santa Cruz River in search of Apache trails. On May 5 LT Cushing got himself killed trying to attack his old pal Juh and 150 warriors with 8 soldiers and a civilian packer on the east side of the Mustang Mountains. He was a valiant officer but, like Custer, he was not invincible. The photo shows a site in the area where Cushing was killed. It matches distance, direction and terrain descriptions reported to Moore by SGT John Mott who survived the fight and led the detachment to safety.
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