My great great grandfather William Goldsmith died in a Prison Camp in Chicago. There is a documentary sometimes shown on The History Channel about this camp called 80 Acres of Hell.
This is the family history.. The way we ended up in the Mountains of NC is that John Goldsmith, the
husband of Elizabeth Marchbanks, died in May 1825 in Simpsonville,SC (Greenville County).He is buried in the old Goldsmith Family Cemetery on the old Goldsmith Plantation in Simpsonville (yes, Plantation). The Goldsmiths were very wealthy people in SC. Elizabeth left SC, and moved to the mountains of Western NC to be close to her brother that lived there. She took their children with them, one of them being William. It would have been better for the children if they had stayed in SC, they would have inherited a lot of money and property from their Grandfather.
As it was they came to WNC. The original Goldsmith's started with William Goldsmith b.1761 in Virginia and married Elizabeth Rountree in Union Co. SC, they settled in Simpsonville, SC in the1780's.
My GG Grandfather, William was rather old when the Civil War came along. He was in his early 50's, having been born about 1812. (That of course was old in those days) He joined the army to be with some of his older sons. They made it through, even though his one son was captured and taken to Camp Douglas along with WIlliam. William died there about March 9, 1864, and is buried in the mass grave for Confederate Soldiers. On a sad note, Terrell Garren a Civil War historian informs us.."You might also be interested and saddened to know that some of the dead were just thrown off a cliff into Lake Michigan. A man named C. H. Jordan was paid a good wage to bury the dead Confederates. Since he wanted to keep all the money he bribed guards who then supplied Confederate prisoners as forced labor. For further savings these Confederates were forced to carry their own dead comrades and throw them over a cliff into Lake Michigan. Jordan was under contract to provide coffins. According to Levy, there were more dead prisoners than were actually reported. Unfortunately, some of the silt at the bottom of the lake contains the remains of our ancestors. "
