I agree with you wholeheartedly that it is silly to have a monument to McKinley for bringing coffee to the troops at Antietam. In my opinion, it might be better suited at Kernstown, where he braved a gauntlet of enemy fire to save a Union regiment from being cut off. There are a lot of things about McKinley’s CW service that seem to have their orgins more from his political years than the war years. For example, one Early biographer essentially credits McKinley for giving the order that led to Crook’s successful flank movment on McKinley’s own initiative. I have found no wartime mention of this nor post war, just the political biography.

Like you, I agree he was a competent soldier, but the monument there on the Battlefield is so out of place. IIRC, he was assassinated in Buffalo, and I wonder if there is a monument there that denotes just what happened there. IMHO, there should be one.

I also tend to think President McKinley would not have been happy with the wording on that monument at Sharpsburg.

I did some googling, and could not find any mention of him and the MOH for his actions at Sharpsburg, but Hayes was very fond of the young McKinley, and mad him his Chief of Staff.

My apologies to his relative as well, as my joke about the moniment is what is written on it, and does not mock his service to the Union during the Civil War.

Hope all is well.

Steve

Beats me. I have no idea. If he did, then I give him a world of credit.

Eric

At one time, wasn’t there talk of McKinley receiving a MOH for his Sharpsburg actions? And IIRC, McKinley nixed it. Am I remembering it right?

Mike