Person:James John (1)

William (Old Billy) served in the Civil War, enlisting 15 Aug 1862 in Company I, 34th Iowa Infantry. He mustered out at Washington, DC, as a private, 18 Oct 1865.

He evidently didn’t write

home and his wife suspected he was dead. He didn’t return to Iowa until late 1866. His biography includes a story that he was assigned to President Lincoln’s security staff and even spoke to th

When he returned to Plymouth County he discovered that his wife had given birth to a

son, David and was pregnant with another. The hand, Robert Judd, was the father of both. David was taken in by his mother’s parents and appears in the 1880 census as David Judd, grandson, in the

The second child, William Sherman Laddusaw, was born in 1867, after Billy had returned, so he got Billy’s name. O ld Billy knew William Sherman wasn’t his son and he beat the boy continuously. The child does appear living with the family in 1870 as the three-year-old, named Sherman. See Attached.

So we see the two eldest children, Ruhamah and John Louis, born before 1861, then a break during the war years, when the two illegitimate boys were born, then four boys to follow, beginning in 1868 .