Comments:

After the Civil War Angel Island became a major recruit-processing center for the army.  Not until 1881 did the army have anything like modern day boot camps, and soldiers were expected to learn their duties on the job.  All recruits of the period could expect from a depot like Angel Island was to be issued uniforms and be taught a few basic parade-ground formations.  As the units Angel Island supplied with reinforcements were scattered across the western states, recruits would sometimes wait for weeks before transport could be arranged for them to join their regiments.  Kerns, like the other recruits in the post cemetery, would have died before he ever had a chance to join a unit.  In April 2004 the U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs Database noted that he was supposed to have gone into the infantry.