Last night, Rebecca placed Cat 8000 on our diorama of the Angle. Ever since Cat #2000 on our census, we have kept track of each thousand with a special cat-soldier.

Cat 8000 is a gunner from Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing’s Battery A, 4th U.S. Artillery, but he is not standing anywhere near a cannon. Instead, he wields his rammer at a Confederate clubbing one of his fellow gunners at the wall in front of the Copse of Trees.

As the Confederates poured over the wall and Lt. Cushing’s demolished guns were abandoned, some of his gunners joined the 69th Pennsylvania instead of retreating. They wielded handspikes and sponge-staffs in desperate hand-to-hand fighting, likely joining their infantrymen comrades in, as members of the 69th put it, “looking and praying for help” and thinking they “were all gone.”

You can recognize Cat 8000 by the black vest that he is wearing over his red shirt.