Gus Roberts

Augustine Brown Roberts was born February 23, 1841, in Owen County, Kentucky. He enlisted August 15, 1861, at Camp Burnett, Tennessee, and was appointed 4th Sergeant in Company D, Fourth Kentucky Infantry, Orphan Brigade. He was later promoted to 3rd Sergeant. During the battle of Shiloh on April 6, 1862, he was severely wounded in the left arm. He lay in a hospital for weeks but his arm became gangrenous and had to be amputated. As a result, Sgt. Roberts was discharged from the service on October 10, 1862. He returned home and later studied law at Bethany College in West Virginia. In 1866 he was elected county clerk in Owen County, and in 1870 was elected county judge, serving until 1874. Gus Roberts moved his family to Colorado in 1874, where he practiced law and was a prospector. The latter vocation cost him his life, as he was overtaken by a blizzard and froze to death on March 7, 1878, while traveling to Lake City to stake a claim. His remains were returned home, where they rest today in the I.O.O.F. Cemetery in Owenton. Gus Roberts was a nephew of Willis Roberts, first Captain of Company D, Fourth Kentucky, later Major of the regiment, at which post he was killed during the battle of Murfreesboro.

Sources: Thompson, Orphan Brigade (1898), p. 650; Adjutant General’s Report, Vol. 1, pp. 160-161; correspondence with Gus Roberts’ grandson, the late William R. Vanice (1990).

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