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Readers are asked to re- port all cases of books marked or mutilated. Do not deface books by marks and writing. Cornell University Library E711.6 .A56 One of the people olin 3 1924 030 932 697 Cornell University Library The original of tliis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030932697 ]WcKinley and H obart Bv BVROJ^ AJ>iDSBWS M Compliments of ■ PROTECTIOr^^;^; pt/^^iJ^SiffiiSPROSPERITY | New York F. TENNYSON NEELY 114 Fifth Avenue ALL DRUGGISTS SELL IT. HAMLIN'S WtZARD OIL CURES ALL ACHES, PAINS, SORENESS, SWELLING AND INFLAMMATION FROM ANY CAUSE. Msec 60 CENTS AND $1.00 PER BOTTLC* HAMLIN'S BLOOD AND MAN-F'D ONLY HAMLIN'S COUGH LIVER PILLS BY HAMLINS BALSAM FOR HEADACHE, WIZARD BEST INDIGESTION, OIL REMEDY FOR CONSTIPATION. CO., COUGHS AND ETC. CHICACO. HOARSENESS. 25 CEMT9 I PER BOTTLE. 50 Cents per bottle. WILLIAM Mckinley. ONE OF THE PEOPLE. LIFE AND SPEECHES OP WILLIAM Mckinley, TLE Citizen, Soldier, Congressman, Governor, and Presidential Candidate. EMBRACING A COMPLETE REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF I^E ST. LOUIS CONVENTION. TO WHICH IS ADDED A BRIEF SKETCH OF GARRET A. HOBART, CAKDIDATS FOB VICB-PBESIDENT. J By BYRON ANDREWS, Author of '^Notet on the Btuto- Turkish War," "Life of John A. Logan," etc. P. TENNYSON" NEELY, ■prfRT.TCTIIJ'-D KBW YORK. ^ f^ '44s"S''^go V- Copyright, 1896 BY F. TENNYSON NEELY yy TO THOSE WHO HATE TOILED OK THE EIELD OF BATTLE. AND IN THE AETS OF PEACE TO BUILD THIS NATION, IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED THIS STORY OF THE RISE OF " ONE OF THE PEOPLE," BY THE AUTHOR. PREFACE The preparation of this work has been a pleasant task. Happy indeed is the lot of an author who is able to add a chapter to the annals of his country when his subject is a man who needs no apologist for any episode in his public or private career. Such a man is William McKinley. Born at the middle of the nation^s formative century, it has been his good tortune to have the opporunity to play a great part in the events of his generation. The inborn greatness of his character guided him to useful paths, and he proved equal to the occasion. His career is an object-lesson for the American youth. It demonstrates how worth may secure its reward; how courage, integrity, and devotion to the cause of the people may bring a man to the fullness of the honor which is the birthright of every American boy. Major McKiuley's chief characteristic is earnestness. In all that he does he is profoundly convinced of the jus- tice of the cause he favors. In politics, in religion, in his domestic life, the same honesty of purpose has been con- spicuous. He is plain and direct in his methods of thought and action. He hates casuistry. In all his pub- lic career he has spared no efEort to make sure he was right. Once certain on this point, his course has been as steadfast as the current in the streams that flow between his native hills. McKinley is the hope of the people to-day because he stands for the opposite of all they have sufEered. The vi P BE PACE. masses have seen ruiu follow when they tried an experi- ment which he opposed with all his might. Now they are anxious for an opportunity to confess that after all he was right. In this narrative the author has sought to draw inspira- tion from the character of his subject. The story is as straightforward as the man. The reader will find no effusive eulogy. The career of a country boy is followed through school- days, into the fields of battle, where he was destined to win renown, back to his books, and into that great strife of civil life in which he has also been crowned with well- earned laurels, till at last he stands before his fellow- citizens asking a further pledge of confidence. Such is the story of the rise of "One of the People." The Author. New York, July, 1896. A WORD OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT. Thb exigencies of speedy publication make it incon- venient to cumber the pages of this volume with foot- notes. It is therefore proper for the author in this place to make due acknowledgment of liis debt to others whose work he has consulted. The chief authorities to which he has resorted are the Congressional Record, published by Congress; Consular Reports, published by the Depart- ment of State; the "Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant;" "Twenty Years in Congress," by James G. Blaine; "Per- sonal Memoirs of P. H.Sheridan;" "Ohio in the War," by Whitelaw Eeid; "The Scotch-Irish in America — Re- port of Proceedings and Addresses at the Seventh Con- gress;" "Life of William McKinley," by Robert P. Porter; "The Campaign of 1884," by Thomas V. Cooper; "The Nation's Choice," a sketch by Henry Hall; "McKinley's Masterpieces," edited by R. L. Paget, "The Life of Major McKiniey," by John McElroy; and "The History of the American Tariff," by Eugene C. Lewis. The contributions to the periodical literature of the day by Roswell G. Horr, John J. Ingalls, E. Jay Edwards, Prank 6. Carpenter, and many others of the master work- men of the author's craft, have been of incalculable assist- ance. Some of these knights of the pad and pencil, alas! have handed in their last "copy" in the effort to meet the demands of an insatiate press, but most of them are living and will be found in the front rank on both sides in the impending battle. The author ventures to hope viii ACKNOWLEDOMBNT. that by way of recompense some of them may find this work a source of ready reference during the campaign. Thanks for courtesies are especially due, first to Major McKinley himself, who turned aside from greater matters to supply data asked for on several occasions; to Mr. Eobert Bonner, president of the Scotch-Irish Society of America; to Mr. T. E. Wilson, the accomplished Libra- rian of the New York World; and to Mr. George E. Howard, of Washington, D. 0. the illastrator. CONTENTS. ( CHAPTEE I. "WILLIAM m'kINLEY'S ANCESTRY AND BOYHOOD. PiOB Ohio Wearing the Mantle of Virgioia — The Growth of the New Mother of Great Men — The Scotch-Irish Race — What its Sons Have Done for Freedom in America — McKinley's Revolutionary Origin— A Warlike Great-grandfather- Soldiers, and Sons of Tubal- Cain — McKinley's Parents Niles, Ohio, his Birthplace— Bojhood at Poland— Teaches a Country School— Hears the Call for Volunteers— Joins the Poland Company — " Good- by " and off to the War, 1 CHAPTEE II. WIKNING HIS SPURS. The Twenty-third Ohio and its Noted Men — Commanded by Rosecrans and Hayes — A Fighting Record — Its Battles and Losses — McKinley one of the Youngest Men in the Ranks — The Superior Quality of the Rank and File — The First Three- Years Men from Ohio — Sent to West Virginia to Chase Guerrillas— A Fight at Carnifex Ferry — Appointed Regi- mental Commissary Sergeant — The Regiment Called to the Defense of Washington After the Union Reverses on the Peninsula — Deadly and Gallant Work at South Mountain — The Struggle at Antietam — McKinley Drives into the Line of Battle with Hot Coffee for "the Boys" — He Wins his Commission — Ex-President Hayes Tells the Story of his Gallant Conduct and How Governor Tod Received the Story — The Regiment Goes Back to Chasing Guerrillas — Takes a Hand in the Pursuit of Morgan — Promotions of the Regi- mental Officers — McKinley on Staff Duty in the Field 12 J CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. ji'kinley's work in the tear of battles. PAOK Grant's Plans for tbe Spring of 1864— An Advance from all Quarters — Crook's Raid on the Virginia and Tennessee Rail- road The Battle at Cloyd's Mountain — The Retreat — Hunter's Expedition to Lynchburg— Again Driven Back- Crook's Command Summoned to tbe Defense of Washington Attacking Early — Hayes' Brigade Barely Escapes Capture Again in the Valley — In Camp Near Winchester — The Battle at Kernstovpn as Told- by General Hastings— Mc- Kinley's Gallant Feat— He Pilots Brown's Regiment off the Pielii — Volunteers to Save an Abandoned Battery — The Brave Confederate Cavalier — McKinley a Captain — Sheridan Takes Command in the Valley — The Army Reorganized — Mc- Kinley on Crook's StafE — He Takes a Grave Responsibility at Opequan — In the Battle of Fisher's Hill — Spreads the News of Sheridan's Arrival at Cedar Creek — On Hancock's StafE — At Headquarters of the Veteran Reserve at Washington — Brevetted Major of Volunteers — Mustered Out 25 CHAPTER IV. HOME FROM THE WAR. An Empty Purse, but a Commission for Gallantry his Stock in Trade — Decides to Adopt the Law as a Profession — Studies with Judge Gliddeu at Poland and Completes his Course at Albany, N. Y.— Admitted to the Bar in 1867 — Settles at Canton — Takes an Active Part in Public Affairs — Goes into Politics — Nominated by the Republicans for Prosecuting Attorney of the County, he Surprises his Opponent by Beat- ing Him— Defeated in Turn for a Reelection, he Gains in Popularity— The Saxtou Family— A Noted Editor— The Younger Saxton a Practical Man— The Fair Cashier— The Wedding— Early Trials for the Young Wife— Mrs. Mc- Kinley's Personality — Her Charity and Good Works — The Lawyer Prospers — Announces Himself a. Congressional Candidate ...,,..,,...,.;••:••• 1 1 1 1 , , . , 47 OONTMfS. XI CHAPTEE V. m'kinlet elected to congress. PAOB A Fight for tlie Nomination — An Unprecedented Majority — Begins his Congressional Career with T. B. Keed and Other Noted Men — The Congress of the Silver Dollar — Brief Sum- mary of the Vote on the Bland-Allison Act — McKinley's First Speech in Opposition to Fernando Wood's Free-Trade Tariff Bill— An Effort to Redistrict Him Out of Congress in 1878— Elected Again and Placed on the Judiciary Committee — — The Bitter Partisan Contest in the Forty-sixth Congress — Hayes and the "Brigadiers" — The Struggle to Repeal the Election Laws by a " Rider " on an Appropriation Bill — The Tissue Ballot of the South and the New York Repeaters De- nounced by McKinley— Congress Had the Constitutional Right to Protect the Election of its Members — The People Would Not Count the Cost to Protect the Ballot-box — Law had no Terrors to Honest Men — Embarrassing Relations Between Congress and the Executive — A Time of Distrust and Distress 59 CHAPTER VI. MAJOR m'kINLEY'S RECORD OK THE CURRENCY. In Line with his Party — In Favor of Silver so far as Consistent with Sound Money — The History of the Two Dollars — The Mint Act of 1793— The Silver Dollar the Unit of Value— The Result of the Acts of 1834, 1837, 1849, 1873, 1878, and 1890— The Unit Changed from Silver to Gold- The German Empire Uses the French Indemnity to Establish the Gold Standard— The Melting and Export of the German Silver and the Decreasing Demand from India — The Fall in Silver Bullion — The Agitation to Restore Bimetallism in the Latter Part of the Seventies— McKinley's Exposition of the Money Question at Niles in 1891— McKinley's Joint Debate on Silver with Governor Campbell in October, 1891 — " We Want a Dollar as Good as Any Other Wherever Trade Goes"— Opposed to Free Coinage and Why— An luter- "^tion"! Agreement Necessary — Declaration for Sound xii CONTENTS. PAG a Money in Congrfiss in 1890 — McKinley's Denunciation of Debased Currency at Philadelpliia in 1893 — His Positive Words to tile Marquette Club in Chicago — John Sherman's Letter to the Young Men's Club of Brooklyn— Charles Emory Smith's Testimony 73 CHAPTEE VII. THE FIRST GENERAL TARIFF REVISION AFTER THE WAR. The Political Situation in 1880 — Internal Dissension in the Re- publican Kanks — The South Becomes "Solid" — McKinley Gets his Old District Again — Enters the Presidential Cam- paign asa Champion of Protection — " A Tariff for Protection with Incidental Revenue " — The Republicans Control the Forty-seventh Congress — The Tariff Commission Bill — Mc- Kinley Prefers that the House should Take Up the Tariff Revision — His Remarks on the Commission Bill— The Com- mission Submits its Report in December, 1882 — The Ways and Means Committee Prepares a Bill — The Bill Abandoned in the House on Account of Democratic Obstruction — The Conference-made Tariff Act of 1883— The Ohio Delegation Votes Against the Bill Because it Does Not Protect Wool. . . 89 CHAPTER VIII. THE ABORTIVE EFFORTS OF MORRISON AND MILLS AT " TARIFF REFORM." Republican Reverses in 1883 — The New Congress Strongly Demo- cratic — McKinley Comes Back with but Eight Majority and is Unseated — He Runs for Congress Again in 1884 and is Elected — Placed at the Foot of the List on the Ways and Means Committee by Speaker Carlisle — Free Traders Show Their Hand — The Democracy in Full Control of the Govern- ment for the First Time Since Buchanan — Morrison's '• Horizontal Bill " Assailed by McKinley — The Measure Shelved — Reelected from his Old District in 1886 — Again on the Committee on Ways and Means — The Mills Bill McKinley Writes the Minority Report — The Great Debate Upon the Bill^McKinley's Definition of the Theory and Results of Protection — An Object- Lesson in the House — Mc- Kinley Lead" *1"> I>gmocratH into a Trap on the Clothing Question — T — ., gg CONTENTS. xiii CHAPTER IX. THE FAMOUS M'KINLET BILL. PAoa The Campaign of 1888 — Chairman of Ways and Means — Hear- ings Upon the Proposed New Tariff — Summary of the Changes — McKinley's Exposition of the Bill in the House — Increased Duties Did Not Mean Increased Revenues — Price of Pottery Cheapened to Consumer by Protective Duties — Agricultural Depression in Free-Trade Countries— Danger of Competition in Farm Products — " Reciprocity that Shall be Fair "—The Wool Duty Raised— The Iron Schedule and the Industry — The British Conspiracy to Close Our Factories — The Triumph of American Tin Plate Under the Law — Free Sugar — Bounty to Encourage the Western Sugar-Beet, the Florida Cane, and the Kansas Sorghum — The Ad Valorem Equivalent Fallacy Exposed — Protective Duties Do Not Check Exports — Comparison of Commercial Growth of England with the United States — McKinley Favored Mr. Blaine's Reciprocity Suggestion — The Normal Effect of the Law on Revenues Never Demonstrated — The Two Years of Congressional Deadlock — The Cataclysm 114 CHAPTER X. m'kinlet becomes a national leadbk. A Blaine Delegate to the Chicago Convention of 1G84 — Chair- manof the Committee on Resolutions — Reads the Platform — Resumes Control of the Blaine Forces and Checks a Panic — A Sherman Delegate at the Convention of 1888 — McKinley Again Reads the Platform — Text of the Declaration — A Stampede Started — McKinley Refuses the Presidency — A Dramatic Spectacle — True to Sherman and to his Honor — Harrison the Result — Gerrymandered Out of Congress at Last — Nominated for Governor of Ohio in 1891 by Accla- mation — Chairman of the National Republican Convention in 1893— His Address to that Body— The Platform— A Rest- ive Gathering — Mr. Blaine's Last Fight for the Presi- dency Foraker's Attempt to Stampede the Convention for McKinley^McKinley Checks the Movement — Harrison Ag&iii * xiv CONTENTS. CHAPTER XL THE TWO TIDAL WAVES A'S'D THE RESULT. PAGS The Reaction of 1892— Protection Discarded— Cleveland and a Democratic Congress Elected — -McKinley Bids the Kepub- licaus to Stand Fast— The Panic of 1893— McKinley Eenomi- nated for Governor of Ohio — He Makes the Campaign a Battle for Protection — Carries the State by Over Eighty ThoQsand— The Wilson Tariil and Income-Tax Bill— The Congressional Campaign of 1894 — McKinley Called For Frona Every State in the Union — His Remarkable Tour — The Tidal Wave Again — The People Return to their Allegiance to the Doctrine of Protection — McKinley Typifies Prosperity — Ohio Proclaims him a Candidate for the Presidency in the State Convention in 1895 — The Preliminary Canvass — The States Fall Into Line — The Superstition About Popular Idols — Jackson and Grant — Why Clay and Blaine were De- feated — The Result at St. Louis a Foregone Conclusion — McKinley's Personality 153 CHAPTER XII. THE ST. LOUIS CONVENTION". Plenty of Candidates, hut no Contest —Temporary Chairman Fairbanks' Address — Chairman Thurston's Speech — The Struggle Over the Financial Plank— The Platform— Senator Allison, of Iowa, Speaker Reed, of Maine, Governor Morton, of New York, William McKinley, of Ohio, and Senator Quay, of Pennsylvania, Placed in Nomination— Tremendous Outbursts of Enthusiasm Interrupt Foraker's Presentation of McKinley's Name — A Historic Scene — McKinley Nomi- nated on the First Ballot — Garret A. Hobart, of New Jersey, and H. Clay Evans, of Tennessee, Lead in the Contest for Vice-President — Hobart Nominated on the First Ballot J70 ■ CHAPTER XIII. MAJOR m'KINLEY's ACCEPTANCE. The Nomination is Received with Satisfaction — Visiting Dele- gations and Statesmen Call at Canton — The Notification CONTENTS. X, PAGB Committee Comes with the Official Announcement from the National Convention — Senator Thurston's Address — Major McKinley's Formal Acceptance 267 CHAPTEE XIV. m'kinley's VIE^ys ok various topics. I'he Republican Party— The Protective TarifE— The New South and Protection — Constitutionality of Protection — The Wil- son-Gorman TariS Law — The Colored Men as Soldiers — The Labor Question— The Public School— The Spirit of Religion — On Counting a Quorum — The American Volunteer — Education Elevates Citizenship — The Republican Party and Civil Service — Notifies Harrison of his Renomination — Memorial Day Eloquence — Fourth of Jul.v Oration — Dedica- tion of the Ohio Building at the World's Fair 275 CHAPTER XV. m'kinley's tbibutes to national heroes. His Eulogy of Grant — Tribute to Lincoln — In Memory of Gar- field — In Eulogy of Logan — McKinley's Estimation of President Hayes 328 Sketch of Hon. Garret A. Hobart, of New Jersey, Candidate for Vice-President 357 APPENDIX. The Electoral College — Gold and Silver Produced in the United States from 1864 to 1894— Value of United States Standard Silver Dollar Measured by the Market Value of Silver from 1873 to 1894— Presidents of the United States— Vice Presi- dents of the United States.. . ,..,..., , , 363 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. William McKinley, Sr 5 Mrs. McKinley, Sr., in her Eighty-seventh Tear. 9 Marching into West Virginia 17 Over the Walls at South Mountain 21 Second-Lieut. William McKinley, 23 General Hunter 26 Back Again to the Valley 29 Gen. Jubal A. Early 33 Crook's Command Sweeps Down on the Rebel Flank at Opequan 85 Duval's Men Go In Where McKinley Orders 37 McKinley Places a Battery at Cedar Creek 41 Major McKinley at Muater-Out 45 Mrs. William McKinley.. 53 McKinley Residence at Canton, Ohio 56 Representative William McKinley, ] 877 61 Map of the Seventeenth Ohio District 63 William McKinley, Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means 115 Hon. J. C. Burrows of Michigan 123 John C. Calhoun 163 Senator John M. Thurston, Permanent Chairman 185 Major William Warner, of Missouri 205 Gen. Charles Grosvenor, of Ohio 218 Gen. D. B. Henderson, of Iowa. 221 Gen. John A. Logan, 349 Gen. J.imes A. Garfield, 343 ONE OF THE PEOPLE. CHAPTEB I. WILLIAM M'KINLEY'S ANCESTRY AND BOYHOOD. Ohio Wearing the Mantle of Virginia— The Growth of the New Mother of Great Men — The Scotch-Irish Race — What its Sons have Done for Freedom in America — McKinley's Revolutionary Origin — A Warlilie Great-grandfather — Soldiers, and Sons of Tubal-Cain — McKinley's Parents — Niles, Ohio, his Birthplace — Boyhood at Poland — Teaches a Country School — Hears the Call for Volunteers — Joins the Poland Company — " Good-by " and ( ff to the War — Mustered as a Private in the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteers. ^HE mantle of Virginia has fallen upon Ohio. As the "Old Dominion" gained the title of '"Mother of Presidents" in the infancy of the Republic, so Ohio deserves it to-day. This fertility in great men is not an acci- dent. Ohio lay next to the Alleghanies, which divided the middle colonies from the Northwest Territory, and a large section of its lands was covered by patents granted to the officers of the patriot army. Then, too, the northeastern part of the State was set off at an early day to satisfy the claims of Connecticut, in what has since been known as the "Western Eeserve." The first men and women, therefore, who went into Ohio were of good stock. When the power of the Shawnee Confederacy had been broken by the successive blows of 2 ONE OF TEE PEOPLE. Anthony Wayne and "Old Tippecanoe," the struggle to reduce the wilderness to civilization was only begun. ^ Ohio was a forest. Its early settlers did not find it, as the pioneers of the present generation have found the western prairie, ready cleared for the plow. In these Western States the glacial drift was simply buttered with the dust of the grass of ages. The hills and valleys of Ohio had to be cleared, rod by rod and foot by foot, by the most tremendous labor. It was a battle between the oak and the axman. In this struggle there was no chance for a weakling. Only the strong survived, and their children in turn inherited their strength. Sound in body, they were also sound in mind. This circumstance, coupled with great moral force, produced a race of men who have for three-quarters of a century made their mark in law, statecraft, theology, and war. It is no wonder, therefore, that Ohio has given birth to Grant, the second Harrison, Hayes, and Garfield as Presi- dents and soldiers, and that now she presents William McKinley. James and William McKinley, according to family tradition, were the progenitors of the American McKinleys. They came when boys from the north of Ireland, but their forefathers, it is said, had come from the west of Scotland. We may well understand that, with the obstinacy of the true Scotchman in the defense of his opinions, they were stout Covenanters, who would have gone to the end of the world rather than submit to restraint in religious convic- tion. Still, on the other hand, the north of Ireland people and the Scotch were really the same race, and traveled back and forth freely across the North Channel No people have made a stronger impress upon American history than the Scotch-Irish. Their first coming dates from about 1724. At that time they dominated the prov- ince of Ulster, in Ireland, and having become involved in ANCBSTRT AND BOYHOOD. 3 an irreconcilable controversy about the rates for land rents, they sought refuge in the New World. Coming into Penn- sylvania, they peopled the region now covered by Dauphin and Cumberland counties, and extending across Maryland, spread south into the Valley of Virginia, which up to that time had been neglected by the English settlers Ipho had kept to the east side of the Blue Ridge. The stream of this migration continued on southward, steadily reach- ing out into the water-courses of the Kanawha, the Broad, the Yadkin, and Catawba rivers, and finally crossing the main range to the Holston and Watauga valleys, which opened out toward the west. They spread over into Ken- tucky, too, by Daniel Boone's "Wilderness Road," until by the time the Revolutionary period was reached, they formed a stalwart buffer-race between the older settlements and the savages, from the head waters of the Ohio to the western borders of South Carolina. They formed an important contingent of Col. Henry Bouquet's command in the resist- ance to the inroads of the Indians at the time of Pontiac's Conspiracy, and when trouble arose with the mother country, they were found to be among the most, effective and willing supporters of the American cause, for which Washington gave them great credit. George Bancroft, the historian, has said: "We shall find that the first voice publicly raised in America to dis- solve all connection with Great Britain came not from the Puritans of New England, nor the Dutch of New York, nor from the planters of Virginia, but from the Scotch- Irish Presbyterians." Indeed, as soon as the news of the first 'passage at arms at Lexington and Concord, in Massachusetts, spread through the southern colonies, the Scotch-Irish of Meck- lenberg County, in North Carolina, met at Charlotte, and on May 30, 1775, adopted a "Declaration of Independence" which thev forwarded to their delegates in the Continental 4 ONE OF THE PEOPLE. Congress at Philadelphia. These Scotch-Irishmen from the Shenandoah Valley furnished the famous companies of mounted riflemen who, under Col. Daniel Morgan, a pioneer of Welsh extraction who had settled among them, did valiant duty -with the army which captured Burgoyne at Saratoga. The American force which overthrew Ferguson at King's Mountain in 1780 was composed entirely of these Scotch-Irish patriots. They also made up the intrepid expedition under George Eogers Clark, who conquered the Northwest Territory for Virginia. It was these settlers of Ulster stock who brought us the family names of Waddell, Alexander, Cochran, Miller, Brownlee, Wilson, Watson, Gardner, Paterso;j^, Hutcheson, Caldwell, Finley, Ramsay, Buchanan, Morrison, Mont- gomery, Parke, Pai'vin, Neilson, Pogue, Henderson, Breckinridge, Hamilton, Neely, Moore, 01iv«r, Orr, Max- well, Bell, Beck, Houston, Scott, Glasgow, and hundreds of others of Lowland origin, together with a list of Macs — such as the McDowells, McClungs, McKees, McElroys, McKinleys, McPheeters, McNeils, McCorkles, McCor- micks, and others whose prefix suggests the Highlands. The names of these families and their kindred dot every page of our national history. Three Presidents at least, Andrew Jackson, James Buchanan, and Chester A. Arthur, were of this blood. So were Cyrus II. McCor- mick, the great inventor; Governor Trimble, of Ohio- Sam Houston, the famous Indian fighter. President of the Re- public of Texas and United States Senator; Thomas A. Scott, the railroad president; Jeremiah S. Black, the great Pennsylvania lawyer; Andrew J. Curtin, the war govern- or; Gen. John A. Logan; and so are the Presbyterian di- vines Dr. John Hall and Dr. John R. Paxton. These people are represented to-day in this country bv silarge and influential organization called tho Scotch-Iriah 1 ANCESTRY AND BOYHOOD. Society of America, of which Mr. Eobert Bonner, of New York City, is president. The McKinley boys made tlietr appearance in the New World some time during the early part of the last century. Having arrived, their paths diverged; James McKinley, at that time it is said about twelve years of age, found himself in Pennsylvania, while his brother "William went into the southern colo- nies. With William we have nothing to do ex- cept to remark that he became the head of a numerous and influen- tial family^ which has furnished several men of more than local repu- tation. It was James McKin- ley from whom the pres ent candidate for the Presidency is descended, but his son, David McKinley, is usually referred to as the ancestor of this branch of the family. McKinley the immigrant passed through troublous times in Pennsylvania, as at that period Fort Duquesne was the far frontier, and the line which the French and their Indian allies were striving to hold against the English advance into the valley of "La Belle Eiviere." If he bore arms in the defense of the Quaker colonists, who steadfastly refused to do their own fight- ing, he at any rate had time for matrimony, for there is a record of a son being born. May IG, 1755. This son was the David McKinley above alluded to, the WM. Mckinley, se. died in 1893. e ONE OF THE P Sop LB. American-born ancestor of the northern branch of the family. Whether or not his father wont against all the traditions of his race and was a man of peace in suuh try- ing times as the old French and Indian wars, David, being in the bloom of manhood when the Declaration of Inde- pendence was signed, is to be found serving as a private in Captain McCaskey's company of the Pennsylvania troops, in which he had enlisted in the month of June that year. He seems from the record to have served twenty-one months all together, enlisting no less than eight times, in as many different companies. Upon his return from the army, in 1778, he seems to have settled in Westmoreland County, Pa., where, December 19, 1780, he married one Sarah 'Gray. The second son of this pair was James Mc- Kinley, born September 19, 1783, and he, in turn, settled in Mercer County, Pa., where he married Mary Eose. This couple were the parents of William McKinley, Sr., the father of the William McKinley who is now the center of public interest. To go back to Mary Rose, the grandmother of the sub- ject of this narrative, we find that she was the grand- daughter of Andrew Eose, a Puritan, who, having settled in Holland, finally came to William Penn's colony about the time of the arrival of its founder. He became a large landowner, as did his son, Andrew Eose, Jr., the father of I Mary. It thus happens that the blood of both the Scotch Covenanters and the English Puritans is mingled in the veins of the William McKinley of to-day. It seems that the McKinleys were true pioneers wlio moved west as fast as the road was opened for them for we find James McKinley, the son of David, settled at New Lisbon, Ohio, as early as 1809, at the time when his son William, the father of the present candidate, was an infant about eighteen months old. This William was born November 15, 1807, on a farm in Mercer County, Pa., and ANCESTRY AND BOYHOOD. i? at New Lisbon he grew np and learned the trade of an iron worker at the furnace of Gideon Hughes. It was here that old David, who was living with his grandson, died in 1840. It may be remarked before we leave this topic that although this old veteran of the Eevolution married a second time, at the age of sixty-five, all of his ten children belonged to the first wife, Sarah Gray. The present William McKinley came of fighting stock through his grandmother as well as his grandfather, for Andrew Rose, Jr., his great-grandfather, was likewise in the patriot army, but possessing great skill as an iron founder, he was sent home after the battle of Monmouth with instructions to serve his country by casting cannon- balls. The family seems, therefore, to have not only taken readily to fighting, but also to have had a taste of the craft of Tubal-Oaiu. William McKinley, Sr., married Miss Nancy Campbell Allison, January 6, 1829. Not long after his marriage he established an iron foundry at Fairfield, Columbiana County, Ohio, and he continued to be identified with the iron industry np to 1876, when he retired from business. The family was living at Niles, Ohio, in a two-story frame house which is still standing, when, January 29, 1843, William McKinley, Jr., was born, the seventh of their nine children. From Niles they removed to Poland, in Mahoning County, in order to give the children the advantage of the academy at that place, which in those days was an institution of some note in that section of the State. The elder McKinley continued with great vigor of mind and body until a short time before his death, which occurred November 24, 1892. His widow, the mother of the subject of this narrative, is still living with a daughter at the family home at Canton, at the ripe old age of eighty-seven. Major McKinley was blessed ^vUh parents of sterling 8 ONE OF THE PEOPLE!. qualities. They were industrious, frugal, and pious people. The struggle of life was sometimes hard with them, as it was with their generation, but they met its trials with fortitude, and strove to instill into their chil- dren principles of rectitude and correct ideas as to the responsibilities of life. The children were brought up to appreciate the value of education, and the parents were at all times ready to make any sacrifice for their benefit in this particular. Mrs. McKinley had a strong and passionate patriotism. Next to her God she loved her country. She believed in freedom, and was ready to offer up even a woman's most priceless jewels — her children — to save her country's flag. She had not only convictions, but the intel'ectual power to impress those around her. The Allison family had come originally from England to Virginia, and thence to Pennsylvania, and again across into the new State of Ohio. Here Nancy Campbell Allison was born, on a farm near New Lisbon, in 1809. She therefore came of the mighty race of pioneers who in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries laid the foundations of the Eepublic. It is not many parents who live to see their son's name upon a ticket for President, but it has happened before in our history. General Grant's mother survived his Presi- dential career, and James A. Garfield's mother lived to stand by his side when he read his inaugural address on the steps of the Cai)itol, and then to weep at his tomb. As March 4, 1897, draws near, the eyes of the nation will be turned with a tender interest to the venerable mother of the people's scepterless king. Of William McKinley's boyhood there is nothing dramatic to tell until its peaceful course was roughly dis- turbed by the boisterous clang of war. He was not a prodigy, neither was he, as is recorded of Richard Brinsley ANCESTRY AND BOYHOOD. Sheridan, "a most impenetrable dunce." There \% a popular belief that the "boy is father to the man," but, like many other generalities of this sort, it is conspicuous chiefly for its exceptions. In the actual history of life we often find the precocious child disappointing expectation, while a dullard astonishes his generation. Sheridan lived to become at his meridian the greatest wit of his time and one of the most polished orators in the British House of Commons. Grant was likewise rather a dull youth at West Point, and yet he developed an intel- lect that could compass an army of a million men. Unfortunately, perhaps, for the interest of the story, it cannot be said truthfully that McKinley was different from what might have been expected from his family and his surroundings. He was a mere child when he went to Poland, the very southwestern town in the Western Eeserve. The village was one of those slumbrous little places where placid sobriety and Christian contentment reign unless aroused by some appeal to moral forces. Then it awakens, and with the zeal of the Puritan or the fiery haste of a Turk it is up in arms for its principles. In the village there was, as there is to-day, the one winding street where all the people, rich and poor alike, lived and passed in and out, moving to the time-card kept by the sun. There was the village green, and the shady MRS. Mckinley, sr., in her eighty- seventh YEAR. 10 ONE OF THE PEOPLE. mid-village road led up to it. There were the village churches and the little tavern, the forum of the gossip of the country side. The most important thing in the place, however, was the academy, and it stood off to itself and away from the quiet street under whose great trees nestled the sleepy town. Here William McKinley got his education for the most part — or so much of it as he received in school. It is told of him that he was a studious, serious lad who liked his books, but also liked to hunt and fish and take his part in the sports of the village youth. He was a good boy, of a sweet disposition and gentle manners, loved and respected by all. As the family was large and their means somewhat limited, he worked during vacations to pay his own way and relieve his father of a part of the expense of books and tuition. Among other things he assisted the postmaster. At the age of six- teen he joined the Methodist Church, and he has been a consistent member of that denomination ever since. In the debating society at the academy he was always prominent and usually its president. In his seventeenth year he started for Alleghany College, at Meadville, Pa., but he soon fell ill and was obliged to leave. He decided to do what was quite a common thing — to teach a country school — and secured the position in a district about two miles southwest of the village of Poland, and walked back and forth from home each day. The winter passed, and with its passing came the gather- ing clouds of the spring of 1861. Here the career of the boy stops and the life of the man begins. Poland like the rest of the loyal North, rubbed its eyes and waked up. One day in June a meeting was held at the old Sparrow Tavern. The question was. What would the town do? There was speaking and beating of drums and an appeal for volunteers to defend the flag. It was just such a scene ANGE8TRT AND BOYHOOD. \\ as was being enacted all over the North. The people, slow to anger, rose in their wrath to strangle treason. That was the business on hand at Poland that day, and those grim descendants of Eevolutionary sires went at the task with firmness and enthusiasm. Among the rest of those boys — and they were nearly all boys — who stepped forward when the speaker asked who would go was William McKinley, Jr. Then he was pale- faced, slender, scarcely medium height, with dark-brown hair, and those deep gray eyes that are a racial peculiarity of the Irish people. His parents could have held him back perhaps, but they respected the depth of his patriotism and shared it with him. So they let him go out into that mighty struggle where men were destined to fall like sea-birds in the typhoon, and the very nation itself to gasp for the breath of life. Poland made up its company, as it always did when called upon throughout the war, and the captain and first and second lieutenants having been elected, there was an assembling on the village green, and then they left for Columbus, the busy capital, where the energetic war governor was bravely sending forward the quota of the State to the defense of the Government at Washington. CHAPTEE II. WINNING HIS SPUES. The Twenty-third Ohio and Its Noted Men — Commanded by Eose- crans and Hayes — A Fighting Record — Its Battles and Losses — Private McKinley the Youngest Man in the Ranks — The Supe- rior Quality of the Rank and File — The First Three- Year Men from Ohio — Sent to West Virginia to Chase Guerrillas — A Fight at Carnifes Ferry — Appointed Regimental Commissary Sergeant — The Regiment Called to the Defense of Washington After the Union Reverses on the Peninsula — Deadly and Gallant Work at South Mountain — The Struggle at Antietam — McKinley Drives Into the Line of Battle with Hot Coffee for ' ' the Boys " — He Wins his Commission — Ex-President flayes Tells the Story of his Gallant Conduct and How Governor Tod Received the Story — The Regiment Goes Back to Chasing Guerrillas — Takes a Hand in the Pursuit of Morgan — Promotions of the Regimental OflBcers — McKinley on Staff Duty in the Field. HEN the Twenty-third Ohio was being raised in 1861, the Government was in a desp.erate hurry to get its forces into the field to meet the exultant rebels, who, flushed with early sue cesses, proposed not only to firmly establish the Southern Confederacy, but even to capture the capital of what they derisively termed the "Lincoln Government." Little time was therefore given for drill in the manual of arms, and the Twenty-third Ohio was hastily organized at Camp Chase, in the outskirts of Columbus, by the wmmwa ma spurs. 13 assembling of the various companies which were to form it. This regiment, like the Twenty-first Illinois, which entered the service with Grant as colonel, and the Thirty-first Illinois, whose first colonel was John A. Logan, is notable in the annals of the war for the dis- tinguished men who commanded and composed it. When it entered the service in response to Lincoln's first call its first colonel was W. S. Eosecrans, one of the most brilliant strategists the war developed. He had graduated with honors from West Point, had served twelve years in the Engineer Corps of the United States Army, and had re- signed in 1854 to enter the pursuits of civil life. Although he began military service in the War of the Rebellion as colonel of the Twenty-third Ohio, his talent soon became too conspicuous to be limited to a regiment, and he was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general of volunteers and placed in charge of the Union forces in West Virginia. In this enlarged field of action he so distin- guished himself that he rose rapidly until he commanded the great Army of the Cumberland, the largest military organization on the Union side except the Army of the Potomac. The lieutenant-colonel was Stanley Matthews, who be- fore the war had risen to prominence as a lawyer, and soon after entering the service was promoted to the colonelcy of another regiment, then to brigadier-general of volunteers. After the war he served in the Senate of the United States, and closed his life as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. When the regiment was mnstered its major was R. B. Hayes, who had likewise been distinguished in the ranks of the legal profession of his State. He succeeded Stanley Matthews as lieutenant-colonel and afterward was colonel of the regiment, until promoted for gallantry in succes- sion to the ranks of brigadier-general and major-general of li ONE OF THE PEOPLE. volunteers. After the war he was elected to Congress, was three times Governor of Ohio, and finally President of the United States. Hayes was succeeded as major, lieutenant-colonel, and colonel of the regiment by James Oomly, a brilliant jour- nalist, who, after rising to the rank of brevet brigadier- general for service in the war, was appointed as Minister to the Hawaiian Islands after the return of peace. Among other men of this regiment who became prom- inent for ability was Cyrus W. i'isher, subsequently colonel of the Fifty- first Ohio. Grotius B. Giddings, a son of Senator Joshua K. Giddings, was captain of Com- pany B, aiid later was appointed to the Fourteenth In- fantry in the regular army. Eobert P. Kennedy, since Lieutenant-Governor of Ohio, was second and then first lieutenant of Company F. William 0. Lyon, who was afterward Lieutenant-Governor of Ohio, went out as first lieutenant of Company C. Harrison G. Otis, the Los Angeles editor who has since become notorious as the author of the so-called Murchison letter, which made so much trouble for Lord Sackville-West, the British Min- ister at Washington, was captain of Company H. According to the official records transcribed by Quater- master Benjamin Killan, of Cleveland, Ohio, the regiment contained first and last 2,095 men. Of this number 169 were killed in battle, and the number who died from other causes was 107, making a total loss of 276. This brings it into the list of fighting regiments of the war whose loss exceeded ten per cent, of total membership. When the regiment was mustered in there were 953 men on the rolls, and at the time of the muster-out there were 747. According to the official Ohio roster, the regiment was en- gaged in the following battles and skirmishes, viz. : Oar- nifex Ferry, September 10, 1861; Clark's Hollow, May 1, 1862; Princeton, W. Va., May 15, 1862; South Moun- wmjvmG ms spurs. 15 tain, Md., September 14, 1863; Antietatn, September 17, 1862; Buffington's Island, Ohio, in Morgan's raid, July 19, 1863; Cloycl's Mountain, Va., May 9, 1864; New River Bridge, Va., May 10, 1864; Buffalo Gap, W. Va., June 6, 1864; Lexington, W. Va., June 10, 1864; Buchanan, W. Va., June 14, 1864; Otter Creek, Va., June 16, 1864; Buford's Gap, Va., July 21, 1864; Winchester, Va., July 24, 1864; Berryville, Va., September 3, 1864; Opequan, Va., September 19, 1864; Fisher's Hill, Va., September 22, 1864; Cedar Creek, Va., October 19, 1864. McKinley's company was E, and the total number mustered into it from first to last was 201. Of these men 11 were killed in battle, 18 were captured, 13 were wounded, 36 were discharged for disability, 5 died in rebel prisons, 1 died of disease, 4 were discharged by reason of wounds, and 10 were discharged by order of the War De- partment. No deserters appear upon the list. McKinley was one of the youngest men in the regiment and company. In the company there were 92 under twenty-one years of age; 13 were twenty-two years old; 14 were twenty-three yearsold; 14 were twenty-four years old; 5 twenty-five years old ; 6 twenty-six years old ; 5 twenty-seven years old ; 5 twenty-eight years old ; 3 were twenty-nine years old, and 4 were thirty years old. There were only 9 who were forty or over. The men who composed the Twenty-third Ohio were typical of the early volunteers who responded to Lincoln's call when the flag was fired upon at Fort Sumter. They were inspired by patriotism. There were no inducements of bounty nor high pay by private individuals who wished to hire a substitute to do their fighting for them. They came from the shop, the school-house, the counting-room, and from the farm. They were the bone and sinew of the generation that gave its best blood to the cause of free- dom. They were the sons of families who had conquered 16 ONE OF THE PEOPLE. forests and bridled streams in the conquest of the wilder- ness. They were the sons of yeoman stock whose fore- fathers had wrested the nation from the domination of a foreign king. They were ideal material for an army. They brought not only the physical powers of youth and strength, but the moral force of stout hearts and intelli- gent purpose. Capt. J. 0. Robinson, of the Fifth U. S. Infantry, after- ward a major-general of volunteers and since the war commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Eepublic, mustered in the regiment. They had enlisted under the three months' call of President Lincoln for 75,000 men, but when they arrived at Columbus they found that the twenty-two regiments which was the quota of the State had already been mustered. A call for volunteers for three years' service had been made in the mean time, however, and the regiment promptly reenlisted for the three years, thus being the senior Ohio regiment on the roll of three-year men, dating from June 11, 1861. Before they took the field in actual service! Colonel Rosecrans had been promoted, and E. P. Scammon was appointed their commander to lead them into the field. They were at once started to West Virginia, their destina- tion being Clarksburg, where rebel guerrillas were infest- ing the mountains and had to be driven out. No more trying service could be asked of new troops than this. The regiment, largely composed of boys, loaded down with new and strange accouterments, was sent into one of the wildest regions in the country and submitted at once to the trials and privations incident to camp life. On July 27 they arrived at Clarksburg. The very next day they were ordered to proceed to Weston and from this point to operate against the guerrillas. They spent days and nights in marching and countermarching over the rugged hills and valleys about Rich Mountain, WINN mo HI!S SPURS. 17 often drenched by the almost continual rains of that season. In order to operate with greater facility against the scattered bands of rebels, the regiment was broken up into detachments and spent six weeks in chasing their elu- sive enemy. On September 1 the regiment was reunited at Bull- town, and thence, with the main body of General Rose- crans' army, the T w e n t y - 1 h i r d marched to Carni- fex Perry, where the rebels under General Floyd oc- cupied a strong position. On the evening of the 10th they had a shai^i skirmish and lay on their arms that night, expecting to have a battle in earnest the next day. The Confeder- ates improved the opportunity of the darkness to steal away, and the next morning it was found that they had left the field. The pursuit was begun at once, but, tiianks to a heavy rain- storm which swelled the creeks and made the streams impassable, the enemy escaped. After returning from this pursuit with only a few pris- oners as trophies of the affair the regfment went into winter quarters at Camp Ewing, on New River. This camp proved to be a very unhealthy one, and the hospital was at once filled with the young soldiers down with fevers and other malarial diseases, brought about by a new climate and MARCHING INTO WEST VIRGINIA. 18 one: of the peoplm. exposure to the elements. The winter of 1861 was spent to good advantage by recruiting and drilling the regiment, the monotony of camp life being varied by an occasional foray after small parties of rebels who showed themselves in the vicinity. In the spring the old work of clearing out West Virginia was renewed, and advancing to Princeton on May 1, the rebfls abandoned the place, leaving it in flames. On the morning of May 8 the Twenty-third was attacked by four regiments of Confederate infantry and six pieces of artillery under command of General Heth, but it fell back in good order to East Eiver. After this affair they returned to camp at Flat Top Mountain, where they endured great hardships owing to lack of supplies, which had been cut off by the rebels. They remained at Elat Top Mountain until July 13, when they were ordered to Green Meadows, on New Eiver. Orders were received on August 8 to march with all possible speed to Camp Piatt, on the Great Kanawha, and they made the distance of one hundred and four miles on foot in a little more than three days. The object of this movement was to bring General Cox's Kanawha division to Washington to resist Lee's first invasion of Maryland, after McClellan's reverses and Pope's defeat in eastern and central Virginia. In the mean time, throughout this trying West Virginia campaign William McKinley, the little private in Com- pany E, had attracted the attention of his superiors, and on April 15, 1802, he received the warrant to act as regi- mental commissary sergeant. This was a business posi- tion, and a very responsible place for an eighteen-year-old boy who only ten months before had begun to learn the trade of a soldier. After the march above referred to, in midsummer, the railroad was reached, and the Twenty-third Ohio, under Lieutenant-Colonel Hayes, hastened to the national Capital to participate in the great struggle at South WINNING HIS SPURS. jg Mountain and Antietam by which Lee was destined to be repulsed in his first campaign to invade the North. The Hon. Whitelaw Eeid, at present editor of the New York Tribune, began his journalistic career as a war correspondent, and his letters under the nom de plume "Agate" attracted wide and well-merited attention. Sub- sequently he wrote a ponderous two-volume history with infinite pains and labor, which he entitled "Ohio in the War." From this work is taken the following account of the part played by the Twenty-third Ohio in the des- perate engagements at South Mountain and Antietam; At South Mountain the regiment, under Lieutenant-Colonel Hayes (Gen. J. D. Cox commanding division), was the first infantry en- gaged, being the advance of the column of that day. It was ordered a' an early hour to advance by an infrequented road leading up the mountain and to attack the enemy. Posted behind stone walls, the enemy, in greatly superior force, poured a destructive fire of musketry, grape, and canister into our ranks at very short range and in a very short space of time. Lieutenant-Colonel Hayes, Captain Skiles, and Lieutenants Hood, Ritter, and Smith were each badly wounded (Colonel Hayes' arm broken; Captain Skiles shot through the elbow, arm amputated; Ritter, leg amputated); and over 100 dead and wounded lay upon the field out of the 350 who went into the action. The command now devolved upon Major Comly and remained with him from that time forward. The e;iemy suddenly opened fire from the left, and the regiment changed front on first company. Lieu- tenant-Colonel Hayes soon after again made his appearance on the field, with his wound half-dressed, and fought, against the remon- sirances of the whole command, until carried off. Soon after the re- mainder of the brigade came up, a gallant charge was made up the hill, and the enemy was dislodged and driven into the woods beyond. In this charge a large number of the enemy were killed with the bayonet. During the remainder of the day the regiment fought with its division. Three bayonet-charges were made by the regiment during the day, in each of which the enemy were driven with heavy loss. During the day the Twenty-third lost nearly SOO, of vfhom almost one-fourth were killed on the field or afterward died of wounds. Only seven men were unaccounted for at the roll-call after the action. 20 ONB OF TEE PEOPLE. The colors of the regiment were riddled and the blue field almost completely carried away by shells and bullets. At Antietam the regiment fought with the Kanawha division. Near the close of the day a disastrous charge was made by the division (the Twenty-third occupying the right of the first brigade), by which the left of the division was exposed to. a large force of the enemy, who suddenly emerged from a corn-field in rear of the left. The colors of the regiment were instantly shot down. At the same time a feint was made in the front. A battery in the rear opened fire on the advancing column of the enemy, by which also the national forces sustained more loss than the enemy. After a moment's delay the colors were planted by Major Comly on a new line at right angles %vith the former front, and without waiting for any further order the regiment, at a run, formed a line in the new direction and opened fire on the enemy, who for some cause retired. Little damage was done by the enemy except a few captures from the left. The division soon after withdrew, but through some inadvertency no order reached the Twenty-third, and it remained on the field until Colonel Scammon (commanding the division) came back and ordered it to the rear. Almost exhausted by several days' hard fighting, the regiment was ordered to support a battery of General Sturgis' division during Ihe night, and was not relieved until the afternoon of the next day. At Antietam the boy commissary sergeant of the T\veiity-thirci Ohio ■won his commission. He did it by an act of coolness and daring and, withal, in the practical business style which has been conspicuous in him through- out his subsequent career. In the rear of a line of battle tliere is always a mob of faint hearts who at the crucial moment are unable to stand up to their duty. It occurred to MoKinley that if these men could not fight they might at least be profitably employed. Furthermore, he knew that the soldiers who had toiled and struggled under a burning sun on that scorching line of battle would be very glad to receive some of the creature comforts of life. He therefore proceeded to press some of these stragglers into service and set them to making coffee. Then he loaded up a couple of wagons and started with those lumbering mule teams right down to the line of battle. WmmNG HIS SPURS. 21 President Hayes, in introducing McKinley, who was to address a great religious meeting at Lakeside, Ohio, Jnly 30, 1891, thus gave testimony to the services of the com- missary sergeant on that day which had sorely tried the mettle of the regiment: Ratber more than thirty years ago I first made the acquaintance of Major McKinley. He was then a boy— had Just passed the age of seventeen. He had be- /-~^ lore that taught school and was coming from an academy to the camp. He with me entered upon a new, strange life — a soldier's life — in the time of actual war. With the Twenty- third Ohio regiment Major McKinley came, the boy I have de- scribed, carrying h i s musket and his knap- sack. In every com- pany of that regiment General Rosecrans and Colonel Matthews and myself soon found there were young men of ex- ceptional character and promise. I need not go into any detail of the military history of this young man I have described. At once it was found he had unusual character for the mere business of war. There is a quartermaster's department, which is a very necessary and important department, in every regiment, in every brigade, in every division, in every army. Young as he was, we soon found that in business, in executive ability, young McKinley was a man of rare capacity, of unusual and unsurpassed capacity, especially for a boy of his age. When battles were fought or service was to be performed in warlike things, be OVER THE WALLS AT SOUTH MOUNTAIN. 22 ONE OF THE PEOPLE. always took his place. The night was never too dark; the weather was never too cold; there was no sleet, or storm, or hail, or snow, or rain that was in the way of his prompt and efficient performance of every duty. ^A'hen I became commander of the regiment he soon came to be upon my staff, and he remained upon my staff for one or two years, BO that I did literally and in fact know him like a book and loved him like a brother. From that time he naturally progressed, for his talents and capacity could not be unknown to the staff of the commander of the Army of West Virginia, George Crook, a favorite of the army he commanded. He wanted McKinley, and of course it was my duty to tell McKinley he must leave me. The bloodiest day of the war, the day on which more men were killed or wounded than on any other day of the war — observe, I don't say of any other battle, stretching over many days, but any one day — was September 17, 1863, in the battle of Antietam. That battle began at daylight. Before daylight men were in the ranks and preparing for it. Without breakfast, without coffee, they went into the fight, and it continued until after the sun had set. Early in the afternoon, naturally enough, with the exertion required of the men, they were famished and thirsty and to some extent broken in spirit. The commissary department fof that brigade was under Sergeant McKinley's administration and personal supervision. From his hands every man in the regiment was served with hot coffee and warm meats, a thing that had never occurred under similar cir- cumstances in any other army in the world. He passed under fire and delivered, with his own hands, these things, so essential for the men for whom he was laboring. Coming to Ohio and recovering from wounds, I called upon Governor Tod and told him this incident. With the emphasis that distinguished that great war governor he said, " Let McKinley be promoted from sergeant to lieutenant," and that I might not forget, he requested me to put it upon the roster of the regiment, which I did, and McKinley was promoted. As was the case, perhaps, with very many soldiers, I did not keep a diary regularly from day today, but I kept notes of what was transpiring. When I knew that I was to come here, it occurred to me to open the old note-book of that period and see what it contained, and I found this entry: " Saturday, December 13, 1862. — Our new second lieutenant Mc- Kinley, returned to-day — an exceedingly bright, intelligent, and gentlemanly young officer. He promises to be one of the best," He has kept the promise in every sense of the wo^cl, wmmm sis spurs. 23 So the beardless private became a second lieutenant of Company D September 23, 1863, and twenty years after- ward, when he became Governor of Ohio, one of his first acts was to order an oil portrait of Governor Tod to be hung on the wall in the executive chamber. Gen. J. L. Botsford, of Youngstown, Ohio, the quarter- master of McKinley's regiment, who was present at An- tietam, has also written a brief account of McKinley's exploit on that day. In narrating the circumstance he says: At the battle of Autietam McKinley was the commissary sergeant of the Twenty-third Regiment 0. V. I., and his duty was, of course, with the com- missary supplies, which were at least two miles from the battle-field proper. As you no doubt are aware, in all battles, whether large or small, there are numerous stragglers who easily find their way back to where the commissary supplies are. This was the case at Antietam, and McKinley conceived and put into execution the diea of using some of these stragglers ^^^^^'^ m"kinley^^'^ ^"^' to make coffee and carry it to the boys in front. It was nearly dark when we heard tremendous cheering from the left of our regiment. As we had been having heavy fighting right up to this time, our division commander, Gen- eral Scammon, sent me to find out the cause, which 1 very soon found to be cheers for McKinley and his hot coffee. You can readily imagine the rousing welcome he received from both officers and men. When you consider the fact of his leaving his post of security and driving into the middle of a bloody battle with a team of mules, it needs no words of mine to show the character and determination of McKinley, a boy of, at this time, about twenty years of age. Mc- Kinley loaded up two wagons with supplies, but the mules of oue wagon were disabled. He was ordered back time and again, but he pushed right on. 24 ONE OF THB PEOPLE. When Lee had been driven back from his nnsuccessfnl raid the Twenty-third Ohio returned to its old work of chasing guerrillas over the mountains of West Virginia. After a good deal of fruitless marching they reached Clarksburg in the middle of October, and here several changes were made in the command. Colonel Scamm-on was appointed brigadier-general, Lieutenant-Colonel Hayes was made colonel, and Comly lieutenant-colonel. On November 18 they went into winter quarters at the Falls of the Great Kanawha, having during the campaigns of 1S63 marched over six hundred miles. The coming win- ter, however, brought somewhat lighter duty, and the regiment did not renew its activity until March 16, 1863, when it was ordered to Charleston, where it lay in camp until July without seeing much field service. During the latter month the regiment was hurried over to the Ohio Eiver to help capture Morgan's raiders, whose escapades in the Buckeye State had put southern Ohio into a con- dition of lively excitement. At Buffington Bar, on the Ohio Eiver, they succeeded in heading off Morgan's band and picking up a number of his guerrillas. After this incident they returned to Charleston, W. Va., where they remained in camp during the rest of 1863, and up to the preparations made by Grant in the spring of '64 for the final crushing of the Confed- eracy. In the mean time McEinley continued to be as active as ever, being promoted to first lieutenant of Company E in February, 1863, and serving with that rank during that year. When Hayes had been made colonel and placed in command of the first brigade of the Kanawha division he had taken the young ofiBcer on his staff as brigade quar- termaster, having evinced a fondness for him from au early period of his service. CHAPTER III. m'KIXLEY'S work IK THE YEAR OF BATTLES. Grant's Plans for the Spring of 1864— Crook's Raid on the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad — Hunter's Expedition to Lynchburg — Summoned to Washington — Attacking Early — The Battle at Kernstown — McKinley's Gallant Feat— McKinley a Captain — McKinley on Crook's StafE — He Takes a Grave Responsibility at Opeqaan— In the Battle of Fisher's Hill— On Hancock's StafE— Brevetted Major of Volunteers — Mustered Out. HE year 1864 brought work for every- body. Grant had been appointed to the command of all the armies of the Union, and prepared for a sys- tematic advance from all quarters. The Army of the Potomac was to cross the Eapidan, Sherman was to set out from Chattanooga, and there were several contemporary move- ments planned for the minor armies in conjunction with the grand on- slaught by Meade and Sherman. Among other tasks set for the Union commanders, Gen. David Hunter was to move against Lynchburg. Before the Kanawha division joined Hunter, however. General Crook had a little excursion of his own in order to break the Virginia and Tennessee Eailroad. This movement was started the regiment, after ten days of hard marching and occasional skirmishes, found themselves on April 29, and 36 ONE OF TEE PEOPLE. ^vith the rest of Crook's command face to face -with the euemy at Cloyd's Mountain. Mr. Eeid in his history gives the following spirited account of this affair: In this engagement the Twenty-third was on the right of the first brigade. About noon they were ordered to charge the enemy, who occnpied the first crest of the mountain with artillery and infantry, btbWid rudely constructed breastworks. The hill itself was thickly wooded, steep and dilficult of ascent, and was skirted by a stream of water from two to three feet deep. The ap- proach was through a beautiful meadow five or six hundred yards in width. At the word of command the reg- iment advanced at double-quick acrossthe meadow, under a very heavy fire of musketry and artillery, to the foot of the mountain across the stream. The regiment advanced steadily to this point without returning the fire of the enemy, and after a short pause a furious assault was made upon the enemy's works, carrying them and capturing two pieces of artillery, which were brought off the field by Lieutenant Austin. The euemy fell back to the second crest or ridge of the mountain, where a deter- mined attempt was made to form a line, but after a short struggle he was driven from there in full relroat. Reenforcements arriving on the field, a third attempt was made to make a stand, but unsuccess- fully. The struggle at the guns was of the fiercest description. The rebel artillerymen attempted to reload their pieces when our line was not more than ten paces distant. Private Kosht, Company G, a re- GENERAL HUNTER. THB TEAR OP BATTLES. *l^ cruit eigliteen years of age, was the first to reacli tbe guns. Witb a boyish sbout lie sprang from tlie ranks and hung his hat over the muzzle of one of the guns. It was after several more brisk skirmishes and a great deal of hard marching that the Twenty-third Kegiment joined Hunter at Staunton on June 8, and on the 11th, the three years' service having expired, most of the regi- ment reenlisted. Hunter's Lynchburg expedition got his command into trouble. The object of the raid was not accomplished, and in fact no sooner had his command reached the "vicinity of Lynchburg than they found they were heavily outnumbered, and that the only thing to do was to beat a retreat with as little loss as possible. They were forced oS to the west and obliged to make their way back to tlie valley by a long detour down the Kanawha and up the Ohio. In this retrograde movement Crook's command, with which was Hayes' brigade, took the lead, Crook commanding in person. Throughout this march McKinley acted as staff officer and participated in the perilous duties of the affair. That the command bad great difficulty in extricating itself, the diary of an officer which is quoted by Mr. Eeid amply shows. This account gives so vivid a picture of the retreat that it will be read with interest. It runs as follows: June 19.— Marched all day, dragging along very slowly. The men had nothing to eat, the trains being sent in advance. It is al- most incredible that men should have been able to endure so much, but they never faltered and not a murmur escaped them. Often men would drop out silently, exhausted, but not a word of complaint was spoken. Shortly after dark, at Liberty, had u, brisk little fight with the enemy's advance; reached Buford's Gap about 10 a.m. of the 20th. General Crook remained here with Hayes' brigade, hold- ing the Gap until dark, inviting an attack. The army was, how- ever, too cautious to do much skirmishing. After dark we withdrew and marched all night to overtake the command in advance. Reached 28 ONE OF THE PEOPLE. Salem about 9 a.m. Hunter had passed througt Salem, and a body of the enemy's cavalry fell upon liis train and captured the greater part of Lis artillery. About the same time Crook was attacked in front and rear, and after a sharp fight pushed through, losing noth- ing. Heavy skirmishing all day, and nothing to eat and no sleep. Continued the march until about 10 P.M., when we reached the foot of North Mountain and slejrt. At 4 a.m. next morning (23d) left in the advance, the first time since the retreat commenced. By a mis- take a march of eight miles was made for nothing. Thus we toiled on, suffering intensely with exhaustion, want of food, clothing, etc. Men all crazy. Stopped and ate; marched and ate; camped about dark and ate all night. Marched one hundred and eighty miles in the last nine days, fighting nearly all the time, and with very little to eat. The column, after reaching Charleston on July J, rested until the 10th, when CrooK's command was summoned to Martinsburg to chase Early out of Maryland and Pennsyl- vania. They remained at Martinsburg until the 18th and then set out to march to Cabletown, ten miles, from Harper's Ferry, where they encountered the enemy's pickets. Here under command of General Hunter, Crook himself being absent, Hayes' brigade was sent in without cavalry and with only two sections of a howitzer battery to attack Early's army, which outnumbered them six to one. That they even barely escaped a trip to Andersonville Prison reflects great credit upon General Hayes and the fighting qualities of his command. They marched toward Harper's Ferry, and on July 22 they Joined Crook at AVin- chester. Near here occurred on the 24th, at Kernstown, an engagement which resulted disastrously to Crook's com- mand. In this engagement McKinley distinguished him- self again for gallantry, as has been told in an account of the events of the day written by Gen. Eussell Hastings, for many years after the war a prominent resident of Ber- muda, but now living at St. Paul. In this narrative Gen- eral Hastings said : THE YEAR OF BATTLES. 29 *The Union forces were commanded by Gen. George Crook: the Confederate forces by Gen. Jubal Early. It is not pleasant work for one who participated in a defeat to re- count those hours, yet no one can be better informed than he wlio saw each movement of the command. To lead up to this battle, I feel it necessary to begin at the time Gen. Jubal Early was menac- ing Washington, twelve days before the battle, when he had his whole army close up to the works north of the city on July 11 and 13. For two days he stood before our national Capital challenging the Union troops to combat. General Grant soon made such disposi- tion of troops, by send- ing from the Army of the Potomac, before Richmond, the Sixth and Nineteenth Army Corps, as caused Early to leisurely retreat to- ward the Shenandoah Valley, by way of Poolesville, Md., Ed- ward's Ferry, on the Potomac, and Lees- burg, Va., reaching Snicker's Gap in the Blue River on the 17th, and crossing the Shenandoah at Snick- er's Ford they went in- to camp on the west bank. The Sixth and Nineteenth Corps as leisurely followed, and at or near Snickers Gap united with one division of General Hunter's in- fantry (Thoburn's) which had Just arrived from the Kanawha Valley over the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. On the afternoon of the lyth Thoburn's division was ordered to cross Snicker's Ford and attack Early, but the Sixth Corps, which was to support Thoburn, not com- ing into action as expected, the latter was driven back through the stream with considerable loss. On July 19 General Early retreated southward on the road toward Strasburg, safely carrying wjth hiui all the plunder he had gathered over Maryland and Pennsylvania, while the whole Union army, con- » From E. P. Porter's Life of McEinley. BACK AGAIN TO THE VALLEY. So ONE Oil' THE P BOP LB. sisting of tUe Sixtli and Nineteenth Corps and Hunter's command, which had but lately arrived from the Kanawha Valley, was massed in the vicinity of Berryville and Winchester, quite a formidable army, some 20,000 strong. At this time it was supposed by General Grant that General Lee had ordered Early with the main body of his veteran army to Rich- mond, and Grant, needing the Sixth and Nineteenth Corps with him before Richmond, ordered them to Washington on their way. This left in the valley to confront the Confederates only Hunter's com- mand, consisting of the Eighth Corps, commanded by Gen. George Crook, some 6,000 in number, with a brigade of nondescript troops made up of dismounted cavalrymen and decimated infantry regi- ments. Such troops were naturally demoralizing to any command. In addition to this infantry was some cavalry under Generals Averill and Duffie, some 2,000 strong. In the Eighth Corps was a. brigade commanded by Gen. Ruther- ford B. Hayes, and it is of the part taken by this brigade in the bat- tle of Kernstown that I propose to relate. The brigade was formed as follows: First Brigade, Second Division, Eighth Corps, Gen. Rutherford B. Hayes commanding; Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Col. J. M. Comly; Thirty-sixth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Col. A. I. Duval; Fifth West Virginia Infantry, Col. E. H. Enochs; Thirteenth West Virginia Infantry, Col. William Brov/n. The brigade staff was as follows: Col. Joseph Webb, surgeon; Capt. Russell Hastings, adjutant-general; Lieut. William McKinley, Jr., quartermaster; Lieut. B. A. Twiner, ordnance; Lieut. A. W. Delay, commissary; Lieut. O. J. Wood, aid. General Crook's Eighth Corps, much fatigued and worn, had just returned from a raid to Lynchburg, close to Appomattox, where General Lee surrendered his army in April, 1865. We now felt, with Early and his veterans well off on their way to Richmond, with no enemy of any considerable force in our front, that we should have a few days of much-needed rest. From ApriU30 up to this date we had made a raid to the New River Bridge, in southwestern , Virginia, another to Lynchburg, marching in these raids over eight hundred miles, often out of food, short of clothing and shoes, were on the skirmish-line daily, either advancing or retreating, and had fought four hard-contested battles. Directly after the close of these raids we had been moved with inconsiderate haste from the Kanawha Valley, near the Kentucky line, to this valley, by forced marches THE YEAR OF BATTLES. 31 on steamboats on the Ohio River, and on freight cars on the Balti- more & Ohio Railroad, with no opportunity for sleep or rest. Gen- eral Crook had now advanced his little army to Winchester, going into camp just south of the town, where there is one of those noted springs of the valley gushini; out from a crevice in the limestone rock in sufficient quantities to furnish power for a large flouring mill. Here we rolled ourselves in our blankets upon the luxuriant grass under the shade of large oak trees, and slept away the night and a large part of two delightful days. On Sunday morning, July 34, our " resting-spell " came to a sud- den close. While at Inspection on this bright, sunny Sunday morn- ing, the sound of cannon, well out on our front toward the south, was heard. Usually such sounds did not worry us, as our cavalry was always " banging away" with the artillery attached to them. We did not, though, this morning like the sound of it, for to a veteran's ear the frequency of the discharges was such as seemed to mean work before us. Soon cavalry couriers came in from the front, bringing word to General Crook that our cavalry outposts on the valley pike, some ten miles south of Wincliester, were being driven in by seemingly a large force. General Crook, still relying on the former information that Early was well off on his way to Richmond, did not feel the necessity of immediately moving out and forming line of battle, but as courier after courier arrived with the additional report of large bodies of the enemy's infantry being seen, he finally ordered all his troops to advance to the front and form line of battle at the little hamlet of Kernstown, some four miles south of Winchester. This ground had already been made historic, as here General Shields met Stonewall Jackson in 1862 and repulsed him. At about noon Crook had formed all his available troops in line, with his First Division on the extreme right, extending to the Romney pike, with his nondescript brigade of dismounted cavalry and infantry next and the Second Division on the left, Hayes' bri- gade occupying the extreme left, extending east of the valley pike out into some open fields, where a view of the country could be had for a mile or more to our left. The Thirteenth West Virginia Infantry, of Hayes' brigade, was posted in an orchard some five hundred yards to the rear and left to act as a reserve. At this moment Crook discovered he had been deceived about Early's march for Richmond. On July 23 Early had halted at Stras- burg, and there learning that the Sixth and Nineteenth Corps had ■withdrawn toward Washington, and that the forces occupying Wir\- 32 ONE OF THE PEOPLE. Chester were only those of Crook, about one-third his numbers, had determined to return and crush him without delay. Several historians have made an effort to show that General Early was hardly fitted for the position he occupied as commander of the Confederate forces in the valley. The Union army before him, on the contrary, found him always watchful, alert, ready to seize upon such an opportunity as now presented itself: a hard fighter, full of vim and subtle cunning, able to maneuver his troops in such a way as completely to deceive our commanders. Even after General Sheridan assumed command in the valley, with an army more than three times larger than General Crook had on tliis day, there was much marching and countermarching, much maneuvering for an ad- vantage, before Sheridan thought it prudent to attack, but when he d.id attack he gave Early a crushing blow. The battle opened with sharp firing all along the line, our artillery on rising ground at our rear firing over our heads, the enera}''s artillery replying, with their shells exploding ajiiong us. How could we hope to win a battle when so largely outnumbered? On the Union side was only Crook's little corps, some 6,000 strong, com- bating the whole of Early^s army. The Confederate infantry line e.K- teijded far beyond us on our left, and still beyond that could be seen Confederate cavalry covering the country for a mile or more and rapidly driving back our cavalry in great confusion. Although our infantry could probably manage to keep back the Confederates in our front, this rapidly advancing line on our left, with nothing whatever to oppose them, would soon ingulf us. At this moment the nonde- script brigade broke in great confusion, leaving a sad gap in our center. Then, and not till then, and not until the eneiuy in our front was severely punished, did Hayes' brigade turn .ind fall back, with but trifling confusion, in the direction of Winchester, maintaining our organization then and throughout all the afternoon. Now came hurrying times for staff officers. Orders had to be carried in all directions. To one would be given orders to gallop rapidly to the rear and try to form a guard line to stop the stragglers: to another to go to the rear and order the wagon train in full retreat toward Martinsburg; to another to go to that battery and order it rapidly to form and unlimber on that adjacent ridge, and play with rapidity upon the advancing enemy with shot and shell; to another to direct the ambulance train down the pike, and so on until this class of officers became scarce. Crook was at one time without a staff officer about him, having already borrowed of Hayes several and still he had need for more. GEN. JUBAL A. EARLY, Confederate Commander in the Valley. 34: ONE OF TEE PEOPLE. Just now it was discovered tbat one of the regiments was still in the orchard where posted at the beginning of the battle. General Hayes, turning to Lieutenant McKinley, directed him to go for and bring away this regiment if it had not already fallen. McKinley turned his horse and, keenly spurring it, pushed it at a fierce gallop obliquely toward the advancing enemy. A sad look came over Hayes' face as he saw this young, gallant boy pushing rapidly for- ward to almost certain death. McKinley was much loved in the command — a mere boy at the beginning of the war, who had left his college, his expectation for the future, all, everything, willingly to serve his country and his flag in their dire need. With wonderful force of character, then, true, pure, noble, and brave, he had, by reason of his ability and wonderful power with men even much older than himself, risen from the ranks to become a. noted staff officer, and later was called to the staff of General Crook, and so on up to General Hancock's headquarters, and for his many brave acts and conspicuous gallantry was by President Lincoln brevetted major. Hayes loved him as father loves a son, and only imagine what must have been his feelings when the necessities of the moment de- manded that he should order this boy to do this dangerous work. None of us expected to see him again as we watched him push his horse through the open fields, over fences, through ditches, while a well-directed fire from the enemy was poured upon him, with shells exploding around, about, and over him. Once he was completely enveloped in the smoke of an exploding shell, and we thought he had gone down; but no, he was saved for better work for his country in his future years. Out of this smoke emerged his wiry little brown horse, with McKinley still firmly seated and as erect as a hussar. Now he had passed under cover from the enemy's fire, and a sense of relief came to us all. Thus far he was all right, but we knew his danger was really but just beginning, for the enemy was still coming on, though not with the fierce energy with which he had attacked the main line a few moments before, no doubt feeling the need of cautious approach, for Crook at this time had planted several batteries on the ridge near by, which then were doing effective work. McKinley gave the colonel the orders from Hayes to fall back, say- ing, in addition: " I supposed you would have gone to the rear with- out orders." The colonel's reply was: " I was about concluding I would retire without waiting any longer for orders. I am now ready to go wherever you shall lead, but, lieutenant, I p'intedly believe I ought to give those fellows a vollejf or two before I go." McKin- THE TEAR OF BATTLES. ley's reply was, " Tlien up and at them as quickly as possible," and as the regiment arose to its feet the enemy came on into full view. Colonel Brown's boys gave the enemy a crushing volley, following it up with a rattling fire, and then slowly retieated toward some woods directly in their rear. At this the enemy halted all along Brown's Immediate front and for some distance to his right and left, no doubt feeling he was touching a secondary line, which should be approached with all due caution. During this hesitancy of the enemy McKinley led the regiment through these woods on toward Win- chester. As Hayes and Crook saw this regiment safely off they turned, and following the col- umn, with it moved slowly to the rear, down the Winchester pike. At a point near Winchester McKinley brought the regiment to the column and to its place in the brigade. McKinley was greeted by us all with a hap- py, contented smile — no effusion, no gush- ing palaver of words, though all of us felt and knew one of the most gallant acts of the war had been per- formed. As McKinley drew up by the side of Hayes to make his verbal re- port, I heard Hayes say : " I never expected to see you in life again." During such scenes as these were our friendly ties knitted, and can you blame us if in our grizzled veteran age the tears will sometimes spring to the eye when we greet each other after a long separation ? The battle was over, and now began a well-organized retreat, so far as Hayes' brigade was concerned, with the enemy's infantry pushing us from the front and the cavalry harassing us on right and left. Our wagon train was well off toward Martinsburg, and we CROOK'S COMMAND SWEEPS DOWN THE REBEL FLANK AT OPEQOAN. 36 ONE OF THE PmPLB. knew our brigade could take care of itself, no matter how hard Early should push us. We had good, strong legs, plenty of ammunition, and we certainly could march just as rapidly as Early's infantry could follow; and as for the cavalry, no matter where they attacked, right, left, or rear, we could with a few well-directed volleys scatter them. All this long, fateful afternoon we marched down the pike, first through Winchester town, where the faces of the inhabitants in- stantly informed us on which side of the cause were their sympa- thies. The jubilant faces largely outnumbered the sad ones. One dear old Quaker lady, whom we all knew, stood at her gate as we passed. Tears were running down her cheeks, and we knew thej were caused by sympathy for our misfortunes. For her own safety, with her Confederate neighbors looking on, we dared not make any effusive display of our sorrow at her condition, but McKihley in his great kindness of heart reined his horse to the curbstone and in a low voice said; " Don't worry, my dear madam. We are not hurt as much as it seems, and we shall be back here again in a few days." A smile directly spread over her face, and her heart was made almost happy by these timely spoken words. During most of the afternoon we were marching in line of battle on the east side of the pike. Occasionally, though, after we had given the pushing infantry of the enemy a reminder that there was still some pluck left in us, we would change the column to route march, and on the pike make good time to the rear. After we were past Winchester the infantry annoyed us very little, but the cavalry harassed us more or less during the afternoon. I will relate an incident of the afternoon which occurred some eight miles north of Winchester, to show that valor did not reside alone on either side, that we were brethren of the same Anglo-Saxon lineage, of like characteristics, and the two armies, each in the other, found " a foe worthy of their steel." Some Confederate cavalry had, while we were marching to the rear in line of battle, formed column and charged down upon what had now become our right and front. On they came with the usual Confederate yell and sabers drawn. This was a frightful sight to men who a few hours before had be- come somewhat demoralized by the onset at Kernstown, but not a thought of fear was seen upon the faces of the men. Cavalry to them was a mere pastime, and with a few well-directed volleys poured at the charging columns, with many empty saddles this cavalry broke and fled away in great confusion. Only the officer in THE YEAR OP BATTLES. 37 command charging at tlie head of liis troops did not flee, but con- tinued right on, veering to his right; he kept at a respectful distance from us, riding the whole length of our line. We discovered that his horse was running away with him, and the only guiding power he had was exerted to prevent the horse from running into us. Very little firing was directed upon him during these moments, as every one watched with interest his efforts. Finally he stopped his horse and, turning, retraced his steps in the direction where liis troops were disappearing over a hill. This again carried him along tlie front of our line. An occasional shot was fired at him, but now the word passed along our line, " Don't shoot — he is too brave to kill," and instead a cheer broke forth, to which he responded by taking off his hat and bowing in the most cavalier style. He soon gained the crest of the hill, seemingly unhurt, halted a moment, anrl again saluting us turned away and passed out of sight. After this incident we were not again disturbed by the cavalry. Perhaps alik- ing for us had sprung up in this ofBcer's breast, and he felt he would no longer, at least for this day, quarrel with us. I have often hoped I might, during the peaceful days after the war, meet that officer and talk things over. We now changed our column into route march and, walking along the pike, settled down to comparative peace, each man beginning to hunt in his haversack for a stray bit of hard tack which might hap- pen to be there. Up to this time there had been but little oppor- tunity to think of food. It was now nearly dark, and while plodding along, wondering where we would find the balance of the command and the wagon train, so we might go into camp, we discovered that DUVAL'S MEN GO IN WHERE McKINLEY ORDERS. 38 ONE OF TBE PEOPLE. some time during the afternoon tbere had been a stampede of our wagon train and several wagons had been abandoned and left on the pike. Quick investigation was made for food, but finding none, a jolly fire was kindled in each wagon, and they were soon reduced to ashes or so disabled that they would be wholly useless to the enemy. Further along the pike we found a battery of artillery, consisting of four guns with their caissons, which had been abandoned and left for peaceable capture by the enemy. Here, again, McKinley showed his force of character and indomit- able will-power. He asked the privilege of carrying away these guns, thus saving them from the enemy. It did not, with the ex- hausted condition of our men, seem practicable, yet he insisted it could be done, and he thought his regiment, the Twenty-third, would gladly aid him. Hayes, with a smile, said: "Well, Mc- Kinley, ask them." Ooing first to his old company (E), he called for volunteers; all stepped out to a man, and, the infection spreading, soon the whole regiment took hold of these guns and caissons and hauled them off in triumphal procession. When we went into camp that night long after dark this artillery captain was' found and the guns were turned over to him. He cried like a baby. Now this fearful day was over, and in a drizzling rain, dinnerless and supperless, we wound ourselves in our blankets and slept soundly until morning. Our losses were very heavy. Hayes' little brigade of 1,700 men alone lost one-fourth of its number in killed and wounded, and most of the wounded were left in the enemy's hands. The balance of the command lost in nearly the same proportion. The cause of the dis- aster was simply that we were outnumbered three to one, and the surprise is that we were not^all captured, as General Early antici- pated. Considerable effort was made at that time to impugn the bravery of Crook's Eighth Corps in this disaster, but a noted and unbiased historian has said the following, which I quote with much pleasure: " Crook's troops had campaigned too well at Cloyd's Mountain and during Hunter's march to Lynchburg to be disgraced by this en- counter; and while some of them, chiefly the recent additions, had proved of little value, it must be remembered that whatever efforts had been made to challenge Early's retreat from Washington were the work of this command. Their defeat was not strange, for the force soon after assembled in the valley as needful to match Early was thrice Crook's at Kernstown." THE TEAR OF BATTLES. 89 On July 25, the day after his heroic exploits at Kerns- town, McKinley was made a captain. On the 36th the command began a series of marches and countermarches, which was kept up until the middle of August, with frequent fighting whenever the constantly moving enemy was struck. Things had not been going in the valley to suit General Grant. He was at the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac, away to the south, and communication with Washington was frequently broken and at all times uncer- tain. Secretary Stanton was directing the political for- tunes of the Administration, and his judgment was influ- enced by the eflect of military operations upon the ap- proaching fall elections. Most of all he dreaded a Union defeat in the valley and the loss of Washington. It thus happened that General Hunter was so hampered that Early was practically protected from any effort to give him a crushing blow. Finally, during the first week in August General Grant decided to go to Washington in person and put things in condition to stop the game of fox-and-geese which Hunter and Early had been playing up and down the Shenandoah Valley. Ever since the be- ginning of the war this region had been the scene of con- stant movements, backward and forward, by the hostile forces, with the advantage always ultimately on the side of the rebels. Banks, Shields, Siegel, and Hunter had proved equally ineffective in the effort to hold the valley and keep the Confederates from constantly raiding northward i-nto Maryland and Pennsylvania and threatening Washington. All this time the fertile fields of the Shenandoah had been feeding Lee's army. To stop all this Grant wanted to put a fighting general in command, and President Lincoln sided with him. He had named Sheridan for the com- mand, this ofiScer having added greatly to his renown iu 40 ONE OF THE PEOPLE. the West by his operations as chief of cavalry of the Army of the Potomac in the campaign against Richmond. The authorities at Washington did not share Grant's confidence in Sheridan, mainly on account of his youth, and perhaps also, in a measure, because his reputation for driving straight at the enemy had carried with it the feaif that he might be too rash for a command upon which it was felt the success of the Union cause itself might de- pend. It is not the province of this work to cover a general history of the year of battles, but fortunately the two great commanders have themselves left a priceless contri- bution to the literature of posterity in their own simple stories of the mighty events of those closing days of the struggle for the Union. In brief, the result of Grant's visit to the seat of government was the consolidation of the various departments around Washington under one head, to be known as the Middle Military Division, with Sheridan as commander. Hunter, with a patriotism for which Grant has given him unstinted credit, retired to make way for the new chief. The result of Sheridan's coming to the command of the combined Union forces about Washington has passed into history with the annals of Opequan, Fisher's Hill, and Cedar Creek. Sheridan at once advanced up the valley, and Early drew in his straggling commands and concentrated to face him along Opequan Creek, where the armies en- camped within watching distance of each other. Sheri- dan reorganized his army, whose grand divisions consisted of the Sixth Army Corps under General Wright, the Nine- teenth Army Corps under General Emory, and the Army of West Virginia, of which Gen. George Crook was placed in command. General Torbert commanded the cavalry es- cort, with Merritt and Averill as division commanders. THE TEAR OF BATTLES. 41 Eiitherford B. Hayes was at the head of the first brigade of the Second Division of Crook's army, with which was McKinley s regiment. When Crook was given this com- mand, however, on August 9, he had taken McKinley, now a captain, from Hayes' staff and attached him to his own, where from this time forward until near the close of the war he held the position of acting assistant adjutant- general. In this capacity he served through Sheridan's campaign in the valley. He seems never to have had the knack of keeping out of danger, for in the successive skirmishes that preceded the first death-grapple of the giants at the battle of Opequan he was frequently under fire. In the sharp little night engage- ment which Hayes' command had with Early's outposts at Berryville on September 3, McKinley had his horse killed under him. Sheridan has borne testimony in his memoirs to the serv- ices of Crook's army at Opequan. For a month the hos- tile armies had confronted each other, and finally, as the result of the information furnished to him by Miss Re- becca Wright, of Winchester, to the effect that a part of Early's army had been withdrawn by Lee to the forces de- fending Eichmond, Sheridan decided to strike. At dawn on September 19 the blow was delivered. Crook's com- mand was in reserve, but much valuable time having been lost in getting the troops into position to make the main attack, the reserves were soon brought into action, being MoKTNLET PLACES A BATTERY AT CEDAR CREEK. 42 ONE OP TSE PEOPLE. sent to the right to take the Confederates in flank. The advance was made through an almost impenetrable growth of cedar and by crossing a swampy stream. Supported by the cavalry they emerged from the timber, and advancing rapidly across two or three open fields they came face to face with the enemy's infantry, who at once opened a galling fire, accompanied by a battery of artillery. Crook's men advanced at the double-quick, and without being seriously checked swept the enemy before them, go- ing over his works and contributing, as Sheridan planned, to his complete demoralization. Sheridan in his memoirs says: Crook's success began the moment he started to turn the enemy's left; and assured by the fact that Torbert had stampeded the Con- federate cavalry and thrown Breckenridge's infantry into such dis- order that it could do little to prevent the envelopment of Gordon's left, Clock pressed forward without even a halt. Both Emory and Wright took up the fight as ordered, and as they did so I sent word to Wilson, in the hope that he could partly perform the work origi- nally laid out for Crook, to push along the Senseny and if possible gain the valley pike to the south of Winchester. I then returned to- ward my right flank, and as I reached the Nineteenth Corps the enemy was contesting the ground in its front with great obstinacy; but Emory's dogged persistence was at length rewarded with success just as Crook's command emerged from the morass of Red Bud Run and swept around Gordon toward the right of Breckenridge, who, with two of Horton's brigades, was holding a line at right angles with the valley pike for the protection of the. Confederate rear. Early had ordered these two brigades back from Stevenson's Depot in the morning, purposing to protect with them his right flank and line of retreat, but while they were en route to this end he was obliged to recall them to his left to meet Crook's attack. Sheridan had not intended originally to put in Crook until after Early had been shaken from his position, when he had expected to use Crook's forces to cut him'off in his flight up the valley. THE TEAR OF BATTLES. 43 In the midst of all this fierce struggle Captain McKin- ley had been flying back and forth with Crook's orders to his brigade and division commanders, and so well did he acqnit himself that when he got his commission as major, the name of Opequan was mentioned as an occasion where he had distinguished himself for bravery and meritorious j conduct. One incident of the day which has been told by an eye- witness illustrates the firmness of character thus early de- veloped in McKinley as a stafE officer in a very responsible position. He was sent by Crook with verbal orders to General Duval to move his division into action. When Duval received the order, not knowing the country, he said: "By what route shall I move my command?" Cap- tain McKinley replied: "I would move up this creek." Duval then sajid: "I will not budge without definite orders." McKinley replied: "This is a case of great emergency, general. I order you, by command of Gen- eral Crook, to move your command up the ravine to a po- sition on the right of the army." Duval went in as McKinley directed and came out in the right place. It was a tremendous responsibility for a youth to take the fate of a division in his hands, but as his good judgment was demonstrated by the result, he re- ceived commendation for the service. When he reported what he had done to his chief he was told that it was all right, since the movement had turned out successful, but that if it had resulted differently it would have been all wrong. After the battle of Opequan Sheridan pursued Early up the valley until he found the Confederate Army drawn up in a strong position on Fisher's Hill, at a point between Massanutten Range and Little North Mountain. The po- sition was too strong to assault in front, and he decided to again use Crook's forces to flank Early out of position in 44 ONE OF THE PEOPLE. much the same way that Sherman employed the Army of the Tennessee in his operations from Chattanooga to At- lanta. Crook's command was moved under cover of the woods around on the eastern slope of the Little North Mountain, while the rest of the army made a demonstra- tion in front waiting for his attack, and completely de- ! ceiving the Confederate commander as to Sheridan's real intentions. Crook's movement was carried out to the letter, and _ the result was that before the rebels knew what Sheridan was about, he pounced upon their rear and left flank, and the battle was won almost in a moment. This engage- ment was conducted with much more precision and less slaughter on both sides than the previous battle. This was on September 22, and Early again retreated up the valley with Sheridan's army in pursuit. McKinley was still on Crook's staff throughout the en- gagement and made himself useful as usual — so much so, indeed, that Fisher's Hill was also mentioned in his com- mission as brevet major as an occasion when he showed conspicuous gallantry. Sheridan was disappointed in not capturing and destroy- ing Early's army when it was routed at Fisher's Hill, by the failure of Torbert and Averill, who had been expected to intercept the enemy's flight. The result was further maneuvering and fighting by the cavalry for almost a month. After a pursuit as far as Harrisonburg Sheridan fell back down the valley, destroying the forage, and finally drew up on the north side of Cedar Creek. In the mean time a discussion by telegraph was going on as to the fu- ture movements of Sheridan's army, and the result was that he was summoned to Washington by Halleck for per- sonal consultation. What happened is too well known to recount here. In the new position Crook's command held the left flank of the Union army, and under cover of a THE TEAB OF BATTLES. 45 deuse fog at daylight ou the morning of October 19, the Confederates swept down on his camp and threw the Union army into confusion. Sheridan tells the story in his own simple and lucid language in his memoirs. How he started from Winchester with the distant sound of ar- tillery ringing in his ears, and how he arrived on the field and turned the tide of battle, changing defeat into vic- tory, is one of the most dramatic episodes in the nation's history. When he arrived at Newtown, near which point a por- tion of our demoralized army was still making a stand against the forces of the triumphant Confederates, he says in his memoirs that he met _ Major McKinley, of Crook's staff, who spread the news of his arrival among the dis- organized soldiers, who were crowded together at this point. ^McKinley had just been engaged in placing Du- pont's battery in a favorable position by command of Gen- eral Crook. It was on his way back from the performance of this duty that he met Sheridan. The latter passed hurriedly from one side of the field to the other, and finally, when some two hours later, at the suggestion of Colonel Forsyth, he decided to ride down the line so that all the troops might see him, McKinley again happened to be with the group of officers that surrounded him. Sheridan threw off his overcoat and appeared in a new uni- form which he had donned to present himself at the War Department in Washington. He handed his new epaulets to McKinley in the hurry of the moment, and mounting MAJOB Mckinley at MUSTER-OUT. 46 ONE OF THE PEOPLE. his black horse Eienzi, still white with dust and foam, hat in hand, followed by his staff, he rode down the front cf the re-formed army, greeted with the wildest enthusiasm as regiment after regiment and hrigade after brigade rose with cheers of welcome and waving battle- flags. The heart of the army had come back, and at the word of command they leaped to the charge and swept Early's army out of the valley never to return. This day was also mentioned inMcKinley's commission. He remained on Crock's staff until after the latter's mishap in being captured ^with General Kelley, in West Virginia, when he was detailed to the staff of General Han- cock, commanding the department. Later he was as- signed to the staff of Gen. S. S. Carroll at Washington, where he remained until after Lee's surrender at Ap- pomattox in April, 1865. On March 13, a month before the war was over, he was brevetted major, and without see- ing any more fighting was mustered out of the United States service on July 26. Thus closes the military experience of the boy who had proved himself equally worthy to carry a musket or wear a gword in the defense of his country's flag. CHAPTER IV. HOME FROM THE WAR. An Empty Parse, but a Commission for Gallantry his Stock im Trade — Decides to Adopt the Law as a Profession — Studies with Judge Qlidden at Poland and Completes his Course at Albany, N. Y. — Admitted to the Bar in 1867— Settles at Canton — Takes an Active Part in Public Affairs — Goes Into Politics — Nominated by the Republicans for Prosecuting Attorney of the County and Surprised his Opponent by Beating Him — Defeated in Turn for a Reelection, he Gains in Popularity — The Saxtou Family — A Noted Editor-^The Younger Saxton a Practical Man — The Fair Cashier — The Wedding — Early Trials for the Young Wife — Mrs. McKinley's Personality — Her fJharity and Good Works — The Lawyer Prospers — Announces Himself a Congressional Candidate. lAJOE McKINLEY returned from the army with the usual fortune which follows the honest soldier. He had a crown of laurel and an empty purse. That he had been a good soldier was attested by an au- thority which no patriotic American will question, for in his pocket he carried a commission which dubbed him, when he had scarcely reached his majority, with the rank of brevet major of the United States volunteers, "for gallant and meritorious services at the battles of Opequan, Cedar Creek, and Fisher's Hill." It was signed by Abraham Lincoln. Th#war was over. He had settled up his accounts at 48 ONE OF TEE PEOPLE. Cumberland, Md., and received his discharge with the rest of the Union armies in 1865. The question was what to do. Life was before him. His friend Gen. S. S. Carroll urged him to enter the regular army, assuring him tJiat it was an easy nratter for a young officer with his rep- utation to secure the commission. Indeed, the valiant warrior of many a battle-iield promptly oflEered to guar- antee that the commission would be forthcoming. Here was a temptation which might have swerved many a weaker man. We had arrived at a time of peace. Life as an officer of the regular army was an assurance of a com- petence. It involved no risk in the turmoil of business strife, and the chance of personal perils was remote. It was a temptation that a cautious young man would have considered long and well. The young major, however, was made of different stuff. If there were no fighting tu do, why be a soldier? It was contrary to the spirit of his Scotch-Irish ancestry, who would rather plow the fields of peace than loll in idle camps. He decided not to linger, toying with temptation of this sort, but to take the braver course and boldly to plunge into that greater battle whore men strive for pref- erence and honor, aided only by inherent ability, integ- rity, and earnest effort. First he went home to Poland to see his father and mother and the brothers and sisters whom he had left in the quiet little village when he answered the call to de- fend the flag of his country. That there were long and serious consultations about the future Ave may well sup- pose, and finally it was decided that he should enter the field where so many other American boys had made for themselves an enduring name and ample fortune. He chose the law. Bending himself earnestly to the work as soon as his de- cision had been made, he secured a place in the office of BOME PROM THE WA tt. 49 Judge Charles E. Glidden, the leading lawyer of the County, and began his studies. He attacked Blackstone with the same vigor that he had fought rebels in the field. Early and late he devoured books. He had gone into the army too young to be a scholar, and there were lost days and nights to make up. He worked with all his might. Many difficulties sur- rounded him. His family were not in affluent circum- stances. His father could give him little assistance. There were times during these years of preparation when he was tempted to abandon his studies and go into busi- ness to settle immediate wants which he felt to be press- ing upon those about him. It is said that to his elder sister is largely due the fact that he persisted bravely to the end, and after nearly two years in Judge Glidden's office he successfully finished his legal studies at a law school at Albany, N. Y. It was this sister who encouraged him with the declara- tion that no sacrifice was too great to accomplish the pur- pose of starting him fairly in his profession. He perse- vered, and finally, in 1867, he was admitted to the bar, and as he had come home from the war a penniless soldier, so he started again in life a lawyer without a brief. In casting about for a place to locate and begin his career he decided upon Canton, the seat of a neighboring coun- ty. Thither the young lawyer went and swung out his shingle. From that day forward he grew rapidly, first as an active spirit in the little city, then a leader in the county, later a political factor in the Congressional dis- trict, then Governor of his State, and finally a rising star in the firmament of the nation. Canton was not a very large town. It had only a little over 5,000 inhabitants. To the young man who had grown up in Poland and spent four years of his life marching and fighting" through the sparsely settled region of Virginia, 50 ONE OF THB PEOPLE. however, its size seemed suflacient. It had been laid out in 1806 by Bezaleel Wells, of Steubenville, and had been settled by a sturdy race of Germans, mostly emigrants from Pennsylvania. In fact. Stark County itself had been practically taken possession of at about the beginning of the century by these people, who in religion wereDunkera and in politics were Democrats. The county is one of the richest and most populous in Ohio, having 570 square miles of fertile land in the Tuscarawas Valley. It was a splendid country for the farmer not afraid of work. The lusty sons of German ancestors who had settled originally in Pennsylvania found in these rolling hills a rich and ideal home. After the Germans came the Americans of English and Scotch-Irish ancestry from New England and the Middle States. They were of that enterprising class who settled the Western Keserve, a people with strict notions of mo- rality, stalwart Christianity, and stern advocates of univer- sal human freedom. As the Germans had settled the fields the new-comers made the towns. They were more prone to folloAV the pursuits of the shop, the smithy, and the mill than to hew forests and cultivate the soil. These people were manufacturers and traders by calling, and in religion were Methodists and Presbyterians. In politics they were Whigs of the stanchest sort. These two classes almost equally divided the population of the county. This is in- dicated by the vote at the Presidential election of 1844, when we find Stark County polling 2,953 votes for Henry Clay, the Whig candidate, and 3,575 votes for James K. Polk, the Democratic candidate, while 76 votes were cast for James G. Birney, the Abolitionist. They did not change much relatively, for in 1892, forty- eight years later, we find them casting 9,231 votes for Benj^-^u Harrison to 10,227 for Grover Cleveland. The old-j. ^ed Abolitionists had been succeeded by advo- \ HOME FROM THE WAR. 51 oates of modern "reform" ideas, and thus we see Bidwell, the Prohibition candidate, getting 654 votes, while Gen- eral Weaver, of the People's party, gathered in the mis- cellaneous independent thinkers with 496 votes. All the different elements seem to have increased at about the same ratio, with a somewhat largo proportion in favor of the independents. Stark County according to the census of 1890 showed a population of 84,170, or about double what it had in 1860 and nearly three times what it had in 1840. The city of Canton had grown from something like 5,000 at the close of the war to 26,189 in 1890, while Massillon, its rival town in the same county, had 10,093. This rapid growth had been due to the springing up of foundries and furnaces dependent upon the unlimited sup- ply of iron ore, coal, and limestone which underlay its fer- tile soil. These industries, embracing machine shops, steel works, woolen factories, paper mills, bridge works, and agricultural implement manufactories, early became an object-lesson to the active mind of the lawyer who had come from Poland and cast his fortunes with this indus- trial community. Major McKinley at once became an active man in the afEairs of the place where he lived. He interested him- self in all that was going on about him. The building up of Canton, the improvement of the country, and the ad- vancement of its people in material welfare occupied his attention. His intelligence and activity soon inspired con- fidence among the older men of the city, and with his en- gaging manners and forensic abilities he naturally drifted into politics. While he had strong points upon all ques- tions which were raised, he also possessed that instinctive quality which fits a man for afEairs and which is eminently characteristic of his race. By the third year after McKinley had begun the prac- 5:} ONE OF TEE PEOl'LE. tice of law at Canton he had made such headway into the good graces of the Republicans of Stark County that they decided him to be the most available man to put up for prosecuting attorney. They did not expect to elect him because the county was considered to be safely Democrat- ic. It had usually been so, even in war times. Still, to keep up the party organization it was necessary to have a ticket in the field, and the young major was thought to be the most likely man for the necessities of the situation. However the grave and experienced party managers had considered the matter, the young candidate had no idea of being defeated. He started in the race to win in spite of all odds. It made little difference to him that the other side considered the county safe. When the fight was once on he went into it with an enthusiasm which his party had not known in a candidate for years. He took the stump and spoke day and night, inspiring confidence, lining up the party voters, making inroads upon the enemy, and winning votes day by day. When the election finally came and the votes were counted, the Democrats were as- tonished to find that this young man had actually de- feated their candidate and was elected by a safe majority. He made an excellent and popular prosecuting attorney, and at the expiration of his term of two years received a renomination. The Democrats, however, having been stirred by the wonderful popularity of this new aspirant for public favor, made tremendous efforts to defeat him. They put in the field the very best man they could find in their ranks. They succeeded in defeating him by a small plurality, but the canvass had been so vigorous and the plurality was so small that Mr. McKinley's importance as a leader was even increased instead of diminished. Prom this time forward he was the most powerful political fac- tor in his county. We now approach the romantic period of his life. It aiKS. WILUAM McKINLBY, 5^ ONE OF THE PEOPLE. was six years since he had returned from the war, and he had been established in his profession for four years, aud he decided that he might venture to marry. It may be assumed that he had not been a rising young lawyer and politician in Canton for these several years and had re- mained oblivious to the attractions of the acknowledged belle of the little city. One of the leading families iu Canton was the Saxtons. They held a proud position and were well known throngli- ont the city. The Hon. J. A. Saxton had been a pioneer in Ohio, and for more than sixty years he edited a newspaper which he founded, called the Ohio Repository. This paper was one of the widest-known and most influential organs of the Whigs. It was different in its character from any other publication in the State. Its editor was not very particu- lar about getting early news, but he was careful to lay down the Whig doctrine after the strictest model of the sect of Henry Clay. The columns of this journal were devoted not only to political discussion, but also aspired to polite literature, and its influence was vast and far-reaching in the State. The elder Saxton had the distinction of publishing the news of the battle of Waterloo, which he furnished his readers some five months after the triumph of Welling- ton, and also lived to chronicle the defeat of the third Na- poleon at Sedan. He was a warm personal friend of Hor- ace Greeley, and the sturdy old protection editor topk oc- casion to write a graceful tribute to his venerable contem- porary for the New York Tribune, based upon this cir- cumstance. It may be mentioned in passing that this paper is still published at Canton and it has a daily edition constructed on modern lines. Mr. James A. Saxton was the son of the pioneer editor, and growing up in Canton became one of its leading busi- SOME FROM THE WAR. 65 Hess men ..nd a banker. Miss Ida Saxton was his daugh- ter, and at the time that Major McKinley went to Canton she was blooming into early womanhood. Her father was rich. She was a beauty, and naturally she commanded the most distinguished attention from the young men of the best set in town. She had been educated at Cleve- land, Ohio, and at Miss Eastman's seminary, Brook Hall, at Media, Pa. At the close of her school days she took an extended tour in Europe in company with her sister, returning in 1869. Her father was a practical man and believed in the modern idea of training a woman to business so that she would be prepared, in case of necessity, to make her way in the world by her own exertions. He therefore took her into his bank and she soon became its cashier. It was idle, however, to expect a bank to retain indefinitely a cashier of such surpassing personal attrac- tions. Major McKinley became one of her, numerous suitors, and his court found favor with the young lady. The matter was brought to the usual climax in negotiations of the heart, and when Mr. Saxton was asked by the young attorney for the hand of his daughter, the latter received the flattering assurance that he was the only man Mr. Saxton knew to whom he would trust the future of his child. The young couple were married on January 15, 1871. The wedding took place in the Presbyterian church, of which Miss Saxton was a member and where for years she had been a teacher in the Sunday-school. The Eev. Dr. Buckingham, the pastor, officiated, assisted by the Eev. Dr. Endsley, the rector of the Methodist church, of which Major McKinley had for years been a member. The wed- ding was a great social affair, owing to the prominence of the bride's family and the popularity of the groom. They '■<~i>::f^r:^'i^M MciaNLEY RESIDENCE AT CANTON, OHIO. HOME FROM THE WAR. 57 Bet up their own establishment and began houselceeping in the old-fashioned way. On Christmas Day, :',871, a child was born — a daughter destined to be taken from them when only a little more than three years old. In the mean time, a few months before the birth of a second child, Mrs. McKinley lost her mother, and then her baby died; and overwhelmed by this triple loss, coupled with a seri- ous physical ailment, she became an invalid and remained so for a number of years. Although she has never become robust in health, she so far recovered as to accompany her husband to Washington, and has been his almost constant companion in the long trips he has taken during recent campaigns. When Major McKinley went to Washington as a member of Congress during the Hayes regime, his wife, although they lived somewhat quietly at a hotel, be- came prominent at the White House as the close personal friend of Mrs. Hayes, receiving with her upon public oc- casions and taking her place in her absence. She was a conspicuous figure at the brilliant wedding at the Execu- tive Mansion when Gen. EusseJl Hastings, who had been on General Hayes' staff in the army, and Miss Piatt, Mrs. Hayes' niece, were married. Throughout their residence in Washington Major Mc- Kinley won a high place in the estimation of the ladies at the Capital for his devoted and lover-like attention to his wife. In person Mrs. McKinley is singularly attractive. She has large deep blue eyes, a transparent complexion, and an oval face surmounted by a cluster of brown wavy curls. Although she has none of the reputed characteristics of the so-called "strong-minded woman," she keeps her hair cut short, a circumstance which no doubt contributes much to her youthful and girl-like appearance. In spite of the piquancy of the curly head her bearing is that of benignant and serene beauty, which captivates all who ap- 5g ONE OF THE PEOPLB. proach her. As she was a leader among the patriotic girls of Canton iu every work for the comfort and relief of sick and wounded soldiers, so in mature life she has given much time to works of charity, and especially is she inter- ested in motherless children. It may be that the two little graves at Canton have softened her life; but how- ever that may be, many an orphan has had occasion to bless her for untiring deeds of kindness and an unflagging interest in its welfare. She takes a deep interest in public questions, reading the newspapers and keeping up with movements of the times. After the death of Mrs. McKinley's mother she and her husband went to live at the old Saxton homestead, where during Major McKinley's fourteen years' service in Con- gress and while he was Governor of Ohio they passed their time whenever they were at home. After the second campaign for the office of prosecuting attorney Major McKinley continued actively in the prac- tice of the law at Canton, and soon made for himself a leading position at the bar of the county. He worked diligently, growing steadily in popularity until 1876, when he announced himself as a candidate for Congress and be- gan tiiat career which has brought him to the place which he now holds in the estimation of the nation. Of his doings and sayings in Congress and later as Gov- ernor of his State and as a popular orator we shall speak later on. CHAPTEK V. m'kinlet elected to congress. A Fight for tlie Nomination— An Unprecedented Majority— Begins his Congressional Career with Thomas B. Eeed and Other Noted Men— The Congress of the Silver Dollar— McKiuley's First Speech in Opposition to Fernando Wood's Tariff Bill— The Vote on the Bland-Allison Act— The Partisan Contest in the Forty- sixth Congress— Hayes and the "Brigadiers"— The Tissue Ballot of the South and the New Yorjt Repeaters Denounced by Mc- Kinley — Laws had no Terrors for Honest Men — Embarrassing Relations Between Congress and the Executive — A Time of Dis- trust and Distress. T that time the Congressional district which Major McKinley aspired to represent was composed of the coun- ties of Carroll, Columbiana, Mahon- ing, and Stark. It was represented at that time by the Hon. L. D. Wood- worth, of Mahoning County, and this gentleman desired to succeed himself. Ohio, which is as fruitful as any of the old Southern States in gentlemen with political aspirations, showed no exception to the general conditions in this district. In fact, there were quite a number of likely citizens who be- lieved that the time had come for them to serve their country in Congress. They were all older men than the young Canton lawyer and they resented his intrusion into the canvass. The re- sult was a hot fight for the nomination. McKinley se- 60 t)NE OF tlJE PEOPLE. cured all the delegates except one from his own county and fared nearly as well in the other counties. He thus received the nomination on the first ballot. He went in on his mettle after the convention and made a canvass which took the old war-horses of the party by surprise. In the election of 1874 the dffetrict had given Wilson, Democrat, 10,837 votes, and Woodworth, the Kepublican candidate, 11,113 votes, thus electing Mr. Woodworth by a rather close majority of 276. McKinley ran against a gentleman named Sanborn, one of the strongest the Dem- ocrats could find in the district for a standard-bearer. The result of the election was that McKinley received 16,489 votes, a.gainst 13,185 for Sanborn, thus obtaining the unprecedented majority of 3,304. It will be remembered that 1876 was not a good year for the Republicans. The country was suffering from the prostration which succeeded the war, the nation was strug- gling under an enormous debt, the national finances were unsettled, the Southern States were still bitter against the Government which had overpowered the rebellion, and the greenback inflationists were rampant for repudiation and fiat money. The Forty-fifth Congress was called in special session in October, 1877, and there was a Democratic majority in the House which elected Samuel J. Eandall Speaker. To this House Ohio had sent a strong delegation, among the members of which were James A. Garfield, Gen. Jacob D. Cox, Charles Foster, Amos Townsend, Gen. J. Warren Keifer, Gen. A. V. Eice, Gen. Thomas Ewing, and Mil- ton Saylor; in the Senate were John Sherman and Allen G. Thurnian. Among others who entered Congress at this time was Thomas B. Eeed, from the Portland district of Maine, who had made a reputation at the bar, had been twice a mem- ber of the Legislature, and Attorney-General of his State BLEOTED To COI^GRBSt^. ei for three years. He was destined to become Major MoKiu- ley's chief competitor for the highest lienors in his party. Other new members were George D. Eobinson, of Massa- chusetts, afterward Governor of his State; George B. Lor- ing, of Massachusetts, subsequently United States Com- missioner of Agriculture; Gen. Thomas M. Browne, of Indiana; Gen. Anson G. McCook, of New York City, a member of the famous Ohio family of soldiers; and Prank Hiscock, afterward a Senator from New York. Pennsyl- vania sent Col. Thomas M. Bayne and Gen. Harry White, hoth strong men with established military reputations, and Eussell Errett, the veteran anti- slavery editor. This Congress is the one that enacted the law providing for the coinage of the silver dollar, which had been d i s c o n - tinued in 1873. On account of the great importance attached to Major McKinley's views upon the money question, his attitude toward gold and silver is discussed at length further on in a separate chapter. A brief summary of the legislation will, however, be made at this point. The Monetary Commission had submitted its report to Congress at the beginning of the Hayes Administration. This commission was composed of men of no less promi- nence than Senator John P. Jones, liepresentative Ran- dall L. Gibson, of Louisiana, ex-Secretary of the Treasury REPEESENTATIVE WM. McKINLEY, 1877. 63 ONE OF THE PEOPLE. George S. Bontwell, and William S. Groesbeck, holding widely different views, as was shown by the report. This docun-,ent and the President's message, supplemented by Sucretary Sherman's report, made the currency the ruling topic. The discussion was precipitated by a concurrent resolu- tion offered by Stanley Matthews in the Senate, declaring that in the opinion of Congress "all bonds of the United States are payahle in silver dollars of 412^ grains, and that to restore such dollars as a full legal tender for that purpose is not a violation of the public faith or the rights of the creditor." After long debate it passed the Senate by a vote of 43 to 23. In the House of Kepresentatives the resolution was passed under suspension of the rules by a vote of 189 ayes to 79 noes. This was on January 28, 1878. It was only a "concurrent" and not a "joint" res- olution, and so it was not sent to the President. In the mean time, upon motion of Mr. Bland, the House on the 5th of the previous November had passed an act under suspension of the rules providing for the un- limited coinage of silver dollars of 412-^ grains. The vote stood 163 to 34 — 93 not voting. W-hen this bill was sent to the Senate it was reported back to the full body by the Committee on Finance, with the coinage limited to not less than $2,000,000 nor more than $4,000,000 a month, and Mr. Allison offered an amendment providing for an International Monetary Conference. The Senate passed the bill as amended— ayes 48, noes 21. The House con- curred in the Senate amendment limiting the coinage by a vote of 203 to 72, and concurred in the International Conference proposition by a vote of 196 to 71. On Feb- ruary 28, 1878, President Hayes vetoed the bill, and the House promptly passed it over the veto by a vote of 196 to 73 and the Senate did likewise by a vote of 46 to 19. Thus the Bland-Allison act became a law. On all the 64 ONE OF TEE PEOPLE. votes in the course of its legislative history Major McKin- ley voted with the majority. In making up the committees Mr. Eandall gave the new member from Ohio an inconspicuous place on the Com- mittee for the Ee vision of the Laws of the United States. As appears in the Congressional Record, the first time that Major McKinley addressed the Speaker was on De- cember 10, 1877, to present a petition from certain iron manufacturers of his district praying Congress to take no action relative to tariff revision until it had made a thorough official inquiry into the condition of the neces- sities of the country. The same day he introduced two private pension bills. The examination of the Record for this Congress shows that he spoke only nine times, and upon only one occasion did he make an extended address. It was a speech on the tariS, delivered April 15, 1878. In this address he attacked the Democratic bill brought for- ward by Fernando Wood, chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means. Major McKinley expounded the doc- trine of protection as opposed to a revenue tariff, and was listened to with unusual attention, as he seemed even at this early day in his public career to have thoroughly mastered the question. In the course of his remarks he said: "Home competition will always bring prices to a fair and reasonable level and prevent extortion and robbery. Success, or even apparent success, in any business or enter- prise will incite others to engage in like enterprises, and then follows healthful strife, the life of business, which inevitably results in cheapening the article produced." He wound up with an appeal to the tariff reformers and free traders to let the country have a rest from this agitation until there was time to recover from the effects of the war and the panic of 1873. In this connection he said: "There never was a time in the history of this country more inauspicious than the present time for the dreamer ELEOTED TO CONGRESS. 65 and "the theorist to put into practical operation his imprac- ticable theories of political economy. The country does not want them ; the business men of the country do not want them. They want quiet to recuperate their wasted forces; and I ara sure I utter no sentiment new or original when I say that if this House will promptly pass the appropriation bills and other pressing legislation, follow- ing this with an immediate adjournment, the people will applaud such a course as the work of statesmen and the wisdom of men of affairs." Major McKinley had made entirely too much reputa- tion in Congress as a protectionist to please the Democrats, and when they secured control of the Ohio Legislature in 1878 they decided to redistrict him into private life. His Congressional district, therefore, was gerrymandered so as -to put Stark County into a group that would certainly return a Democrat to Congress. In fact, this was in, a line with the policy of that Ohio Legislature in the redis- tricting of the entire State, by means of which it was ex- pected to capture at least fifteen Congressmen out of a delegation of twenty Kepresentatives. By this gerry- mander Stark County was thrown into the Sixteenth Dis- trict along with Ashland, Portage, and Wayne counties. It was expected in this way to neutralize the heavy Ke- publican majority in Portage County with the Democratic majorities usually to be depended upon in Ashland, Wayne, and Stark. The Democrats appeared, therefore, to have a reasonably sure thing in this district. They nominated Gen. Aquila Wiley, of Wooster, formerly a colonel of the Forty-first Ohio, and a gallant soldier in the Union Army with a splendid military record. The Kepublicans nominated McKinley, and the two soldiers marshaled their forces. The Democratic candidate ranked his opponent in mili- tary title, but on election day McKinley received 15,489 66 ONE OF THE PEOPLW. ' ^ Totes to 14,255 votes for Wiley. Mr. Eandall was again elected Speaker of this Congress and Major McKinley was given a place on the important Committee of Judiciary. This Congress — the Forty-sixth — was notable chiefly for its bitter partisan contests. The corruption of the ballot in the Southern States, the over-riding of the will of the majority, the demand for so-called "local home rule," and other matters of a purely political character, consumed the time of Congress to the exclusion of discus- sion upon business affairs. It was the Congress made notable by the return of the Confederate "brigadiers." President Hayes was out of favor with the advanced wing of his party, who condemned his course in surrendering the Southern States to the management of the political leaders who had recently been most prominent in the rebellion. The radical Eepublioans of the North — such as Zach Chandler, Hannibal Hamlin, Conkling, Logan, and Matthew H. Carpenter in the Senate, and Hale and Frye, of Maine, and Conger, of Michigan, in the House- feared that the results of the war, as codified in the amend- ments to the Constitution would be practically neutralized by the election frauds in the States lately in rebellion aided by the Democratic vote in the North. In this heated discussion Major McKinley took a prominent part. In the House of Eepresentatives on AprillS, 1879, he took advanced grounds upon the necessity of fair elections and the protection of the ballot at any cost. In the course of his remarks he said : I The first movement in tlie programme of a restored Democracy has already been accomplished, so far as this House is concerned, in the paralyzation of the Executive force to preserve peace at the polls. The second step in the same programme is only checked by a few in- tervening days, when the purity of the ballot-box Is to be submitted to the same lawleggpess, with no power in the Federal head to insure or preserve it, MHOTBD TO COlfOtiBSS. G'J' The proposition offered by Mr. Soutbard in tbe closing Lours of tbe Forty-fiftli Congress, and for tbe most part now renewed in tbe extraordinary session of the present Congress, to repeal certain sec- tions of the statutes of tbe United States known as the Federal Elec- tion laws, is a bold and wanton attempt to wipe from the law all protection of the ballot-box, and surrender its purity to the unholy hand of tbe hired repeater and its control to tbe ballot-box stuffers of tbe great cities of the North and tbe tissue-ballot party of the South. So determined is the Democratic party in tbe House to break down these wise and just measures, intended to secure an honest ballot to tbe legal voter, that they make a rider to an important appropriation bill, making them, in the language of my colleague [Mr. McMahon], " a necessary companion to tbe money voted in tbe bill." The repeal of these laws will remove every safeguard against fraud in the exercise of the elective franchise, and will again make possible tbe enormous outrages upon a pure ballot and free govern- ment which marked the elections in tbe city of New York and else- where in 1868, the wickedness and extent of which made existing laws necessary and imperative. Tbe proposition we are now con- sidering is an open assault upon tbe freedom and purity of elections. Article I. of tbe Constitution declares: " The times, places, and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but tbe Con- gress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators." This constitutional provision confers upon Congress full and ade- quate power at any time to make or alter times, places, and manner of holding elections for Representatives, and to make or alter such regulations. The Democratic party has thus abandoned the constitutional ob- jection by allowing tbe sections in relation to supervisors of elections, with some limitations, to remain. They surrender tbe constitutional doctrine so strenuously urged against existing law. My distinguished friend from Ohio [Mr. Hurd] and the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Carlisle], who addressed the committee yesterday, seem not to have been present at the last caucus of their party, for their arguments are wholly based rfpon tbe constitutional question. Let me suggest to my friends that if tbe law is unconstitutional the courts are open to them, where that question can be judicially determined for all time; and let me remind them that this law has been in the statute-book 68 ONB OF THE PEOPLn. for now seven years, and tlie question they make, altbougb decided adversely to tlieir tlieory by an inferior court, bas never found its way to tbe final tribunal in sucb cases— the Supreme Court of the United States. To that tribunal we invite them to go. I repeat, that permitting tbe supervisors' law to stand is a giving away of all constitutional objection to the entire body of tbe law. It explodes the old dogma of State rights and removes all necessity for any dis- cussion upon that point. Enough of the law ia left to recognize tbe principle always con- tended for by the Republican party, that Congress had the power and that it was its plain duty to guard and protect elections where its own members were to be chosen to seats in this body; but while ad- mitting the constitutional rights, they are careful to wipe out all the provisions which gave such a law practical effect in securing an honest election and preventing force and fraud at the polls. They are in favor of the law, but opposed to its execution. In concluding his discussion of the proposed amend- ment to abolish the saieguards to elections, Major Mc- Kinley said : I have tried to meet and answer the principal objections urged to this law. Are there any others? In tbe discussion had in the Korty- fifth Congress much stress was placed upon the great expense at- tending the execution of the law. I learn that at Cincinnati, in my own State, the expense of deputy marshals in 1878 was less than $400, and they never had a fairer, purer election than at that time. But to this, in general terms, I answer, what signifies tbe cost if thereby we can secure a free and fair ballot in this country ? Who will count the cost if the enforcement of this law will prevent the repeaters and moonshiners from controlling tbe elections and subverting the popu- lar will ? For involved in this proposition is the existence of the Republic and the perpetuation of Republican institutions. If honest, fair elections cannot be had, free government is a farce; it is no longer the popular will which is supreme. Free government cannot be estimated by dollars nor measured by cost. We have long ago dis- carded that consideration. This objection has been urged many times before to tbe enforcement of great fundamental doctrines and principles. The same objection was urged to the prosecution of the war for the preservation of the Union and free government. Public sentiment did not listen then to tbe cry of cost; it hesitated not, it BLEGTlilD To CONGRESS. 69 faltered not then; it ignored the cost; it foiigbt, and successfully fought, the great battle of freedom; and public sentiment will not now pause to count the paltry cost when free and fair elections, the foundation-stone of free government, are involved in the threatened danger. If I do not misjudge, the people who fought for free govern- ment and maintained it at so great a cost will now be found firm and invincible for a free ballot and fair elections. Let me remind the other side of this chamber that supervisors and marshals will not be needed, and therefore no cost will be incurred, whenever the party which employs tissue ballots and drives colored citizens from the polls shall do so no more forever, and whenever Democratic repeaters shall cease to corrupt the ballot — the great fountain of power in this country; in a. single sentence, whenever, throughout this whole country, in every State thereof, citizenship is respected and the Tights under it are fully and amply secured; when every citizen who is entitled to vote shall be secure in the free exercise of that right, and the ballot-box shall be protected from illegal voters, from fraud and violence. Federal supervisors of Federal elections will be neither expensive nor oppressive. Has any legal voter in the United States been prevented from ex- ercising his right of suiirage. by this law or by the officers acting under it ? This is the practical question. None that I have ever heard of; while thousands, yes, tens of thousands of illegal voters have been deterred from voting by virtue of it. The honest voter has no fear of this law; it torrches him -as lightly as the law of larceny touches the honest man or the law of murder touches him whose hands are stainless of human blood. The thief hates the law of larceny, the murderer the law of homicide. They, too, can truth- fully urge the cost of the execution of these laws; both are ex- pensive and onerous to the taxpayer. But I have never known such arguments seriously entertained as a reason for their repeal. The law is without terror save to wrong-doers. The presence of officers of the law only deters criminals from the commission of crime. They are no restraint upon the honest man. You can form no system of laws which will not be open to some criticism and abuse. These prove nothing against the importance and necessity of their main- tenance. If any better method can be offered for preserving the ballot-box In its purity, I will cordinlly accept it and labor for its passage, but until such better method is proposed we should stand by existing statutes. We cannot afford to break down a single safeguard which has ^0 ONB OF THE PEOPLS. been thrown around tbe ballot-box. Every guarantee must be kept and maintained. Fair minded people everywhere are interested ia honest elections. It is not a partisan measure; it falls alike upon all political parties. The law recognizes no political creed, and those who execute it should carefully obey its letter and spirit. It pro- tects Democrats and Republicans and men of all parties alike. This House, not content with prohibiting the use of soldiers to keep the peace at the polls, forbidding their employment by the President in any emergency, however grave, now seeks to remove every remaining safeguard to a fair and honest election. The better sentiment of the country. North and South, will not submit to such unbridled license upon the ballot-box. Mr. Chairman, what will tie end be ? By an amendment to an army appropriation bill which was not connected with the subject-matter thereof, peace at the polls can no longer be maintained by the Chief Executive, no matter how grave the emergency nor how pressing the necessity. Tumult and riot may hold high carnival at a Federal polling-place, and the Federal arm is powerless to restrain it. This restriction of Federal power, this paralyzation of Executive authority, ought to have satis- fied the most extreme State rights Democrat; but not so. Having forbidden the use of the Executive force to keep the peace at the polls, they now demand that the purity of the ballot and the free- dom of the voter shall be subjected to the same lawlessness, with no power in the Government to restrain it. Mr. Chairman, my purpose thus far has been to present this law. the repeal of which is demanded, upon its merits wholly. The prop- osition, however, of the Democratic side of the House is to offer this amendment, not to the sober, independent judgment of the Honse and the coordinate branches of the Government, but to rH.sh it through, right or wrong, justly or unjustly, as a part of a bill mak- ing appropriations for the pressing and needful wants of the Govern- ment. It is an attempt to do by force what ought to be done, if at all, in the free exercise of the law-making power by each branch of the Government acting in its proper functions under the Constitution. If force and coercion be not intended, then why not introduce and consider this legislation under the rules, with deliberation, and de- bate upon its own merits, independent and separate from an appro- priation bill ? This is tbe ordinary course of legislation, recognized by long practice, founded in wisdom, and never before abandoned for the purposes of coercion. AVant of time cannot be urged in favor of this course; days of idleness have already been spent sufficient for BLEGTED TO CONGRESS. 71 the purpose. Tlie resort to this method of legislation is a confession of injustice, wrong, and wealiness of the proposed measure, and evinces a determination to accomplish wrongfully that which cannot be rightfully accomplished. One of the pretexts urged in favor of placing this amendment upon an appropriation bill is that the law itself was passed by the Republicans in the same way. This impres- sion has become so general throughout the country that it would seem necessary to state the facts in relation to the passage of the supervisors' law. The law, substantially as it is now in the statutes, was introduced into the House, referred to the Judiciary Committee, considered by that committee, and reported back to the House by its chairman, where it was discussed, voted upon, and passed entirely independent of any appropriation bill. It took the same course in the Senate. It was not a rider to a bill appropriating money. It is true that the sections extending the supervisors to county districts and restricting their powers in such districts were passed on June 10, 1872, upon the Sundry Civil Appropriation bill. The first fruits of their dominion are not assuring to the country, and will not, I am certain, incline the people to clothe them with still greater power. Threatened revolution will not hasten it; extra sessions, useless and expensive, will not accelerate it. Threat and menace, disturbing the business interests of the country, will only retard it. It will come when your party have shown that you de- serve it. When you demonstrate that the financial, industrial, and business interests of the nation are safer and wiser in your hands than in any other, and more than all, when you have demonstrated that free government will not perish in your keeping, it will come then, and not before. I hope, Mr. Chairman, this amendment will not be insisted upon. It is wrong in itself; it endangers free govern- ment. I believe the method proposed under the circumstances I have already designated is revolutionary. There is no necessity for such haste. The law can have no force and effect until 1880, except in the State of California. If the amendment must be passed, let it come in. the ordinary course of legislation. There will be ample time at the regular session next winter and before any other Federal elections will be held. The country is not asking for it. Business will suffer and is suf- fering every day from the agitation of a contijhued extra session of Congress. Uncertainty in legislation is a terror to all business and commercial interests, and this uncertainty exists and will continue so long as we remain in session. Let us r?niQVr in industrial arts, without an equal in commercial prosperity, with a sound financial system, with an overflowing treasury, blessed at home and at peace with all mankind. Shall we reverse the polioy which has rewarded us with such mag- iilficent results? Shall we abandon the policy which, pursued for twenty years, hi^s pro(Jvioe