Birthplace of the Cushing Brothers

This stone marks the birthplace of two of the Civil War's most celebrated heroes, brothers born here in the village of Delafield. Alonzo Cushing came into the world in eighteen forty-one. As a young artillery lieutenant at Gettysburg, he held the very center of the Union line during Pickett's Charge. Wounded again and again, he refused to leave his guns and was killed at his post. One hundred and fifty-one years later, in twenty fourteen, President Obama awarded him the Medal of Honor.

His younger brother, William Barker Cushing, became a daring Navy officer. In eighteen sixty-four he led a small boat on a nighttime raid and sank the feared Confederate ironclad Albemarle with a spar torpedo, one of the boldest acts of the war. Two brothers, one quiet Wisconsin village, both legends.