Otto Nathusius: Life and Legacy of a German-American Captain (1829–1900)
By: Brett J. Derbes
Published: May 25, 2011
Otto Nathusius was born on October 16, 1829, in Koslin, Pomerania, Germany, and immigrated to New York City from London in 1850. On June 19, 1855, he married Sarah Fox in Harris County, Texas. He became a naturalized United States citizen in New York City on January 31, 1857. By 1860 he lived in Houston, where he worked as a merchant. Nathusius and Sarah had three children—Francis, Henrietta, and Berthold.
Nathusius enlisted as a captain in Company B of Waul's Texas Legion at Camp Waul near Brenham on March 31, 1862. Waul's Legion was ordered to Vicksburg shortly thereafter. Nathusius was detached to Luckett's Brigade on special assignment and returned to Velasco, Texas, by January 1863. He was promoted to major on January 2, 1864. It is presumed that he spent the remainder of the war in Texas.
Nathusius returned to Berlin, Germany, after the war and died there on May 7, 1900.
Bibliography:
Houston Tri-Weekly Telegraph, April 4, 1862. Walter D. Kamphoefner and Wolfgang Johannes Helbich, Germans in the Civil War: The Letters They Wrote Home (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006). Ella Lonn, Foreigners in the Confederacy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1940; rpt., 2002).
The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.
Brett J. Derbes, “Nathusius, Otto,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed March 09, 2026, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/nathusius-otto.
Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
TID:
FNA30
- May 25, 2011
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