But Lee had withdrawn from Early’s support a body of reinforcements, and the dashing commander of the threatening force was compelled to retreat southward into farther Virginia. It was Lee’s one mistake, for he had the capital captured, and might have watched the stars and bars in temporarily triumphal progress down Pennsylvania avenue had he backed up the advance on the Potomac. And the glance which Lieutenant McKinley had of the capitol dome that morning in 1864 would have been the last; for an army of invasion, checked and forced to retire, finds fighting from cover and the consequent burning of buildings one of the inescapable incidents of war.
After the battle of Kernstown—less accurately known as the battle of Winchester—the young soldier from Poland, Ohio, was again promoted, this time to the rank of captain. The document dates his advance from July 25, the day after his wise and heroic conduct in delivering orders under fire, and in piloting the imperiled regiment to its place in the battle formation.
His last battle of importance, and one in which he fittingly crowned a career of gallantry and devotion to duty, was that of Cedar Creek, October 19, 1864. Toward the close of that month the regiment was ordered to Martinsburg. On its march to that point the men voted at the Presidential election. The votes were collected by the judges of election as the column was in march, from among the wagons. It was there McKinley cast his first vote. An ambulance was used as an election booth, and an empty candle-box did duty as a ballot-box. At the same time and place Generals Sheridan, Crook and Hayes cast their ballots, and it was the first vote ever cast by Sheridan or Crook.
Early the following spring the Twenty-third returned to Camp Cumberland and on July 26, 1865, a little more than four years from the time of enlistment, the regiment was mustered out and the scarred veterans who had experienced four years of dangers and hardships returned to their homes.
The records show that William McKinley, Jr., enlisted as a private in Company E of the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry on June 11, 1861; that he was promoted to commissary sergeant on April 15, 1862; that he was promoted to Second Lieutenant of Company D on September 23, 1862; that he was promoted to First Lieutenant of Company E on February 7, 1863; that he was promoted to Captain of Company G on July 25, 1864; that he was detailed as Acting Assistant Adjutant General of the First Division, First Army Corps, on the staff of General Carroll; that he was brevetted Major on March 13, 1865, and that he was mustered out of service on July 26, 1865.