Ozaukee County's
War History
by Daniel E. McGinley

as extracted from THE PORT WASHINGTON STAR
May 22, 1897



Co. H, 24th Wisconsin
Personal Sketches

The writer finds it much more of task to collect data for personal sketches of his old comrades in arms than it is to collect the facts and write up the history of the organizations in which they served during the civil war. Some of the old boys are too modest, and do not like to furnish data for biographical sketches of themselves, preferring to have the heroic deeds of their comrades written up. It is with considerable difficulty that I have collected what I have, and very few of those written have furnished the required facts. This does not seem to me to be just the proper state of affairs, boys. Your deeds on the field of battle have become a portion of your country's history and such facts in regard to your lives in camp, on the march, in hospital, in prison-pen, and in private or public life before or since the war, as would interest the public, should be freely given to it, and should become a part of your record in the annals of the Nation. As soldiers of the Union and defenders of the banner of the free, you became public benefactors, and as such, the records of your life belong to posterity.

The writer regrets that he has been unable to secure a picture of Capt. Gustavus Goldsmith; and that owing to unavoidable delays, he has not yet secured data for a sketch of Capt. John N. Kiefer's life and services. But I hope to do so later.

Capt. Gustavus Goldsmith

The subject of this sketch was born in Germany on the 14th day of June, 1839. Coming to America with his parents when a child, his early youth was passed at Port Washington, where his father was a leading merchant. When the guns of Fort Sumter startled the North and called her loyal sons to arms, Gustavus Goldsmith was in the employ of the Great Western Railway, of Canada, as a mechanical engineer.

Like so many thousands of his countrymen, he saw the peril in which his adopted country was placed by the rebellion, and promptly answered President Lincoln's first call, by volunteering to fight for Old Glory. Entering one of the three months regiments, the First Michigan Infantry, he was soon on "Virginia's sacred soil," and on that eventful July day of 1861, participated in the battle of Bull Run. Next day, the wires flashed the news to his friends in the North that Gustavus was one of the killed, and they mourned his death for nearly a month, when they learned that he was living, but was wounded and a prisoner in the notorious Libbey Prison, Richmond, Va. After suffering untold and barbarous hardships in southern prisons for nearly ten months, he was finally exchanged, and returned to his home to recruit his strength.

As we have seen in the history of his company, he secured a recruiting commission in the early part of August, 1862, and opening a recruiting office in the old "Union House," Port Washington, succeeded in enlisting thirty-four of the young men of that village and vicinity, whom he took to Camp Sigel, Milwaukee, and incorporated into Company H, of the Twenty-fourth Wisconsin regiment, of which company he was commissioned first lieutenant.

Accompanying the regiment to the front, Lieut. Goldsmith was with it on its first trying march, which ended in the battle of Perryville, where his boys received their "baptism of fire." He was with it in the pursuit of the enemy to Crab Orchard; was with it on the march to Bowling Green, Ky., and to Nashville, Tenn. He was with it in the sanguinary battle of Stone River, where the Twenty-fourth displayed conspicuous gallantry; and where the boys of company H won unfading laurels. In February, 1863, he was promoted to the captaincy of the company and led it in the Tullahoma campaign; in the succeeding pursuit of Bragg's army to the Tennessee River; and in the fatiguing campaign that ended in the battle of Chickamauga.

Heroically leading his company into the vortex of death at Chickamauga, Capt. Goldsmith fell mortally wounded. The Union lines being driven back, he was left with thousands of other wounded boys in blue, to the tender mercy of the enemy. For seven long days and nights, Capt. Goldsmith laid with his unfortunate comrades on the bloody field, with but little care and little nourishment. Finally, he with others were sent into the Union lines and taken to the hospitals in Chattanooga, where his brother, Bernard, who had hastened thence from home, found him and tried to nurse back his strength, but in vain, he rapidly sinking until on the third day after reaching Chattanooga death ended his suffering, and his spirit went to join the legions of blue in the unknown camp beyond the grave.

Sorrowfully, his brother prepared his remains and bore them back to Milwaukee, where they were laid to rest in the beautiful Forest Home Cemetery, within the sound of old Michigan's moan, to sleep peacefully and in grateful remembrance, under the starry folds of Freedom's emblem, which he loved so fondly, and died to save.

"Far dearer the grave or the prison,
Illumed by one patriot name,
Than the trophies of all, who have risen,
On liberty's ruins to fame."

Henry Bichler

One of the unassuming boys of Company H, who so sturdily did his whole duty, was Henry Bichler. Born in Luxemburg, on the 26th of May, 1833, Mr. Bichler came to America twenty-two years later, and after spending one year in Erie, Penn., came to Port Washington in 1856. Having learned the tailoring trade in Europe, he has followed it for a livelihood ever since, with the exception of the time spent in the army.

When war's alarms resounded throughout his adopted country, Henry Bichler was not slow to see that it was the duty of all good citizens to stand by the Federal government, and to fight for the preservation of the Union. When in August, 1862, Gustavus Goldsmith hung out his recruiting flag in Port Washington, Mr. Bichler became convinced that the time had arrived for him to act, and closing his shop, he inscribed his name on the rolls of Company H. He marched proudly and hopefully away under the folds of the starry banner of the Union, keeping step to the wild martial music; and taking his place in the long blue line which stretched itself between advancement and anarchy, fought manfully for the perpetuation of this refuge for the oppressed of every land, until treason's banner was trampled in the dust and the bonds of the Union of states were firmly welded.

Accompanying the regiment to the front, Comrade Bichler participated in its campaigns and battles, until in the whirlwind of death at Stone River, he, with Sergt. Warling, and privates Franklin Hoyt and Charles Bisch, the latter wounded, were overpowered and taken prisoners. Fortunately for him, he was soon paroled and exchanged, and resuming his place in the ranks of company H, he faithfully served there, with the exception of two months he was sick in hospital at Lost Mountain, until the regiment was mustered out of the service.

Returning to Port Washington, Comrade Bichler again took up his trade, and is still working hard at it, striving to earn an honest competence, and to enjoy some of the prosperity which his services in the army so materially assisted in making possible in this country. Now, with the sixty-fourth year of his age nearly completed, although he still labors at his trade, the frosts of the autumn of life are silvering his once dark hair, his step is not as buoyant and agile as it need to be, and certain twinges of pain come more frequently to remind him of those never-to-be-forgotten days when he, like thousands upon thousands of others, used his energies so freely in behalf of freedom and humanity. He, like all surviving veterans of that war, is on the downward journey; and let us hope that his may be extended until far into the twilight, his name revered by his associates and all lovers of liberty.