Wounded five times in the war, Hayes kept leading his men into battle. At the Battle of Opequon Creek, for example, Hayes led the charge through a morass, turning the tide of battle. An officer with no military experience, he learned quickly, worked hard, and with his "intense and ferocious" demeanor on the battlefield gained the respect of the enlisted men and his superiors. Using his political connections, Hayes was appointed a major in the 23rd Ohio Volunteers.
Nevertheless, he was one of the first three-year volunteers, stating that he would rather die in the conflict than live having done nothing for the Union. When the Civil War broke out, Hayes was already nearly 40 years old and the father of three children, with a fourth on the way. After marriage, Hayes became a stronger antislavery advocate and a teetotaler following his move to the White House, and he regularly attended religious services with Lucy, though he never joined a church. Lucy advocated temperance and abolition and was a strong Methodist who placed more emphasis on good works than on being "born again." She deeply influenced her husband in what became a close marital bond. He then made a name for himself as a successful criminal defense lawyer in Cincinnati. With the help of his wealthy uncle, Sardis Birchard, Hayes attended Kenyon College and Harvard Law School. Raised by his single mother Sophia, Rud developed a very close relationship with his brilliant sister, Fanny, who encouraged him to achieve the prominent career denied to her because she was a woman. Hayes's father ran a successful farm and whiskey distillery in Ohio but died ten weeks before Rutherford was born. Upstanding, moral, and honest, Hayes was ironically elected after one of the most lengthy, bitterly disputed, and corrupt presidential elections in American history.
He was well suited to the task, having earned a steadfast reputation for integrity throughout his career as a soldier and a statesman.
Hayes, America's 19th President, served as chief executive at the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of the modern industrial age.
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