Augustus Forsberg

Augustus Forsberg (1832-1910) was a Swedish military engineer who emigrated to the United States in 1855. First settling in Charleston, South Carolina, he had strong sympathies for the Southern cause. When the Civil War began, he joined the Confederacy and was commissioned to the rank of lieutenant in the regular Confederate army 1861. Attached to the 51st Virginia Volunteer Infantry, he was elected its lieutenant colonel when the regiment was reorganized in the spring of 1862. Subsequently, promoted to its colonel, he commanded a brigade at the end of the war. Wounded at Winchester in 1864, he became a prisoner-of-war at Waynesboro in 1865. Once released, he ventured to Lynchburg, Virginia, to marry the woman he had met while recovering. They settled and made a family in the town, and Forsberg served as Lynchburg's city engineer for over twenty years.