By KENNETH MCFARLAND
The short name “John Plude” on Brandon’s Civil War monument belies a long, fascinating, and sad story of a Vermonter who, like many others, went to war and never returned. It’s also a tale of those who came back forever scarred physically and emotionally. In addition, John Plude was one of many thousands of immigrant Union soldiers. In this case, he came to Vermont from Quebec, born there Antoine Napolian Plude in January 1823. (The earlier spelling of the name was Plourde.) In July 1841, Plude married Quebec native Louisa LaClair King, born in 1827. Wed in Brandon, the couple began their family with sons Jennis and Lewis, born in 1845 and 1849, respectively. Census records show John’s occupation as “laborer,” while Lewis was a carpenter, and army records show Jennis as a “farmer.”
Life changing moments first for the father and later the two sons came when the three joined the 2nd Battery, Vermont Light Artillery, a Brandon unit mustered in originally in December 1861. John served longest and saw the most action, joining the battery in January 1862. It was only in November 1863 that Jennis and Lewis enlisted. Meantime, Louisa was left with six more children.
The 2nd shipped out from Massachusetts to the Gulf Coast in February 1862. Soon they were involved in numerous operations, being the first Federal artillery troops to enter New Orleans. The battery would then spend the remainder of the war primarily around Port Hudson, Louisiana.
The lifting and jostling of artillery service were demanding for privates like John Plude, especially one nearing forty whose previous life surely involved hard physical work. Soldiering took such a toll that Plude spent weeks in the fall of 1862 hospitalized in New Orleans suffering “lumbago,” an early term for low back pain. As well, lumbago was then associated with rheumatism and linked to cold and damp conditions, typical of army camps.
A fate worse than hard duty, however, befell John Plude. Following a Union defeat at Jackson, Louisiana on August 3, 1863, Plude was captured by Confederate cavalry. Like thousands of fellow soldiers, he ultimately found himself at Andersonville prison camp in Georgia. And as with thousands of comrades, he did not survive confinement in this the most notorious of all Civil War POW camps. The subject of a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by MacKinlay Kantor, Andersonville (aka Camp Sumter) was crowded to 300% over capacity, lacking proper food and medicines, and characterized by unimaginably poor sanitation. Survivors described the camp as a place of filth beyond belief, with prisoners continually plagued by lice and various diseases.
In total, nearly 13,000 Andersonville prisoners died, chiefly from diarrhea, dysentery, scurvy, and gangrene. Amazingly excellent records identified most of the deceased, however, and they are now neatly buried in marked graves. And there lies John Plude, who passed on July 11, 1864, owing to “rheumatism,” a determination quite different from the more common disorders. Whether this related to his earlier lumbago diagnosis, with Plude being totally disabled by back issues, is a question that must remain unanswered.
John Plude would never have seen his sons, given his capture in August 1863 and their 2nd Vermont enlistment in November. Both volunteered for three years, Jennis being the legal enlistment age of eighteen, while the younger Lewis must have misstated his age by three or four years Their exact arrival time in Louisiana is not clear. Like his father, however, Jennis was plagued by physical ailments beginning with “Rubeola” (measles) leading to a Brattleboro army hospital stay from January 26 until February 16, 1864. Fortunately, Jennis did not join the over four thousand soldiers who died of measles during the war, though it can be wondered if after-effects lingered. Surely, however, the hard conditions of artillery service echoed his father’s. Jennis was ultimately “mustered out” in June 1865 after nearly three-months at the Baton Rouge army hospital because of “inflammation of the knee joint.”
Though apparently healthy, Lewis Plude also had a sad story. It’s a tale recounted in court martial records from July 1864, as young Plude was charged with stealing a sergeant’s “pocketbook” containing approximately $70, a hefty amount in the 1860s. In brief, the pocketbook was found and returned containing only $40. The court quickly found Plude guilty. Attempting redemption, he penned a letter seeking forgiveness and promising repayment of stolen funds. Despite heart-tugging references to his “Poor Mother” who was suffering “trouble Enough,” Lewis was drummed out of camp and given a dishonorable discharge. In his defense, Lewis Plude was then age fifteen, still a boy in a very adult world. For several years, moreover, he had lacked a father’s guiding hand.
Lewis’s welcome in Brandon was surely cold…except maybe in his large family’s arms. Rejoining the family too was Jennis, who continued suffering painful effects from service, the 1870 census listing him as “lame.” Sadly, Jennis was fated for a short life, succumbing to an undefined “fever–sore” on May 18, 1871. Adding to Louisa’s woes, Lewis followed his brother in death by less than a year, drowning in January 1872.
Although we’ve looked chiefly at three soldiers, this story’s central character is clearly wife and mother Louisa. Even after her older sons enlisted, she was still raising six children…not easy, though she received a pension after husband John’s 1864 death. Yet, “soldier on” she did, guiding her children to adulthood, some remaining in Vermont and others building lives in Bridgeport, Connecticut. There Louisa died on April 26, 1898, living with family. Today, however, a trip to St. Mary’s Cemetery in Brandon is all that’s needed to visit Louisa’s grave, where she rests quietly with beloved sons Jennis and Lewis.
(Many thanks to Stephen Bunovsky, a John and Louisa Plude direct descendant, who inspired this article during a recent Brandon visit with his wife Elizabeth. A history teacher in Connecticut, he and his aunt Linda Kohler also provided much of the source material needed for the narrative.)
