It is fair and proper in this connection to present the testimony of those who occupied position above him, and who related in after years the impressions which young McKinley made upon them in his army days. For one thing, he was is no sense an ambitious man. Had he been stung with the asp of ambition he might easily have passed those who commanded at the beginning. His was the education, the training of the brain and the body, the judgment and the patriotic zeal out of which great leaders are made. But he was not a self-seeker. He simply accepted his duty when it presented, and discharged it perfectly. Nothing was illy done. Nothing was half accomplished. His task was fully discharged in every instance, and he was never the man to thirst for power, to maneuver for promotion. The advances which marked his soldier life came to him unsought, the well-earned rewards of a merit which none could deny, coupled with a modesty which all could admire.
General Russell Hastings watched him through a number of battles, and at Cedar Creek saw him tried beyond all ordinary measure. General Hastings, then with the rank of captain, was on the same staff with young Lieutenant McKinley, a member of the same regiment, the Twenty-third Ohio. They were close friends through the war, and remained so throughout their later life. They ate at the same mess, slept under the same blanket, and—when they had a tent—occupied the same tent together. It was in 1892, when William McKinley loomed large because of his loyalty to a friend in political life, that General Hastings placed upon record his recollections—forever stamped upon the pages of his memory—of an incident from the soldier life of his friend in that battle which began with “Sheridan twenty miles away.”
On the Union side was only Crook’s corps, some 6,000 strong, while opposed to it was the full force of Early’s army. The odds were too great; so, after some severe fighting, Hayes’ brigade, which was engaged, drew back in the direction of Winchester. “Just at that moment,” says General Hastings, “it was discovered that one of the regiments was still in an orchard where it had been posted at the beginning of the battle. General Hayes, turning to Lieutenant McKinley, directed him to go forward and bring away that 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.