The 1864 presidential election, held in the midst of the American Civil War (1861-1865), pitted President Abraham Lincoln against former Union general-in-chief George B. McClellan. McClellan, who had clashed with Lincoln early in the war and been removed from command, ran as a "peace candidate," though he himself did not entirely agree with his own Democratic Party's platform calling for reconciliation with the South and restoration of the Union. With many Northerners, including pro-peace "Copperheads," eager to see the war end, some, including Lincoln himself, were doubtful about the possibilty of reelection. However, a series of Union military victories, including General William Tecumseh Sherman's capture of Atlanta in the summer of 1864, helped turn the tide in Lincoln's favor. He handily defeated McClellan, winning 212 electoral votes to McClellan's 21. Within six months the Civil War would be over, and, just weeks after be was inaugurated for a second term, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth.
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Did You Know?
Abraham Lincoln received more than 70 percent of the votes cast by Union soldiers in the 1864 presidential election
The contest in the midst of the Civil War pitted President Abraham Lincoln against Democrat George B. McClellan, the general who had commanded the Army of the Potomac until his indecision and delays caused Lincoln to remove him. The vice-presidential candidates were Andrew Johnson, Tennessee's military governor who had refused to acknowledge his state's secession, and Representative George Pendleton of Ohio. At first, Radical Republicans, fearing defeat, talked of ousting Lincoln in favor of the more ardently antislavery secretary of the treasury Salmon P. Chase, or Generals John C. Frémont or Benjamin F. Butler. But in the end they fell in behind the president.
The Republicans attracted Democratic support by running as the Union party and putting Johnson, a pro-war Democrat, on the ticket. McClellan repudiated the Democratic platform's call for peace, but he attacked Lincoln's handling of the war.
Lincoln won in a landslide, owing partly to a policy of letting soldiers go home to vote. But the military successes of Generals Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia and William T. Sherman in the Deep South were probably more important. He received 2,206,938 votes to McClellan's 1,803,787. The electoral vote was 212 to 21. Democrats did better in state elections.
The Reader's Companion to American History. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors. Copyright © 1991 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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