Myles Keogh in Leighlinbridge, Co. Carlow, Born

Myles Walter Keogh (25 March 1840 – 25 June 1876) was an Irish soldier. He served in the armies of the Papal States during the war for Italian unification in 1860, and was recruited into the Union Army during the American Civil War, serving as a cavalry officer, particularly under Brig. Gen. John Buford during the Gettysburg Campaign and the three-day Battle of Gettysburg.

After the war, Keogh remained in the regular United States Army as commander of I Troop of the 7th Cavalry Regiment under George Armstrong Custer during the Indian Wars, until he was killed along with Custer and all five of the companies directly under Custer’s command at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876.

Myles Keogh was born in Orchard House, Leighlinbridge, County Carlow, on 25 March 1840. The farming carried out at Keogh’s home place in Leighlinbridge was arable, barley being the main crop.

This meant that the Keogh family were largely unaffected by the hunger and poverty that accompanied the Great Famine and ravaged the country between 1845 and 1850 – Keogh’s childhood days.

However, two, or possibly three, of Keogh’s siblings did die young, apparently from typhoid – a disease associated with the famine and an illness that Myles also suffered as a boy.