August H. Gerths

August H. Gerths, also known as “Gerlhs,” was born 1841 in Holstein, Germany.

August left Germany and immigrated to America sometime before the war broke out, eventually settling in western Michigan. (By 1860 there was a 10-year-old girl named Caroline Gerths, born in Holstein, living with 32-year-old Catharine and her husband Peter Boos; Catharine had also been born in Holstein.)

He was 20 years old and probably living in Muskegon County when he enlisted with the consent of the Justice of the Peace 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 sick in the Regimental hospital in July of 1862, and admitted to a general hospital in Washington, DC, on October 14, 1862, suffering from chronic rheumatism.

August died of “chronic diarrhea” on December 9, 1862, in ward 1, bed 53, at the Patent Office hospital in Washington, DC, and was buried the same day in the Military Asylum cemetery (Soldier's Home National cemetery), Washington: section H no. 3876.

No pension seems to be available.