The battle began at daylight. Before daylight men were in the ranks and preparing for it. Without breakfast, without coffee, they went into the fight, and it continued until after the sun had set. The commissary department of that brigade was under Sergeant McKinley’s administration and personal supervision. From his hands every man in the regiment was served with hot coffee and warm meats, a thing that had never occurred under similar circumstances in any other army in the world. He passed under fire and delivered, with his own hands, these things, so essential for the men for whom he was laboring. General Hayes, then a Lieutenant Colonel, was himself wounded at Antietam, and went home on sick leave to recover. While there he related to Governor Tod that circumstance illustrating the cool courage and genuine heroism, and said to the Governor: “Let McKinley be promoted from Sergeant to Lieutenant.” And it was done without a moment’s delay. When Colonel Hayes returned to the field he assigned Lieutenant McKinley to duty on his staff, and the young man looked back at eighteen months of active service in the ranks as of the greatest possible value to him. McKinley was still on General Hayes’ staff when the battle of Kernstown, July 24, 1864, was fought. Crook’s corps had been expecting an easy time when it appeared that the enemy was in force at Kernstown, about four miles from Winchester, where Crook’s troops were. There had been some misinformation regarding the Confederate General Early’s movements, and the force about to be met was that of Early, which outnumbered Crook’s corps three to one. When the battle began one of the regiments was not in position, and Lieutenant McKinley was ordered to bring it in. The road to the regiment needed was through open fields and right in the enemy’s line of fire. Shells were bursting on his right and left, but the boy soldier rode on. He reached the regiment, gave the orders to them, and at his suggestion the regiment fired on the enemy and slowly withdrew to take the position where they were assigned. It was a gallant act of the boy soldier, and General Hayes had not expected him to come back alive. He distinguished himself for gallantry, for good judgment, and military skill at the battle of Opequan. He had been ordered to bring General Duval’s troops to join the first division, which was getting into the battle. There was a question of which route to take, and upon the choice depended the very existence of General Duval and his brave men. Lieutenant McKinley weighed the chances swiftly, decided instantly, and on his own responsibility pointed out the direction as he gave his superior officer’s command to move. The troops followed his instructions, and came up gallantly and in excellent style, with the smallest possible loss or injury. His own regiment, the Twenty-third Ohio, was less skillfully directed, and suffered the very severe loss of 150 men and officers.