Margaret Zerwekh has spent years attempting to secure the Medal of Honor for a man who died decades before she was born.

Zerwekh, 94, spent decades lobbying Congress, the military and the White House to give the nation’s highest military honor to 1st Lt. Alonzo Cushing, who was wounded numerous times during the Battle of Gettysburg and died on the battlefield.

On Thursday, her work was rewarded when President Obama posthumously awarded the medal of honor to Cushing, a West Point graduate who was 22 when he died on July 3, 1863.