Read Online The Last Days of George Armstrong Custer by Thom Hatch - Free Book Online

desertions—headed into camp near Fort Wallace. Both men and mounts were in poor condition and could not return to the field until rested and resupplied. Custer had led his command to the fort, which was presently under the command of Captain Myles Keogh and Company I.
    The handsome, mustachioed Keogh was one of the more colorful officers on the Seventh Cavalry muster roles. He was born at Orchard House, Leighlinbridge, County Carlow, Ireland, on May 25, 1840. Keogh later stated on his application for a commission in the United States Army that he had attended Carlow College until the age of sixteen, when he quit for a six-month tour of Europe. During that time, he claimed to have joined the French Foreign Legion and participated in the closing stages of the Algerian Campaign.
    In August 1860, Keogh was appointed second lieutenant in the Battalion of St. Patrick, a volunteer unit that went to Italy to fight for Pope Pius IX when the Papal States were being threatened by Napoléon II and the Piedmontese. About one month later Keogh distinguished himself at the Adriatic port of Ancona when his outgunned battalion was attacked by a superior force of Piedmontese supported by artillery. Keogh’s unit repulsed several bayonet charges and drove back their enemy. For his extraordinary gallantry during this battle, Keogh was awarded the coveted Pro Petri Sede medal and the Ordine di San Gregorio (Cross of the Order of St. Gregory the Great). After the flag of the Papal States was lowered in defeat the following month, Keogh remained to serve for two years in the Papal Guard.
    This routine duty, however, was contrary to Keogh’s adventurous nature, and in March 1862 he resigned his commission and sailed for the United States. On April 1, he arrived in New York City and offered his services to the Union army. Keogh was commissioned a captain on April 9 and assigned as acting aide-de-camp to Brigadier General James Shields, another Irish emigrant.
    Keogh’s soldierly qualities soon came to the attention of General George B. McClellan, and he was assigned to the staff of the army commander. He subsequently served as an aide-de-camp to various generals and participated in such engagements as Cedar Mountain, Second Bull Run, South Mountain, Antietam, Brandy Station, Aldie, Gettysburg, and Mine Run.
    Keogh was promoted to major in April 1864. Three months later he was on the staff of General George Stoneman during a raid to liberate Andersonville Prison when his seven-hundred-man unit was captured at Sunshine Church, near Macon, Georgia. His confinement, however, was brief. He was exchanged for Confederate prisoners two months later. Keogh went on to distinguish himself in operations in southwestern Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia and was brevetted lieutenant colonel in March 1865. He was mustered out of the service on September 1, 1865, after having participated in over thirty engagements. With recommendations from several generals, Keogh joined the Seventh Cavalry on July 28, 1866, as a captain and commander of Company I.
    Most accounts relate that Keogh was a favorite of George Armstrong Custer, but, contrary to his commander, he was known to habitually drink to excess and during those times his mood became dark and combative. Alcoholism was an epidemic at isolated posts that existed without any form of nearby entertainment, and the officers and men had a habit of retiring to the officers’ club or sutler’s wagon each day after work. There is no evidence, however, that Keogh’s drinking affected his abilities as an officer.
    Keogh also has been credited as the person who introduced Custer to the Seventh Cavalry’s traditional regimental marching and battle song, “Garry Owen.” Gaelic for “Owen’s Garden,” this distinctive, jaunty, Irish quick-step tune became synonymous with Custer’s Seventh Cavalry, although when and by whom it was introduced to the unit has been the