When I hear it at home,
But it's not half so sweet when you're going to be kilt."
"...never till now did I know how far higher the excitement reaches, when man to man, sabre to sabre, arm to arm, we ride forward to the battle-field."
Quotes from Charles Lever's novel - 'Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon'
They had met on the staff of General George B. McClellan - two captains embarking on a fledgling military career. They would have undoubtedly met on Cunningham's Knoll over-looking the Brandy Station battlefield as Custer arrived with General Pleasonton and Keogh observed the ongoing engagements with Buford. There was probably a nod in each other's direction, maybe even a shake of hands. In the days succeeding Brandy Station, their paths may have crossed as the Union cavalry skirmished with JEB Stuart's much vaunted troops in the Loudoun Valley of Virginia throughout June, 1863 - Custer fought at Aldie, Keogh at Upperville. And yet it was to be in later years that their destinies were intertwined as officers in the 7th Cavalry.
However, the links between them were already closer than they knew. Though they came from such very different backgrounds, and had grown up an ocean apart, their boyhood imaginations had been shaped by the self-same literary influences: the military novels of Irish writer Charles Lever (31 August 1806--1 June 1872). Custer appears to have enjoyed them all equally:
"At Stebbins' Academy in Monroe young Custer applied himself with diligence -- but only to the studies that appealed to him. On the side he zestfully devoted himself to the reading of military fiction. Mr. Stebbins' supervision was good-naturedly lax, and Autie's geography would conceal well-worn copies of Lever's Charles O'Malley, Irish Dragoon or Jack Hinton or Tom Burke of Ours."The novel forever associated with Myles Keogh, however, was Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon' (Dublin: 1840-41). Many of Keogh's early biographers claim that Myles was influenced to commit to a life of military adventure due to his childhood love of this book - his inspiration to gallant deeds and the romance of war. Certainly his affection for it never waned. Years later, his fondness for it would be remembered by Edward Sanford Martin in his memoir of Willowbrook:The Custer Story by Marguerite Merington,
"I can see him now sitting in the library by the glass door reading Charles O'Malley to a circle of girls sitting around and working at something. "Charles O'Malley, the Irish Dragoon!" It never had a fitter reader than Keogh."This rollicking story of the adventures of an Irish dragoon and his servant, Mickey Free, abounds in scenes of tragedy and comedy in the romantic setting of France, Spain and Portugal. Some of the incidents are based on actual fact and the book as a whole gives an animated picture of the reckless bravery and gaiety of an Irish subaltern and his comrades in the fighting line:
"Charles O'Malley, the Irish Dragoon (Dublin: 1840-41) - Vivid, rollicking adventures of military life and hard-drinking, fox-hunting Irish society. A story of the Peninsular War, a medley of boisterous fun, humorous character, love-making, and martial adventure, many being good stories redressed. The great war amid which these scenes are enacted, and the romantic countries and inhabitants of Portugal, Spain, and France, afford a great variety of scenery, of adventure, and of comic and tragic incident -- the interest never flags for a moment. The humorous figure Major Monsoon is a real personage, who was actually present at occurrences that Lever could never otherwise have heard about."Ernest A. Baker's A Guide to Historical Fiction (London, 1914)
'The Skirmish' - an illustration from 18th publication of 'Charles O'Malley'What is insightful about the book, for its light on Keogh's character, is its breezily cynical tone -- not cynical in a bad way but just in a shrugging-the-shoulders, laughing 'that's how human nature is' kind of way. While the character, Charles O'Malley, does do a few exploits on the battlefield, he's not really a particularly dashing hero; he just sort of stumbles into and out of things almost accidentally. Very formative for Keogh may be the way the characters trot happily from one European country to another without language presenting any barrier; they all seem to switch from English to Portuguese to Spanish to whatever with total ease -- citizens of the world. That chimes so well with the way Keogh seems to have seen things in later life: perfectly happy to think of "running down" to South America or "running over" to Cuba with no hesitation at all.
Charles Lever (right) had never taken part in a battle himself but his books, written under the spur of the writer's chronic extravagance, contain some splendid military writing and some of the most animated battle-pieces on record. Lever endowed his characters with an exuberant flow of animal spirits and furnish a rapid succession of amusing and exciting incidents.Lever was the son of an English architect, born in Dublin in 1806; educated in Trinity College of that city, and afterward at Göttingen, where he became a physician. He displayed courage and skill in several parts of Ireland during the cholera outbreak of 1832. Then marrying Miss Baker, he went to Brussels and practiced among the British residents. From his own experience and the entertaining stories of retired officers who had served in Spain, he gathered the material of "The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer," "The Adventures of Charles O'Malley," and "Jack Hinton." These novels are careless in plot, but full of boisterous good humor, and describe fighting and battle-scenes with vigor. All classes of military men figure in them, from the Duke of Wellington to the reckless Micky Free.
Reputed to be one of young George Custer's (left) favourite novels was Charles Lever's 'Jack Hinton: The Guardsman'. It was reviewed thus by Ernest A. Baker's in A Guide to Historical Fiction (London, 1914); "Jack Hinton (Dublin, 1843-1844) Vol. I of Our Mess. A farrago of love-making, adventure, and rollicking humour. Full of portraits, e.g. Curran, and others nearly as well known in their day; Father Tom Loftus (sketched from Rev. Michael Comyns), a not overdrawn portrait of the jolly Irish priest; Tipperary Joe, another humorous character from low life; Corny Delaney, Mrs. P. Rooney, etc., all taken from life. 1804-1814."
Whatever Keogh's and Custer's reading habits were during the Civil War years, there would be one quote from Lever's 'Charles O'Malley' that would later resonate as they both rode towards Gettysburg in 1863 and, indeed, years later at the Little Big Horn in June 1876;
"...the veil which conceals the future seems to be removed, and a glance, short and fleeting as the lightning flash, is permitted us into the gloomy valley before us"
