Many of you have visited Antietam National Battlefield at Antietam Creek in Sharpsburg, Maryland. The September 17, 1862 battle became the largest violent loss of life in the United States in our history. The marginal victory on the battlefield led to a major change in the war aims of the United States, with Lincoln releasing his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, less than a week later.
If you went to the battlefield, you very likely viewed the Burnside Bridge where thousands of Union soldiers crossed the creek to try to disperse five hundred Georgians tenaciously defending the crossing from heights above it. Just a few minutes walk from Burnside Bridge is the William McKinley Monument. You can reach it by parking above Burnside Bridge at the parking area east of the bridge along Burnside Bridge Road, or you can park on the west side of the creek. You will park in the lot overlooking the bridge, where the Confederates took a heavy toll of Union troops.
If you come over the bridge, turn left along the short trail in within three minutes you’ll be upon the statue. If you park in the lot overlooking the bridge, just go a little south of the lot and you will see it. It is the largest monument in the area.
A recent president has said that his favorite president is William McKinley. You likely have not thought much about McKinley since you finished your high school history classes. But see, McKinley is newsworthy again.
Seeing such a large monument on the field, you might ask yourself if McKinley was a commander of either of the armies, or if he was a subordinate commander who had led a gallant charge or held off an overwhelming attack. No. Not at all. He was a soldier at the battle and he did become president. Even more important, McKinley was killed in Buffalo on September 14, 1901. The monument was put up by a grievous nation just two years later. Whatever McKinley did in September 1862 was more than outweighed by his assassination in September of 1901.
The monument is built into a hillside which makes it look unbalanced. The trails leading up to it are slightly hilly, but I am sixty-seven and I had no trouble reaching it.
McKinley was born in 1843 in Niles, Ohio. His father owned iron foundries throughout the Western Reserve and the family was prosperous. Like many in the area, the McKinleys were opposed to slavery and abolitionists. In his teens, William became a schoolteacher. After the Civil War broke out, McKinley enlisted in the Union Army in June of 1861. He was only eighteen years old.
McKinley’s local company was incorporated into the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment. William Rosecrans was given command. McKinley was a teenaged future president but he was outranked by Rutherford B. Hayes who was a major at the time McKinley joined. So this regiment had two future presidents. It also had one future Senator, a future Supreme Court Justice, and a future Congressman.
The unit was sent to help occupy what is now West Virginia where it conducted guerrilla warfare against Confederate irregular forces. In the Summer of 1862, the 23rd was transferred to the defenses of Washington as Robert E Lee defeated John Pope at the Second Battle of Bull Run. The unit was sent from the capital to join the Army of the Potomac after Lee invaded Maryland and were assigned to the XI Corps under General Ambrose Burnside in the Kanawha Division.
On the front of the monument are the dates of McKinley’s birth and death.
On September 14, 1862 the 23rd was ordered into it first large-scale battle during the Battle of South Mountain. The regiment lost nearly a third of its men in this first major engagement. After the Confederate retreat, the regiment continued to pursue the enemy.
Three days later, the Army of the Potomac caught up with Lee’s army at Antietam Creek at Sharpsburg, Virginia.
