[1] He attended elementary school at Marne, the gymnasium at Meldorf, the Segeberg Seminary and the University of Kiel.

He won the general election and while in the Senate he focused his attention on alcohol laws, land ownership of foreign-born Iowans, and German language usage in official documents.

Rusch joined the Union Army when Kirkwood appointed him to the Commissary Department with the rank of captain.

In Vicksburg, Mississippi, he developed a plan to protect Union steamboats on the Mississippi River from guerilla attacks by positioning lumberjacks along the river to provide steamboats with fuel and to interfere in case the boats were attacked.

[1] The plan was approved by General Ulysses S. Grant and Rusch left for New York where he recruited immigrants for his lumberjack army.