Born in East Flanders and later settled in Michigan. Enrolled at age forty-one, served with the 12th Michigan Infantry, endured illness during garrison duty in Arkansas, and returned to civilian life in 1865.

Petrus (Peter) Landschoot, son of Petrus Johannes Landschoot and Joanna Marie Devillers, was born on January 8, 1823 at St. Jan in Eremo, near Eeklo in the Province of East Flanders. His exact departure date to the United States is not yet known, but a copy of a certificate of militia, dated February 17, 1851, likely belongs to the final years before his emigration. It states that Peter was called for service in the 1842 lottery, but was freed from obligation in 1849, after his brother was killed while in military service.

In the United States, he married on November 25, 1857 in the St. Clement Church of Centerline, Michigan, to Miss Catherine Curley, born on December 13, 1835 in New York. The couple settled in Sterling, Macomb County—still a sparsely built area at that time—where Peter worked as a salesman.

During the Civil War, when the Northern States increasingly relied on conscription, Peter—already forty-one years old— was enrolled on October 8, 1864 in Pontiac as a private soldier. On November 11 he was assigned to Company G of the 12th Michigan Infantry.

In February 1865, Peter’s regiment was sent on garrison duty to Duvall’s Bluff, Arkansas. For the rest of winter he stood guard almost every night. The weather was rainy; the camp lay on low, swampy ground. Fatigue and climate soon took their toll. He began to suffer from chronic diarrhea and rheumatism. The doctor ordered him to the hospital, but Peter refused to go—hospital wards were dreaded places that soldiers avoided whenever possible. He was treated at the camp instead.

His condition weakened him so much that when the regiment left for Washington, Arkansas, in the spring of 1865, he fell several times on the march. An officer finally allowed him to place his gear on a wagon so he could keep walking. Peter remained in Washington until October 1865, when he was returned to civilian life in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Back home, Peter resumed his business, and later tried making barrels. He soon had to abandon that work, however, because his rheumatism made the physical strain—especially constant bending—too painful.

In 1879, he moved to Port Huron, St. Clair County, Michigan, and, as his health permitted, worked in the garden. Peter died on December 19, 1908, at Port Huron, aged eighty-five.

His wife, Catherine Curley, died on October 7, 1893. She bore him five children: Mary Ann (born July 14, 1864), Louise (May 17, 1867), John Henry (Jan. 25, 1869), Rosalie Alma (June 24, 1871), and Julia Emily (Oct. 26, 1873).