Existing comment:
Just to your right is the McKinley Monument, dedicated to the 24th President. William McKinley was a Commissary Sergeant with the 23rd Ohio of Colonel Hugh Ewing's Brigade. During the battle, Sergeant McKinley bravely served the soldiers in his regiment in the fields to your right.
After the war, McKinley served as a Congressman and Governor of Ohio. He was twice elected as President before he was shot by Leon Czolgosz at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York on September 6, 1901. The President survived for eight days before succumbing to his wound on September 14th. Just over a year before his death, McKinley was here for the dedication of the Maryland State Monument, near the visitor center.
President John F. Kennedy toured Antietam on April 7, 1963. He wrote that "Antietam symbolizes something even more important than combat heroism and military strategy. It marks a diplomatic turning point of world-wide consequence. From this point onward our Civil War had a new dimension which was important to the whole course of human liberty." |