Today, we are pleased to welcome back guest author Eric Sterner
William McKinley
Quartermasters don’t usually have their stories spread nationally or warrant monuments, but William McKinley, 25th President of the Unites States, has one at Antietam. There, as a young sergeant, McKinley took the uncommon step of loading up supply wagons and bringing them through fire to feed hungry men on the battle line. As a result, Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes, commanding the 23rd Ohio and having already noted McKinley’s organizational talents, sought to promote the sergeant to lieutenant and eventually made him a staff member. It was in this capacity that one of the best Civil War McKinley stories arose from his ride through a storm of shot and shell to rescue the 13th West Virginia from isolation at Second Kernstown, July 24, 1864. As his political career blossomed, a political machine spread the story of McKinley’s ride. One hundred and fifty years after the battle, the 21st century political strategist Karl Rove used it to open his study of the 1896 presidential campaign.[i]
Our final Grant memorial poem from the Albany Evening Journal comes from August 4, 1885. The original poem appeared on page 3 of the paper, written by someone using the pen name “Fidelitas.”
