Ernest KohlerVeteran

Private Ernest Kohler was born in Germany in November 1822. He arrived in the United States in 1850 and became a naturalized citizen. Having settled in New Brunswick, New Jersey, he enlisted in Company A of the 57th New York Infantry Regiment in October, 1861. He was wounded in the leg at the Battle of Fair Oaks, Virginia in 1862. On the march from Virginia to Gettysburg in June of 1863, Private Kohler collapsed beside the road near Union Mills from sunstroke and/or his old injury. He never rejoined his unit, causing the army to consider Kohler a deserter as of June 28, 1863. He stayed in Westminster, where people later described him as "weak brained," possibly a result of the sunstroke suffered while on the march. After living in a shanty in the country, by 1900, Kohler was living at the county almshouse where he died in 1907. Ordinarily an inmate of the almshouse would have been buried in an unmarked grave in the nearby Potter’s Field. However, influential local resident Mary Shellman intervened, believing that one of the “boys in blue” should not be forgotten and offered to have Private Kohler buried in the cemetery plot she had purchased for the burial of “pauper soldiers.” Due to his status as a deserter, Private Kohler did not receive a government headstone, and his grave remained unmarked with a headstone until 2006.