poets and dreaded by our
statesmen, broke out in the spring of 1861. The great Civil War, which
lasted four years and cost four hundred lives for every day of its
duration, appealed to the young manhood of the country as nothing else
ever had; and while it sent many to the grave, and changed all the
scheme of life for others, it opened for still others such careers as
without it would have been impossible.

William McKinley, Jr., then eighteen years of age, was one of the first
in his town to enlist for the defence of the Republic. He became a
private in the Twenty-third Ohio infantry, and in this he was
exceedingly fortunate, as it was one of the best regiments in the
service and numbered among its officers several who became famous.
William S. Rosecrans was the Colonel, Stanley Matthews the
Lieutenant-Colonel, and Rutherford B. Hayes the Major. In the four years
of its service that regiment mustered, first and last, 2,095 men; it
marched hundreds of miles, and was in nineteen battles, and 169 of its
men were killed.

Young McKinley was one of the model soldiers of the regiment. General
Hayes said: "We soon found that in business and executive ability he was
of unusual and surpassing capacity for a boy of his age. When battles
were to be fought, or a service was to be performed in warlike things,
he always took his place." McKinley said in after years that he looked
back with pleasure upon the fourteen months that he carried a musket in
the ranks, for they taught him many things. The regiment was sent into
West Virginia, and its first engagement was at Carnifex Ferry. In the
summer of 1862 it was ordered to Washington, and a few days after its
arrival it joined the Army of the Potomac, which was then moving
northward to head off the Army of Northern Virginia, which was bent upon
an invasion of the Northern States. The crash of arms came at South
Mountain (September 14th) and Antietam (September 17th). At South
Mountain the regiment made three successful charges, and lost heavily.
Antietam was the bloodiest day of the war, more than 2,000 men on each
side were killed on the field, and the Twenty-third Ohio was in the
hottest of the fight, holding its position from morning till evening
unrelieved. Private McKinley, meanwhile, had been made Commissary
Sergeant, and his place was with the supplies in the rear. He pressed a
few stragglers into his service and got ready a dinner for the regiment,
with hot coffee, and load