Charles George Christopher Schasberger - updated 3/22/2015

Based on a review of pension records: 

Charles George Christopher Schasberger was born in 1832.

Charles, whose real name was George Christopher, was living in Exeter, Monroe County, when he married German native Joanna Christiana Frederika Geisler (b. 1833) on May 31, 1859, in Monroe, Michigan, and they had at least one child, a daughter Mary Christina (b. 1860). John George Schasberger testified later that he was present and assisted at the birth of Mary Christina.

It is possible that both Charles and Frederika were living in Monroe, Michigan, where their daughter was born in March of 1860.

Charles was 27 years old and living in Lansing or Monroe County, Michigan, when he enlisted in Company C on May 13, 1861. (Company C was made up largely of German and Dutch immigrants, many of whom lived on the west side of the Grand River in Grand Rapids. This company was the descendant of the old Grand Rapids Rifles, also known as the “German Rifles,” a prewar local militia company composed solely of German troopers.) He was killed in action on May 31, 1862, at Fair Oaks, Virginia, and was buried in Seven Pines National Cemetery: section B, grave 155.

In July of 1862 Frederika applied for and received a widow’s pension (no. 1286). She eventually remarried to Frederick Rapp (b. 1831 in Saxony) and was living in Grand Rapids’ 2nd Ward in 1870 when she applied on behalf of a minor child for a pension that was granted (no. 144196).