Ernst Kolb was born in the village of Dreitzsch, near Neustadt an der Orla and Weimar, in the
Duchy of Saxen-Gotha (now southeastern Germany) on October 20, 1839. His father, Johann
Heinrich Kolb, and grandfather, Johann Friedrich Kolb, labored there in the Thuringer Forest as
charcoal burners during the early nineteenth century. Trees they cut and piled into huge stacks
having an open central vent or chimney, and covered these timber mounds with sod to regulate
the amount of air which could reach the fire kindled within. The stack was lit and allowed to
burn slowly, and at the proper time the vent holes were closed off with more sod, causing the
heat of the fire to convert unburned wood into charcoal or pure carbon instead of burning up
completely to form worthless ash. The charcoal burner lived with his smouldering pyre for days,
napping for a few moments here and there, probing the mound's depth with long iron rods to test
the process as need be. A careless moment, deep slumber, or other distractions could result in a
disastrous flareup, destroying the stack and many weeks of labor. It was a time-honored craft,
but their isolated existence caused charcoal burners to be regarded as almost a separate tribe or
culture, living away from other human beings in the dense forest with the wild beasts, the trees,
and their smoke and flame.

By mid-nineteenth century, however, the demand for charcoal was in decline as coal mines were
opened throughout Germany, and improved transportation networks made this mineral product
available at competitive prices. Amid great social unrest in Germany as a "push" factor, coupled
with rumored opportunity and prosperity in America as a "pull" factor, the Kolb family sailed for
the United States in March of 1850. Landing in New Orleans, they proceeded up the Mississippi
River, across Illinois on the old Peru canal, and travelled by rail from Chicago to Sheboygan.
From there they pressed on by wagon to the Town of Centerville, Manitowoc County, where
they joined an emerging community of Saxon immigrants who shared their dialect, their Calvinist
Reformed beliefs, and their desire to put down roots on the Wisconsin lakeshore frontier. In a
few years they sold this 40 acre farm to the Wiegand family and moved several miles west to an
80-acre farm in Town Meeme near the present village of Spring Valley.

The family included father Johann Heinrich Kolb, and mother Hanna Rosina nee Wimmler, with
their five children. Eldest daughter Christiana later married August Telgener, a police constable
of Sheboygan, with whom she raised 5 children. Ernstine married Joseph Wolters, a bookbinder
in Germany who farmed in Town Meeme, and together they raised 10 children. Elder brother
Karl marned Henrietta Oemichen, farmed within a half mile of the home farm in Meeme, and
raised 15 children. Youngest sister Karoline married Henry Schuette and they farmed in Town
Mosel, where they raised 8 children. The family was very poor, and all of the children worked
out at an early age for their board and to send back whatever they could to help pay off the farm.

At the time the Civil War broke out, Ernst Kolb was in the copper mining region near Calumet,
Michigan, where he worked for a time in a shingle mill and possibly as a stable hand in a mine's
employ. A large number of high-minded ideals often are cited as reasons for enlisting in a Civil
War regiment: to protect freedom, to free the slaves, to preserve the Union, etc. etc. In Ernst
Kolb's case, it was a simple matter of family responsibility. By 1862, the Federal government
realized that the war could drag on for years, and that building an army through volunteerism