The Gettysburg Campaign was a series of battles fought in June and July 1863, during the American Civil War. After his victory in the Battle of Chancellorsville, Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia moved north for offensive operations in Maryland and Pennsylvania. The Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker and then (from June 28) by Maj. Gen. George G. Meade, pursued Lee, defeated him at the Battle of Gettysburg, but allowed him to escape back to Virginia.

Lee's army slipped away from Federal contact at Fredericksburg, Virginia, on June 3, 1863. While they paused at Culpeper, the largest predominantly cavalry battle of the war was fought at Brandy Station on June 9. The Confederates crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains and moved north through the Shenandoah Valley, capturing the Union garrison at Winchester, Virginia, in the Second Battle of Winchester, June 13–15. Crossing the Potomac River, Lee's Second Corps advanced through Maryland and Pennsylvania, reaching the Susquehanna River and threatening the state capital of Harrisburg. However, the Army of the Potomac was in pursuit and had reached Frederick, Maryland, before Lee realized his opponent had crossed the Potomac. Lee moved swiftly to concentrate his army around the crossroads town of Gettysburg.

Myles Walter Keogh (March 25, 1840 – June 25, 1876) was an Irishman who fought in Italy during the 1860 Papal War before volunteering for the Union side in the American Civil War (1861 to 1865). During the war years, he was promoted from the rank of Captain to that of Major, finally being awarded the brevet rank of Lieutenant Colonel. After the Civil War ended, Keogh received a permanent commission as Captain of Company I, 7th U.S. Cavalry Regiment commanded by George Armstrong Custer during the Indian Wars of the 1870s. Myles Keogh was killed with Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876.

Myles Keogh was born in Orchard House, Leighlinbridge, County Carlow, Ireland 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 Irish Potato 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.