His early background had much to do with his success. He was born in Niles, Trumbull County, Ohio, January 29, 1843. His father, William McKinley, Sr., moved to Ohio from Pennsylvania. The family was Scotch-Irish, whose forefathers had come to America 150 years before. He was the seventh child in the family of nine. As a boy, he had regular schooling and was especially noted for his brilliancy in debate. Later, he taught in the public schools of the Kerr district, near Poland. About this time, he joined the Methodist Episcopal Church and became a diligent student of the Bible. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he was a clerk in the Poland post office. When the call was made for volunteers, young McKinley was among those who stepped forward. He went with the recruits to Columbus and was enlisted as a private in Company E, Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry. This regiment numbered among its officers William S. Rosecrans, afterward major general, and Rutherford B. Hayes, later nineteenth President of the United States. [Illustration: MRS. IDA SAXTON McKINLEY] [Illustration: _Photo. Underwood & Underwood_ WILLIAM McKINLEY] Many are the soldier stories of camp and battlefield in which McKinley figured. Henry H. Woodruff, of Oakland, Cal., who served in the same regiment with him, sent the author the following story of the famous old Twenty-third Ohio with McKinley’s service to it in war, and its service to McKinley when he was President. He says: “I was born in the township of Mecca, County of Trumbull, State of Ohio, July 15, 1841. Wm. McKinley was born in the next township at Niles, in Trumbull County, Ohio, January 29, 1843. I entered the preparatory department of Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, about thirty miles west of Cleveland, April 15, 1861. We were in class in old Tappin Hall, when the Professor read a dispatch from Washington City stating that President Lincoln had called for 75,000 men to go to the front to put down the Rebellion. Instantly every male member of that class volunteered, grabbed his hat, rushed out in front of the building, and tried to form a line, or company, as we had no military knowledge, being only farmer boys or students. We took the cars for Cleveland, going into Camp in the old Fair Grounds called ‘Camp Taylor.’ Other companies began to arrive, officers were elected, and we were formed into a regiment and given the number Twenty-third Ohio. We soon moved to ‘Camp Chare’ at Columbus, where the regimental organization was completed and Wm. Stark Rosecrans appointed colonel.