Erasmus Keyes was an officer in the Civil War, banker, and businessman. He led the IV Corps for half of the conflict and participated in many battles, including the First Battle of Bull Run, the Peninsula Campaign, and Gettysburg.
Early Years
- Keyes was born in Brimfield, Massachusetts.
- While still young, he moved with his family to Kennebec County, Maine.
- His father was a renowned surgeon, but Erasmus preferred the military and enrolled in the United States Military Academy.
- Keyes served in Charleston Harbor during the nullification crisis of 1832–33 and served as an aide to General Winfield Scott from 1837 to 1841.
- Keyes was promoted to captain on November 30, 1841.
- He served in various garrisons until 1844 and then functioned as an artillery and cavalry instructor at West Point.
- In 1844, he was a member of the Academy's Board of Visitors.
- After his service at West Point, he was sent with the 3rd U.S. Artillery Regiment in 1854 around Cape Horn to California and served on the Pacific frontier in garrison duty and campaigns until 1860.
- While there, Keyes served in the Pacific Northwest from the winter of 1855 in the Puget Sound War.
- Keyes's artillery Company M was sent to Fort Steilacoom.
- In January 1856, he made two attempts to capture Chief Leschi but without success.
- March 4, 1856, he and 100 Regulars fought a skirmish at the White River and Muckleshoot Prairie.
- During the Spokane – Coeur d'Alene – Paloos War, Captain Keyes was sent ahead with a detachment of dragoons to establish Fort Taylor and a ferry crossing the Snake River for Colonel George Wright's army.
- In the following campaign, he commanded four companies of rifle-armed artillerymen against the allied tribes at the Battle of Four Lakes.
- Shortly after this battle, Keyes received his commission of major on October 12, 1858.
- General Scott appointed Keyes his military secretary on January 1, 1860, a position Keyes filled until April 1861.
Civil War and Later Years
- Erasmus Keyes was promoted to colonel of the 11th U.S. Infantry on May 14, 1861.
- He then served briefly on the staff of New York Governor Edwin D. Morgan until June 25, 1861, overseeing that state's raising of the militia.
- At the First Battle of Bull Run, Keyes commanded the 1st Brigade, 1st Division (Tyler), and then led Keyes's Brigade before assuming command of a division from November 9, 1861, to March 13, 1862.
- In August 1861, he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general of volunteers with a date of rank of May 17, 1861, the third-ranking brigadier general in the Army.
- On March 14, 1862, President Lincoln issued an order forming the Army of the Potomac into corps, Keyes receiving command of the new IV Corps.
- When Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's Peninsula Campaign against Richmond was organized in the spring of 1862, Keyes led in an unexceptionable fashion.
- Keyes saw action at Lee's Mill, Yorktown, Bottom's Bridge, Savage's Station, Seven Pines (Fair Oaks), Charles City Cross Roads, Malvern Hill, and Harrison's Landing. For gallantry at Fair Oaks, Keyes received the brevet of brigadier general in the regular army. After the Seven Days Battles, McClellan promoted all his corps and division commanders to the rank of major general, aside from Keyes, who did not receive a promotion and remained a brigadier general.
- When the army returned to Washington D.C. in early August, Keyes and one of the two IV Corps divisions were permanently left behind on the Peninsula as part of General John Dix's Department of the James.
- On March 12, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln nominated Keyes for promotion to the grade of major general, U.S. Volunteers, to rank from May 5, 1862, and the U.S. Senate confirmed the award on March 13, 1862.
- He also commanded the Yorktown District, VII Corps, and the division at Suffolk.
- Keyes's other actions were the raid of the White House, Virginia, on January 7, 1863, and the expedition to West Point, Virginia, on May 7, 1863.
- During the Gettysburg Campaign in 1863, Keyes fell afoul of General John Adams Dix's strategic plan to demonstrate heavily against Richmond in order to divert Confederate reinforcements from General Robert E. Lee's army in Pennsylvania.
- Keyes retreated from a position near what is now Talleysville, Virginia, in the face of what Dix deemed to be inferior forces, so Dix had Keyes removed from command.
- Although Keyes asked for an investigation of the charges that led to his removal, the request was never granted.
- He then served on various boards and commissions, including the board for retiring disabled officers from July 15, 1863, until his resignation and retirement from the army on May 6, 1864.
- Keyes moved to San Francisco after the war and became a successful businessman.
- General Keyes became a member of the California Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States - a military society of Union officers and their descendants.
- He died on a trip to Europe in Nice, France, on October 14, 1895.