Years of service 1861 - 1862 Role U.S. representative Rank Major General | Battles/wars American Civil War Service/branch Union Army Name William Keim | |
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Born June 13, 1813
Reading, Pennsylvania ( 1813-06-13 ) Place of burial Charles Evans Cemetery, Reading, Pennsylvania Allegiance United States of America
Union Died May 18, 1862, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United States | ||
Battles and wars American Civil War | ||
William High Keim (June 13, 1813 – May 18, 1862) was a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, as well as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
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Early life and career
William High Keim (a nephew of George May Keim) was born near Reading, Pennsylvania. He attended Mount Airy Military School and attained the rank of major general in the state militia.
Keim served as Mayor of Reading in 1848. Keim was elected as a Republican to the Thirty-fifth Congress to fill a short term vacancy caused by the resignation of J. Glancy Jones after Jones's defeat in the election of 1858. He was surveyor general of Pennsylvania from 1860 to 1862.
Civil War
During the Civil War, Keim enlisted in the Union Army for a term of 3 months and, due primarily to his political ties to Governor Andrew Curtin, he was commissioned as a major general of Pennsylvania Volunteers on April 20, 1861. His original term of enlistment having expired, he was honorably mustered out on July 21, 1861, and returned to Reading.
As the war lengthened and it became evident that a quick victory was not in sight, Keim decided to re-enlist, this time for a term of 3 years. Governor Curtin commissioned him as a brigadier general of volunteers on December 20, 1861. However, Keim died of typhus while in the military service at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1862. Interment was in the Charles Evans Cemetery in Reading.