[2] He attended the Berlin Military Academy and after serving for some time as a Prussian Army officer and finding himself on the losing side in the Revolutions of 1848, he immigrated to the United States in 1858 and settled in St. Louis, Missouri.

When Edmund Kirby Smith surrendered the Confederate forces in the Trans-Mississippi Theater, Osterhaus was sent as Canby's representative and therefore personally signed the documents on behalf of the Union army.

[3] He was mustered out of the service on January 15, 1866, and the same year was appointed United States Consul at Lyons, France, but subsequently made his home in Germany, at Duisburg.

In 2012, a marker was erected at the old site, jointly funded by the city of Koblenz and Osterhaus descendants, including biographer Mary Bobbitt Townsend.

[4] Osterhaus is mentioned as losing a battle with Confederate cavalry led by Joseph Wheeler on the Turkey Town Monument near Gadsden, Alabama.