My Genealogy Hound

Ferdinand Louis Gustavus is one of the men who escorted Jefferson Davis and his cabinet south on their flight from Richmond. He enlisted in 1862, in a company of cavalry, which was made up and mustered in service at Memphis, Tenn., although composed mostly of men from Phillips and St. Francis County. He participated in the battles of Shiloh, Corinth, Iuka, Atlanta, and most of the battles of his division, and was in the command of Gen. J. E. Johnston, at the time of his surrender in May, 1865. Mr. Gustavus was born in Winnebago County, Wis., April 29, 1832, and was the oldest son of John G. and Charlotte A. (Koepner) Gustavus, natives of Prussia. Mr. Gustavus was born in 1806, and was reared within fifteen miles of Berlin, being married in 1830. In 1831 they emigrated to this country, and settled in Wisconsin, where they lived until their respective deaths, in 1862 and 1864. Both were members of the Lutheran Church, and were the parents of seven children, six of whom are living: Ferdinand L., Robert, Bertie, Theodore, Maria and Henry. The paternal grandfather of our subject was a soldier under Napoleon, and held the position of lieutenant in the Prussian army. Mr. Gustavus commenced farming at the age of twenty-two in the State of Wisconsin, but moved to Arkansas in 1856, where he was engaged as an overseer in Phillips County, until his enlistment in the army. After his return from the battlefield, he purchased the farm on which he still resides. The land is well adapted to the growing of cotton, corn, clover, and small grain. He was married April 14, 1867, to Lucy A. Rives, of Phillips County, where she was born January 28, 1848, being a daughter of John H. and Jane C. (Bonner) Rives, both deceased. They had a family of eight children, seven of whom survive: Mary F. (wife of C. J. McQuien, a farmer of Lee County), Jane A. (wife of Guss Roesher, also of Lee County), John H., Augusta E., Carrie L., Hattie C. and Frederick L. Mr. Gustavus is a leading Democrat, and has served his party and the people of his township as justice of the peace for the past eight years. He has been a member of the school board of this district since 1868. He and wife and four children are members of the Missionary Baptist Church. He also belongs to the Masonic fraternity, and of the Knights of Honor. Mr. Gustavus, having farmed in the Northern States as well as the Southern States, is capable of forming a correct opinion of both localities in regard to climate, soil, and general advantages and disadvantages for those who follow farming for an occupation, and in his judgment Arkansas cannot be excelled.