August Kautz emigrated to the United States and saw action in the Mexican-American War. Afterward, he studied at West Point, served on the frontier and was wounded twice in the Civil War.
President Johnson appointed Kautz to the nine-man military commission to try conspirators of President Lincoln’s Assassination. The commission found eight conspirators guilty, and on July 7, 1865, Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt were hanged at the Washington Penitentiary. Surratt was the first female in American history to be executed.
Kautz was part of a group gathered for a meeting regarding the Union Pacific Railroad at Fort Sanders in July of 1868. Other attendees included Generals P. H. Sheridan, John Gibbon, U.S. Grant, William T. Sherman and Joseph H. Potter, Commander of Fort Sanders.