East Mayo native was an American Civil War hero
LOCAL HISTORY: BY GERARD DELANEY
‘The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to Sergeant Thomas Plunkett, United States Army, for extraordinary heroism on 13 December 1862, while serving with Company E, 21st Massachusetts Infantry, in action at Fredericksburg, Virginia.
‘Sergeant Plunkett seized the colors of his regiment, the Color Bearer having been shot down, and bore them to the front where both his arms were carried off by a shell.’
So read the citation when Thomas Plunkett was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honour.
Thomas Plunkett was born in Kilmovee in October 1839. He had a brother Frank, born two years earlier.
Their parents, Francis Plunkett and Catherine Grady, married in Kilmovee Church in January 1832.
The family emigrated to America in 1844 and settled in West Boylston, Worcester County, Massachusetts. Thomas worked in a shoe factory and Frank eventually became an attorney.
When the American Civil War started, Thomas enlisted as a Corporal in the 21st Massachusetts Infantry regiment of the Union Army on July 19, 1861. He first saw combat as part of General Ambrose Burnside’s Coastal Division before it became part of the Army of the Potomac in Virginia.
He fought in the second battle of Bull Run and at the battle of Chantilly on September 1, 1862.
After that battle he captured a Confederate soldier which earned him promotion to sergeant.
Later that month he fought at the battle of Antietam and afterwards marched with his regiment to Fredericksburg with the intention of capturing that city from General Robert E. Lee’s Confederate army.
Lee’s army had already dug in at a place called Marye’s Heights and had created an impregnable stronghold at the top of a long slope which was enclosed by a well-built stone wall. The Union army charged at the Confederate stronghold in waves, losing about fifty per cent of their men in the process.
During one of the attempts to take the stronghold, Plunkett’s regiment advanced close to the stone wall, where the regimental color sergeant, Joseph Collins, was killed.
A shell then exploded close to Sergeant Plunkett and killed three of his fellow soldiers. Shrapnel ripped through Plunkett’s right arm, leaving it dangling by a piece of flesh.
Another piece of shrapnel hit his lower left arm and almost tore it off too.
Plunkett nevertheless managed to grab the Stars and Stripes banner and charged with it before a comrade took the banner, which was soaked with Plunkett’s blood.
Plunkett was taken to a makeshift field hospital where his right arm was amputated below the shoulder and his left arm was removed below the elbow.
Despite the severity of his injuries and the unhygienic conditions he slowly recovered. Eventually he went home to West Boylston where he lived comfortably on donations of over $7,000 from comrades who respected his bravery.
He was discharged on March 9, 1864.
He married Nellie Lorrimer. He had been engaged to her sister before the war but according to a newspaper account at the time ‘on his return he considered his helpless condition, and offered a release to his betrothed, which was readily accepted’.
Her sister, Nellie, was so indignant. “I will marry the brave man myself," she said, and was true to her word.
They had two sons, Thomas, who served in the First World War, and Harry, who died in his thirties. They also had a daughter Evelyn who died in infancy.
Thomas learned to write by holding a pen with his teeth and spent the last 15 years of his life working as a messenger in the State House in Boston. He received the Medal of Honor from President Andrew Johnson in 1866.
The regimental flag, which still bears his bloodstains, is kept in a basement of the Massachusetts State House in Boston. Thomas Plunkett, Kilmovee’s American Civil War hero, died on March 10, 1885, leaving an estate valued at $20,000, a princely sum in those times.
(Gerard Delaney is coordinator at South Mayo Family Research Centre).