Charles Dudley spent his early manhood at his trade as a marble cutter
and in school teaching in Vermont and in Kentucky, where his outspoken
expression of his opinions on the great issue which divided the North and the
South before the war, placed his life repeatedly in danger.
When at length the South took up arms against the country he was
studying law in the office of an uncle, Hon. James M. Dudley, Johnstown N.Y.
The first train, leaving that town after President Lincoln’s first call
for troops, took him to Vermont to join his brother Vermonters is sustaining
the flag. He at once enlisted at Rutland, in Company “K,” First
Vermont Volunteer. Through the influence of Senator Foote, a resident of
Rutland, a commission in the it, preferring to serve with the troops of his
native state, through as a private in the rank.
On the expiration of the First Regiments term of three months he
re-enlisted in the Manchester company of the Fifth Vermont Volunteers, which in
the first organization of the regiment was known as the Equinox Company, of
which he was elected Captain. He was promoted to be Major Oct. 6, 1862, and was
appointed Lieutenant- Colonel May 6, 1862.
The Fifth Vermont Regiment, of which Major Dudley was an honored
officer, was one of the bravest and the most trusty in the famous Vermont
Brigade. It never flinched in any position, though often in perilous situations
and subject to serve losses. At the very outset of the 1864 campaign, in the
Battle of Wilderness, this regiment met great losses in officer and men.
One of the most serious of the casualties to the Fifth Regiment
Upton’s magnificent charge on the enemies salient at Spottsylvania Court
House, was the fatal wounding of the only remaining field officer of the
regiment, the gallant Major Dudley, who had succeeded to the command of the
regiment upon the fall of Col. Lewis. Though he was ill with a fever when the
regiment was ordered as one of the twelve picked regiments selected for
Upton’s assault, he promptly placed himself at the head, and, while
cheering on his men, received a musket ball through his up lifted right arm,
and it proved a moral injury. He never rallied from the shock, and died in the
arms of his young wife, who arrived at Fredericksburg, whiter he was carried,
but a few hours before his death. He was one of the bravest of Vermont’s
brave sons. He notably distinguished himself in several occasions, and
especially at Bank’s Ford, and at the crossing of the Rappanhannock, June
5, 1863. Few deaths in the whole course of the war occasioned deeper sorrow
among the Vermont Troops.
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