Augusta was born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1825 and received his medical education in the US, but the threat of slavery forced him to leave for Canada while he was in his late 20s. The 1865 Toronto City Directory lists him as living and working at the Central Medical Hall on Yonge Street

In 1860, Augusta decided to obtain a medical degree from Trinity College Medical School in Toronto. He never attended the school as an undergraduate - its archives show that he simply appeared on June 29,1860, wrote his exams and left.

He was awarded a degree for his effort, however, and then worked as a general practitioner in the white brick Toronto General Hospital on Gerrard Street. During his tenure in Toronto, August became the mentor of Black Canadian doctor, Anderson Ruffin Abbott, an 1857 medical graduate of the University of Toronto.
In the 1860s, with the Civil War raging in his homeland, Augusta wrote to Secretary of War EM Stanton and offered his services.