At twelve noon on June 7, 1864, New York senator Edwin G. Morgan, national chairman of the Republican Party, gaveled the convention to order at the Front Street Theatre. Morgan had been a Seward man at Chicago in 1860, but during the past four years his admiration for Lincoln had grown steadily. Now, after huddling with the president in Washington before the convention, he told the delegates what they wanted to hear. “In view of the dread realities of the past … and with the knowledge … that this has been caused by slavery,” Morgan, with Lincoln’s strong approval, proposed as the chief plank in the convention platform “an amendment of the Constitution as will positively prohibit African slavery in the United States.”
The next day, Raymond presented the planks of the platform. In a convention that Lincoln hoped would bring a National Union Party together, the sixth resolution steered the boat in the other direction. The plank called for a purge of any cabinet member who did not “cordially endorse the principles proclaimed in these resolutions.” The plank was clearly aimed at Montgomery Blair, whom the radicals had grown to disdain for his attacks on them. Beneath the formal language, the plank demanded the president fire Blair.
Vice President Hamlin waited to hear news that he, too, would be renominated, but he waited in vain. Over the past four years, Hamlin had moved steadily toward the camp of the radicals. For months, word had been gossiped that Lincoln preferred Andrew Johnson, War Democrat governor of Tennessee. When various emissaries before and during the convention tried to get Lincoln to name his preference, he said he would leave it up to the convention. Hay wired Nicolay that the president wished “not to interfere in the nomination even by a confidential suggestion.”
Lincoln and Johnson formed an unlikely duo that elicited much comment after the convention. The Richmond Examiner reported that the Union Party had nominated the “Illinois rail-splitter” and the “Tennessee tailor.” By contrast, Charles Sumner, representing the sentiment of the convention, called Andrew Johnson the “faithful among the faithless” and “the Abdiel of the South,” referencing the figure in the Bible and in John Milton’s Paradise Lost who denounces Satan. Lincoln appreciated Johnson’s courage in standing against his native state in support of the Union. But, as time and different circumstances would reveal later, Lincoln and Johnson were quite different in temperament and perspective on the South.
On June 9, 1864, a committee composed of one delegate from each state present at the convention called on the president at the White House to offer official notification of his nomination. Lincoln replied, “I will neither conceal my gratification, nor restrain the expression of my gratitude, that the Union people … in their continued effort to save, and advance the nation, have deemed me not unworthy to remain in my present position.” Lincoln then took the unusual step of saying he could “not declare definitely” he would accept the nomination until he read the platform. He took this opportunity to say to the committee that his first priority would be “amending the Constitution as to prohibit slavery throughout the nation.” He concluded his acceptance, “In the joint names of Liberty and Union,” reflecting how the aim of the war had changed in the space of four years.
FOLLOWING THE CONVENTION, Montgomery Blair offered Lincoln his resignation. The president refused to accept it. He valued Blair ’s loyalty and was not about to have his advisers prescribed by others. Blair’s resignation was undated and he told the president to use it whenever he needed to relieve the pressure from the radicals.
The larger burr under Lincoln’s saddle was Salmon Chase. Although Lincoln knew Chase took many opportunities to criticize him behind his back, up until now Lincoln found no fault with how Chase ran the Treasury Department. His ability to raise and manage money lay behind the expansion and mobilization of the Union army. Lincoln was sympathetic to Chase’s efforts, often in the face of a Congress that refused to raise adequate taxes to support the war effort. Twice in three years Chase had submitted his resignation, but Lincoln had not accepted it.
In June 1864, Lincoln found himself between the strong-willed Chase and the wishes of New York senator Edwin Morgan over a key appointment. When Chase nominated Maunsell B. Field as assistant treasurer in New York, Lincoln wrote him, “I can not, without much embarrassment, make this appointment, principally because of Senator Morgan’s firm opposition to it.” Lincoln then proceeded to give Chase three options of qualified persons from which he could choose. These names had been suggested by Morgan, and Chase instantly recognized them as allies of his longtime rival, Seward, and, from his perspective, having little financial experience.
Chase objected. The next day he asked for a private meeting with the president. Lincoln, probably wanting to avert another debate with Chase, replied immediately that he could not meet with him “because the difficulty does not, in the main part, lie within the range of a conversation between you and me.” Lincoln was saying, as politely as he could, that the leaders of New York had a right to offer their judgment on whoever would serve as the assistant treasurer of their state.
Chase, acting impulsively and with rising anger, resigned. He wrote Lincoln on June 29, 1864, “I cannot help feeling that my position here is not altogether agreeable to you; and it is certainly too full of embarrassment and difficulty and painful responsibility to allow in me the least desire to retain it.”
Lincoln, who usually did not act impulsively, accepted Chase’s resignation. Lincoln wrote, “Of all I have said in commendation of your ability and fidelity, I have nothing to unsay; and yet you and I have reached a point of mutual embarrassment in our official relation which it seems can not be overcome, or longer sustained, consistently with the public service.”
After writing out his brief letter, Lincoln called for Hay. “When does the Senate meet today?”
“Eleven o’clock.”
“I wish you to be there when they meet. It is a big fish. Mr. Chase has resigned & I have accepted his resignation. I thought I could not stand it any longer.”
THE NATIONAL UNION PARTY convention had adjourned on an upbeat note in June, but back in Washington everything had seemed to deteriorate. Discontent with Lincoln simmered just below the surface of outward enthusiasm. Discouraging news from Grant and Meade’s spring offensive grew apace and began to diminish the earlier optimism about Lincoln’s chances for reelection. Sherman seemed stuck in Georgia with little communication about his movements. Lincoln had undergone other seasons of despair—after the first battle of Bull Run in the summer of 1861, the discouraging battles on the Virginia peninsula in the spring and summer of 1862, after Fredericksburg in December 1862, and following the defeat at Chancellorsville in May 1863—but the spirits of Lincoln and the North descended to their lowest point yet in the summer of 1864. Detractors in the North, including one in the White House, Mary Lincoln, began calling Lincoln’s commander “Grant the Butcher.” The Northern public began to ask if victory was worth the enormous cost in human life.
By the middle of June, Grant’s advance corps reached Petersburg, twenty miles southeast of Richmond. After achieving some early success, Meade and Grant expected a breakthrough, but it was not to be. Ending seven weeks of forward movement, they settled in for a long siege. By the time Grant reached Petersburg, he had lost so many officers and troops that he found himself relying on fatigued veterans and inexperienced new volunteers.
Lincoln accepted another invitation to another sanitary fair, this one in Philadelphia, because he knew he needed opportunities to speak to a discouraged public.
On June 16, 1864, he got right to the point. “War, at the best, is terrible, and this war of ours, in its magnitude and duration, is one of the most terrible.” He described what those in his audience were experiencing. “It has damaged business. … It has destroyed property, and ruined homes; it has produced a national debt and taxation unprecedented.” Most of all, “it has carried mourning to almost every home, until it can almost be said that the ‘heavens are hung in black.’ ” Lincoln told the people in Phi
ladelphia that “it is a pertinent question” to ask: “When is the war to end?” He would not make any predictions, which could only lead to “disappointment” when the projected date is not met. In a subdued tone, Lincoln declared, “We accepted this war for an object, a worthy object, and the war will end when the object is attained.”
In early July, the terror of war came to the front door of Washington. General Jubal Early led fifteen thousand Confederate troops down the Shenandoah Valley and across the Potomac River into Maryland on July 6, 1864. Pushing aside a Union force east of Frederick on July 9, they set their sights on Washington. The irony of this fourth summer of war was not lost on anyone: Union fear for Washington suddenly replaced Confederate anxiety about the defense of Richmond. Lincoln, for all his faith in Grant, quickly realized that there were few men left to defend Washington—convalescent troops and old men in the Home Guard—because Grant had commandeered the regular army troops for the attack on Richmond. On July 11, Jubal Early reached the outskirts of Washington near Silver Spring and burned the home of Postmaster General Montgomery Blair. On July 12, as Early’s troops came within five miles of the White House, Lincoln, in top hat, traveled to Fort Stevens to see the combat in person. As he peered out over a parapet, a sharpshooter’s bullet came perilously close. According to legend, a young army captain, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who would later serve on the Supreme Court, yelled out, “Get down, you damn fool, before you get shot.”
Throughout this summer of despondency, Lincoln appeared weary, his tall and thin frame visibly sagging. As casualties escalated, the cumulative effect of more than three years of war began taking its physical toll on the president.
In addition to the bad news from the battlefield, Lincoln began receiving pessimistic reports from his advisers about his prospects for reelection. Henry B. Raymond, editor of the New York Times, wrote Lincoln from the Republican National Committee at the Astor House in New York City on August 22, 1864, with disturbing news, telling Lincoln that New York “would go 50,000 against us tomorrow.” Raymond reported that Illinois congressman Elihu Washburne believed that if the election were “to be held now in Illinois we should be beaten.” Simon Cameron, Lincoln’s former secretary of war, predicted “Pennsylvania is against us.”
Why this dismal turn of events? Raymond wrote candidly about Lincoln’s difficulty. “The want of military success, and the impression in some minds, the fear and suspicion in others, that we are not to have peace in any event under this Administration until Slavery is abandoned.” Lincoln, long criticized by abolitionists and radical Republicans for going too slowly on slavery, now was being arraigned for standing his ground on the moral imperative of getting rid of slavery in the new Union. In sum, Raymond told Lincoln, “The tide is setting strongly against us.”
By early August, Lincoln was convinced that he could not be reelected. On August 23, 1864, six days before the Democratic convention would select his opponent, Lincoln wrote a private memorandum stating his feelings.
This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so cooperate with the President-elect as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterwards.
Lincoln brought his message to that day’s cabinet meeting. He presented it to his colleagues, folded so that none of the text was visible, and asked each of them to sign the back of the document. Lincoln never explained why he did not read or show the members of his cabinet the contents of his memo. Lincoln surely believed that if a Democrat was elected president, that person would end the war on the terms that guaranteed Confederate independence.
THE DEMOCRATS HEADED for Chicago at the end of August for their ninth national convention. Eleven railroad lines, each overflowing with delegates, converged on the new capital of the Midwest. Noah Brooks, dispatched by Lincoln to be his observer, caught a train from Washington on August 25, 1864, quickly finding himself “burdened with Copperheads.” Before the Sacramento writer departed, Lincoln predicted to Brooks, “They must nominate a Peace Democrat on a war platform, or a War Democrat on a peace platform; and I personally can’t say I care much which they do.”
On August 23, 1864, Lincoln wrote a memo for his cabinet revealing his belief that he could not be reelected for a second term as president.
The Democrats fulfilled Lincoln’s prediction. They sought to find middle ground between the two wings of their party. The War Democrats succeeded in nominating Lincoln’s former top military commander General George B. McClellan for president. The Peace Democrats, most notably Clement Vallandigham, wrote a platform that declared “after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, …justice, humanity, liberty and the public welfare demand” an end to the war “on the basis of the Federal Union of States.” August Belmont, who called the convention to order on August 29, 1864, warned his fellow Democrats that dissension in their ranks had cost them the 1860 election. At the end of the convention the two branches of the Democratic Party had arrived at a compromise. But would it last?
The Democrats had waited to hold their convention until the end of the summer, hoping that the continuing bad news would be good news for their candidate. Now they waited some more. For days, George McClellan, at his home in Orange, New Jersey, struggled to determine how to run as a War Democrat on a peace platform. He stayed out of sight as he worked on draft after draft of an acceptance letter. Advice poured in from every quarter as to how the general could reconcile the war and peace branches of his party and go on the offensive against Lincoln.
But before McClellan would speak, General William Tecumseh Sherman spoke. The fall political campaign had barely begun when, on September 3, 1864, a telegram arrived from General Sherman announcing, “Atlanta is ours, and fairly won.” The victory at Atlanta, an important railroad and manufacturing city, against two Confederate armies, was one of the most important military accomplishments of the war. Sherman took Atlanta by surrounding the city with overwhelming force and persuading its defenders to evacuate and retreat rather than fight and risk heavy loss of life, both military and civilian.
Sherman’s victory at Atlanta changed everything overnight. “Glorious news this morning—Atlanta taken at last!!!” wrote George Templeton Strong in New York. He understood the impact of this event. “It is the greatest event of the war.” The mood of pessimism broke immediately. A revival of Unionist fervor began to sweep through the North. Lincoln’s spirits were buoyed.
After this turn of events, McClellan released a letter at midnight on September 8, 1854. After declaring he had not sought the nomination, he affirmed, “The preservation of our Union was the sole avowed object for which the war was commenced.” What he did not say, loudly, was that the war should never have been fought to overthrow slavery. He obviously struggled over the peace platform and renounced it when he said: “I could not look in the face of my gallant comrades of the army and navy who have survived so many bloody battles, and tell them their labors and the sacrifices of so many of our slain and wounded brethren had been in vain.” McClellan was saying for all who would hear that he was not willing to end the war at any price. With these words, he hoped he could garner the large soldiers’ vote.
McClellan’s published letter both electrified and disappointed Democrats. War Democrats became convinced they had their candidate, a man who could garner the soldiers’ votes and push Lincoln out of office. But New York Democratic mayor Fernando Wood was not so sure. Realizing McClellan’s no-win position, he suggested reconvening the Democratic convention “either to remodel the platform to suit the nominee, or nominate a candidate to suit the platform.” Henry Raymond, discouraged with Lincoln’s chances in August, now editorialized in September, “Well, we see at last Gen. McClellan practices his favorite strategy—with bold front he fights shy.” Raymond described McClellan as “all ambition and no courag
e, all desire and no decision.”
IN KEEPING WITH CAMPAIGN PROTOCOL, neither Lincoln nor McClellan campaigned in person but left it to surrogates to make their cases to the public. By September, cartoonists disparaged General McClellan in comparison to Lincoln. Frank Bellew, in Harper’s Weekly, drew a visual contrast between a large Lincoln and a small McClellan. The caption heightened the contrast. A political cartoon portrayed McClellan as the one man keeping Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis from continuing to attack each other. Another portrayed McClellan as a traitor to the ideals of liberty and yet another showed Lincoln as a dictator. A cartoon popular with Democrats portrayed Lincoln presiding at a ball where white men were dancing with black women. A new word, “miscegenation,” had been coined by two reporters for the New York World in 1863, and now was used to attack Lincoln. The two Latin roots, miscere, to mix, and genus, race, replaced the old word, amalgamation, and instantly produced more loathing and disgust. A tract called “The Lincoln Catechism” claimed that Lincoln’s ultimate goal was miscegenation.
The illustration “This reminds me of a little joke” appeared in Harper’s Weekly on September 17, 1864.
This anti-Republican satire, “The Miscegenation Ball,” was a campaign cartoon meant to tie Lincoln to radical abolitionism. The artist portrays the fear of racial intermingling—white men are dancing with black women in a large hall. Above the musicians’ stage hangs a portrait of Abraham Lincoln.
Lincoln and the Republicans campaigned on a theme of “No Peace Without Victory.” Posters, ribbons, ferrotypes, medals, and tokens in the 1864 presidential campaign became visible everywhere. An 1864 campaign ribbon captured the now clearly understood twin goals of the war: “Union and Liberty.” Another medal was inscribed: “Freedom to All Men / War for the Union.” The theme of human rights was captured in tokens. One side read “Lincoln,” while on the other side was inscribed “Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land.” Another read “Lincoln and Liberty” on one side and on the other, “Freedom/Justice/ Truth.”
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