Publication information
view printer-friendly version
Source: Forty Years of Active Service
Source type: book
Document type: book chapter
Document title: “Conclusion—President M’Kinley—General Daniel Morgan” [chapter 14]
Author(s): O’Ferrall, Charles T.
Publisher: Neale Publishing Company
Place of publication: New York, New York
Year of publication: 1904
Part/Section: 2
Pagination: 354-67 (excerpt below includes only pages 355-57)

 
Citation
O’Ferrall, Charles T. “Conclusion—President M’Kinley—General Daniel Morgan” [chapter 14]. Forty Years of Active Service. New York: Neale Publishing, 1904: part 2, pp. 354-67.
 
Transcription
excerpt of chapter
 
Keywords
William McKinley (relations with American South); William McKinley (presidential character).
 
Named persons
William McKinley.
 
Notes
From title page: Forty Years of Active Service: Being Some History of the War between the Confederacy and the Union and of the Events Leading Up to It, with Reminiscences of the Struggle and Accounts of the Author’s Experiences of Four Years from Private to Lieutenant-Colonel and Acting Colonel in the Cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia; Also, Much of the History of Virginia and the Nation in Which the Author Took Part for Many Years in Political Conventions and on the Hustings and as Lawyer, Member of the Legislature of Virginia, Judge, Member of the House of Representatives of the United States and Governor of Virginia.
 
Document

 

Conclusion—President M’Kinley—General Daniel Morgan [excerpt]

     In conversation with President McKinley at the Executive Office, to which I have referred, he gave evidence of the spirit that animated him in the administration of the affairs of this Government until the bullet of the miserable anarchist destroyed his noble life. He said: “Thank God we hear [355][356] no longer the words Northerner and Southerner. If the sections were not united heart and soul already, this trouble has united them. In my appointments to places in the Army, far be it from me to inquire whether an applicant comes from the North or South, or whether his antecedents are secession or Union, except so far as it may be necessary in order to apportion the appointments among the different States.”
     By his every act and expression from the day of his first inauguration to his sad and tragic death, his determination and purpose were clearly shown to be, in truth and not merely in name, a National President, without enmity for the South, without bias for the North. His wearing of a Confederate badge at a Confederate reunion, and his suggestion that the United States Government should make appropriations for the care of Confederate Cemeteries, showed how full was his soul with the milk, not of human kindness merely, but the spirit of fraternal love.
     This was an exhibition of moral courage and superb manhood that will link his name forever with the names of the world’s most courageous and manly, most generous, magnanimous, and patriotic public servants. No President from the birth of this Republic to the present hour ever grew more rapidly in the hearts and affections of the American people than did William McKinley, and when he was lying, hovering between life and death, the prayers that ascended to the Throne of Grace for his recovery from every section of this Republic were as countless as the leaves of a forest.
     William McKinley was truly a National President. He had as much faith in the patriotism of the South as he had in the patriotism of the North. He would have trusted a Virginia Division to lead a forlorn hope as soon as he would have trusted a Massachusetts Division. There was not a spark of sectional feeling in his soul.
     He loved the whole constellation, and one star was as dear to him as another.
     He loved his American soil, and the cotton-fields of Georgia and wheat-fields of Tennessee delighted his eye with [356][357] their opening bolls and golden sheaves as much as the ore beds of Pennsylvania and the pine clusters of Maine. He loved his country’s oceans, lakes, bays, and rivers, and the white sails of commerce on their bosoms filled him with pride from whatsoever clime they came, North, South, East, or West.

 

 


top of page