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McKINLEY, WILLIAM. 



formed in warlike things, he always took his place. 

 The night was never too dark, the weather was 

 never too cold, there was no sleet or hail or snow 

 that was in the way of his prompt and efficient per- 

 formance of every duty. When I became com- 

 mander of the regiment, he soon came to be on my 

 staff, and he remained on my staff for one or two 

 years, so that I did literally and in fact know him 

 like a book and love him like a brother." He par- 

 ticipated in the engagements at Clark's Hollow, 

 May 1, and Princeton, May 15, 1862. This point 

 was abandoned and a camp established on Flat Top 

 mountain in July, whence the regiment subse- 

 quently marched to Parkersburg, 104 miles, in three 

 days to Camp Piatt, on the Great Kanawha. Here 

 they took the cars for Washington, D. C. (which Mc- 

 Kinley now saw for the first time), and a few days 

 after their arrival joined McClellan's forces and 

 drove the enemy out of Frederick, Md., and on 

 Sept. 14 and 17 participated in the battles of South 

 Mountain and Antietam. The Twenty-third made 

 three successful charges in the first of these battles, 

 and lost heavily in both. " During the day (at 

 South Mountain) the Twenty-third," says Whitelaw 

 Reid in " Ohio in the War," " lost nearly 200 men, 

 of whom almost one fourth were killed on the field 

 or afterward died of their wounds. Only seven men 

 were unaccounted for at the roll call after the action. 

 The colors of the regiment were riddled, and the 

 blue field almost completely carried away by shells 

 and bullets." At Antietam the regiment bravely 

 held its position in the hottest of the fight. It was 

 engaged from dawn until nearly night without break- 

 fast or dinner, food or refreshment of any sort, 

 save that brought them by one of the youngest of 

 the comrades. Sergeant McKinley was in charge 

 of the commissary department of his brigade, and 

 necessarily his post of duty was with the supplies, 

 about two miles from where his famished and ex- 

 hausted comrades were fighting to hold their ad- 

 vanced position and for their lives and probably for 

 the fate of the army. As is the case in all hot 

 fights, there were some stragglers who found their 

 way back to the supplies, and these McKinley saw 

 he could utilize to get together provisions and coffee 

 and carry them to the front. This was at the time 

 when the fortunes of the battle were swaying to 

 and fro, and it was doubtful whether Antietam 

 would be a victory or a defeat. It was nearly dark 

 when suddenly there was heard tremendous cheer- 

 ing along the front of the Twenty-third Ohio. Gen. 

 Scammon sent an aid to ascertain the cause of the 

 Union cheering, and he galloped off to find that the 

 cheers were for McKinley and his coffee. He had 

 filled two wagons, and in the midst of the desperate 

 fight, with shells and bullets flying in all directions, 

 had hurried the cans of coffee and other supplies 

 to his dispirited comrades, who took fresh courage 

 after the refreshment. The mules of one wagon 

 became disabled under the terrific fire, but this 

 plucky boy of nineteen pushed on and got the other 

 wagon safely through to the regiment. Col. Hayes 

 was badly wounded at South Mountain, and when 

 he went home to Ohio to recover he told Gov. Tod 

 the story. " Let McKinley be promoted from ser- 

 geant to lieutenant," said the war Governor, and it 

 was accordingly done, his commission dating from 

 Sept. 24, 1862. In his speech at the Lakeside 

 Chautauqua, in 1891, to which reference has been 

 made. Gen. Hayes described this incident most 

 effectively. " From Sergeant McKinley's hand," 

 said he, "'every man in the regiment was served 

 with hot coffee and warm meats, a thing which had 

 never occurred under similar circumstances in any 

 other army in the world. He passed under fire and 

 delivered with his own hands these things /so essen- 

 tial for the men for whom he was laboring." Col. 



Hayes kept a diary during the war, and when he 

 went to Lakeside he hunted up the old notebook 

 and in it found this entry : ' Saturday, Dec. 13, 

 1862. Our new second lieutenant, McKinley, re- 

 turned to-day an exceedingly bright, intelligent, 

 and gentlemanly young officer. He promises to be 

 one of the best." And under later date : " He has 

 kept the promise in every sense of the word.'' 



The regiment returned to its winter quarters near 

 Parkersburg. During the year it had marched over 

 000 miles a service cheerfully borne by young 

 McKinley, although he was often footsore and 

 weary and it is said that in its entire service the 

 regiment marched more than double that distance. 

 It intercepted the Confederate raider John Morgan 

 at Buffington's Ford, July 19, 1863, and assisted in 

 the capture of that bold leader and his command. 

 In May, 1864, it took part in the battle of Cloyd's 

 Mountain, from whose summit the enemy was 

 finally driven, after a long march by what was sup- 

 posed to be an impassable route. " It was a rough 

 and trying march over mountains and through 

 deep ravines and dense woods," McKinley once 

 described it, " with snows and rains that would 

 have checked the advance of any but the most 

 determined. Daily we were brought in contact 

 with the enemy. We penetrated a country where 

 guerrillas were abundant, where it was not an un- 

 usual thing for our men to be shot from the under- 

 brush murdered in cold blood." 



\Vhjle at Camp Piatt he had been promoted to 

 first lieutenant, Feb. 7, 1863, and under his leader- 

 ship his company was first to scramble over the 

 enemy's fortifications and silence their guns. His 

 only reference to the achievement is to be found in 

 his address upon President Hayes, at Delaware, 

 Ohio, after his death, in 1893. " The advance across 

 the meadow, in full sight of the enemy," said 

 McKinley, " and in range of their guns, through 

 the creek, and up over the ridge, was magnificently 

 executed, and the hand-to-hand combat in the 

 fort was as desperate as any witnessed during the 

 war. Still another charge was made, and the ene- 

 my again driven back. On we hurried to Dublin 

 depot, on the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, 

 burning the bridges there, tearing up the track, 

 and rendering the railroad useless for the trans- 

 portation of soldiers or supplies. There the New 

 river bridge was destroyed, and then, with frequent 

 encounters, we went on to Staunton. Va." They 

 again advanced until within two miles of Lynch- 

 burg, where, after a successful encounter with the 

 enemy, the regiment camped so near them that men 

 of both sides took rails for their fires from the same 

 fence. Four days later they were attacked by a 

 superior force, which they at first repelled, but were 

 coinpelled to retire. Then began one of the re- 

 markable retreats of the war. ''All our commis- 

 sary supplies were consumed," says McKinley ; 

 " but almost without food we marched and fought 

 our way back, closely pursued by the enemy." It 

 began on June 19. near Lynchburg, and continued 

 until June 27, when a supply train was reached on 

 Big Sewell Mountain, and there, to quote Col. Hayes's 

 diary again, " we stopped and ate, marched and 

 ate, "camped about dark, and ate all night." In 

 these nine days the Twenty-third marched 180 miles, 

 fighting nearly all the time, with scarcely any rest 

 or food, and very little chance for either. They had 

 crossed three ranges of the Alleghanies four times, 

 the ranges of the Blue Ridge twice, and marched 

 several times all day and all night without sleep. 

 In this memorable expedition the Twenty-third par- 

 ticipated in engagements at Cloyd's Mountain, New 

 River Bridge, "Buffalo Gap, Lexington, Buchanan, 

 Otter Creek, Lynchburg, and Buford's Gap, but 

 finally got safely back to camp and fought under 



