Herman Kusig - updated 7/16/2017

Herman Kusig was born on November 30, 1833, in Prussia.

Herman came to America in 1856, and in 1858 purchased 20 acres of land in Muskegon County, and an additional 40 acres the following year. By 1860 he was a shingle-maker working for and/or living with the Asa Sipps family in Ravenna, Muskegon County.

He stood 5’8” with gray eyes, brown hair and a light complexion and was 28 years old and probably still living in Ravenna when he enlisted in Company K on May 13, 1861. He was shot in the left shoulder on August 29, 1862, at Second Bull Run, and was hospitalized as of October 6 in Union Hotel hospital in Georgetown, DC. He was soon transferred to the hospital at Fort McHenry, Maryland where he remained through February of 1863. He eventually returned to the Regiment and was reported as a Corporal when he was taken prisoner on May 3, 1863, at Chancellorsville.

Herman returned to the Regiment in October, was absent on furlough from October 23 but had returned to the Regiment when he was presumably absent on veteran’s furlough, probably in Michigan, in January of 1864.

It appears that at one point while home on furlough he married Scottish-born Agnes or Ann Rose (1848-1881), and they had at least six children: Myrtle (b. 1867), Carrie B. (b. 1868), Risa C. (b. 1871), Jennie (b. 1875, Margaret (b. 1878) and Gracie F. (1880). Agnes was quite possibly a sister of the wife of John Eadie also of Company K.

Herman probably returned to the Regiment on or about the first of February. He was reported absent sick in February but had rejoined the Regiment before the spring campaign of 1864.

Herman was shot in the right side on May 6, 1864, at the Wilderness, Virginia, and on May 11 was sent to Queen Street hospital in Alexandria, Virginia. On June 7 he was transferred to Haddington hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Herman was still absent in the hospital when he was transferred as a Sergeant to Company F, Fifth Michigan infantry upon consolidation of the Third and Fifth Michigan Regiments on June 10, 1864, and on either December 20, 1864, or March 13, 1865, he was transferred to the Forty-sixth company, Second Regiment Veterans’ Reserve Corps at Mower hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was discharged from Mower hospital on June 17, 1865.

Following his discharge from the army, Herman returned to Ravenna where he farmed for the rest of his life. In 1870 he was working as a farmer and living with his wife Agnes in Ravenna and still farming and living with his wife and children in Ravenna in 1880. He was living in Ravenna in 1890.

Herman married his second wife, a housekeeper by the name of Mrs. Elizabeth Peffers Holmes (1843-1923), at the Children of Zion church in Grand Rapids, on April 11, 1888.

He received pension no. 76,598, drawing $40.00 per month by 1883 for a gunshot wound to the left shoulder. Herman was reportedly very active in local school affairs, and was a member of the Old Third Michigan Infantry Association. He was still living in Ravenna in 1894.

Herman died of paralysis of the heart in Ravenna on October 7, 1897, and was buried in Ravenna cemetery: section B, grave no. 6.

In late October Elizabeth was living in Michigan when she applied for a pension (no. 664675), but the certificate was apparently never granted. She was working as a farmer and still living in Ravenna in 1900 (she had a daughter named Maggie Quackenbush living with her as well as two farm laborers).