Keogh's Grave - Then and Now

In the summer of 1877, almost a year after Custer's command was decimated at the Little Big Horn, the U.S. Army revisited the battlefield with the intention of re-burying the remains of fallen troopers and exhuming the bodies of the officers for re-interment at places of their families choosing. There was one exception - Lieutenant John Jordan Crittenden. At the specific request of his family, Crittenden was initially buried where he fell, on what became known as 'Calhoun Hill,' but his body was again exhumed in 1931 and reburied in the Custer National Cemetery adjoining the battlefield.

In his final letter to the Throop-Martin family of Willowbrook, Auburn, New York, Myles Keogh had written of his wish 'to be packed up and shipped to Auburn in case I am killed, and I desire to be buried there'. His good friend and 7th Cavalry colleague, Henry Nowlan, had expressed an opinion to bury Keogh in Louisville, Kentucky, where, as Nowlan wrote, 'he will be near many of his dearest friends'. However, Nelly Martin was determined that Myles' final wishes would be adhered to.

Lieutenant Colonel Michael V. Sheridan, General Philip Sheridan's brother, was in charge of the exhumation of the officers from the battlefield with Keogh's remains brought back to Fort Abraham Lincoln, North Dakota, from where Custer and the 7th Cavalry had initially set out from in May of 1876. Under Captain Nowlan's direction, Lieutenant Andrew Nave was responsible for tending to Keogh's remains once they arrived at Fort Lincoln and for arranging their transport to Auburn. They were subsequently removed to Willowbrook in a metallic casket with the Throop-Martin family having to pay for the transport costs once it left military property.

The funeral of Myles Keogh took place in Auburn on October 26, 1877. The Throop-Martin family -- Nelly in particular -- with whom Keogh had become friendly after his comrade General A.J. Alexander married Evelina Martin, was responsible for his burial in their Fort Hill Cemetery plot and for the design of his monument which bears an inscription from the poem 'The Song of the Camp' by Bayard Taylor -- "Sleep soldier still in honored rest, Your truth and valor wearing; The bravest are the tenderest, The loving are the daring."

At the time of the funeral, only the base of the grave monument was present. The large dramatic marble monument was being sculpted by local artist, Walter G. Robinson (1835-1906), who had a studio and funerary monument business on Walnut St., Auburn, and was completely in place within six months of Keogh's burial. We can be sure of this now as, pictured above, is the first known photograph of Myles Keogh's grave in Auburn's Fort Hill Cemetery. Specially commissioned by Nelly Martin in the spring of 1878, this photograph was sent to Keogh's sister, Margaret, in Ireland with a letter outlining how the marble cross had just been placed on the grave the day of the photograph at her [Margaret's] special request. It is believed that members of Keogh's family in Ireland wished to have some Christian symbolism permanently evident at the grave and requested the addition of a cross.

Over one hundred and thirty years later, Keogh's monument still stands although the ground in front of it has receded and marble cross has sunk lower into the soil. Two recent photographs, provided courtesy Cavanaugh's Studio of Photography in Auburn, show Keogh's grave and the Throop-Martin plot as it looks today.