November 12, 1864---"A devastation more or less relentless . . ."

NOVEMBER 12, 1864:     

Generals Grant and Sherman meet at Kingston, Georgia. Despite some concerns about John Bell Hood’s Confederate force away north, Grant gives Sherman the go-head to cut loose from his supply lines and march to the sea with 60,000 troops arrayed in two parallel columns of 30,000 men each. Since Union forces were abandoning their supply and communication line to Chattanooga, Sherman gave orders to “forage liberally during the march.” He also ordered mills and cotton gins burned along the way and if guerrilla activity was encountered then “army commanders should order and enforce a devastation more or less relentless according to the measure of such hostility.” Although Confederate resistance was nil during the March, much devastation was wrought. 

November 11, 1864---"Now, Mr. Hay, see if you can get this open . . ."

NOVEMBER 11, 1864:       

John Hay, one of President Lincoln’s two secretaries (the other being John Nicolay), and a future Secretary of State under President Theodore Roosevelt, writes of the first post-election Cabinet meeting in Washington. Back in the dark summer, Lincoln had written a letter and had had his Cabinet all endorse the back on trust without knowing the contents. Hay writes:

At the meeting of the Cabinet today, the President took out a paper from his desk and said, "Gentlemen, do you remember last summer I asked you all to sign your names to the back of a paper of which I did not show you the inside? This is it. Now, Mr. Hay, see if you can get this open without tearing it!"  

He has pasted it up in so singular style that it required some cutting to get it open. 

It read: "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 co-operate 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 can not possibly save it afterwards." 

When he revealed the contents of the note, the President said, 

'You will remember that this was written at a time when as yet we had no adversary, and seemed to have no friends. I then solemnly resolved on the course of action indicated above. I resolved, in case of the election of General McClellan, being certain that he would be the candidate, that I would see him and talk matters over with him. I would say, 'General, the election has demonstrated that you are stronger, have more influence with the American people than I. Now let us together, you with your influence and I with all the executive power of the Government, try to save the country. You raise as many troops as you possibly can for this final trial, and I will devote all my energies to assisting and finishing the war.'"

 

Mr. Seward said, 'And the General would answer you, 'Yes, Yes;' and the next day when you saw him again and pressed these views upon him, he would say, 'Yes, Yes;' & so on forever, and would have done nothing at all.'

 

"At least,' answered Mr. Lincoln, 'I should have done my duty and have stood clear before my own conscience."

  

November 10, 1864---100 miles from Washington D.C. they ask, "Did Lincoln win re-election?"

NOVEMBER 10, 1864:      

The Richmond Times-Dispatch comments on the expectation that Abraham Lincoln will win re-election in the North:

[O]ur men . . . still remain [ ] in momentary expectation of a shouted salute, wherewith it is expected the Yankees will greet the first news of Lincoln's success at the Northern polls. It was not thought they will wait for official returns as to the general result of the election, but will bang away with their double-shotted guns over any important success. Our men [are] prepared to hurl back a defiance in kind . . .  the result of the election in the principal cities must be known to-day.

November 9, 1864---Special Field Orders Number 120: Sherman's March To The Sea

NOVEMBER 9, 1864:       

With President Lincoln’s re-election an accomplished fact and the status of Atlanta rendered unimportant to his war aims, General William Tecumseh Sherman U.S.A issues Special Field Orders Number 120, giving an outline for the military organization of what will become known as “Sherman’s March To The Sea”:

Headquarters Military Division of the Mississippi, In the Field, Kingston, Georgia, November 9, 1864

I. For the purpose of military operations, this army is divided into two wings viz.: The right wing, Major-General O. O. Howard commanding, composed of the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Corps; the left wing, Major-General H. W. Slocum commanding, composed of the Fourteenth and Twentieth Corps.

II. The habitual order of march will be, wherever practicable, by four roads, as nearly parallel as possible, and converging at points hereafter to be indicated in orders. The cavalry, Brigadier - General Kilpatrick commanding, will receive special orders from the commander-in-chief.

III. There will be no general train of supplies, but each corps will have its ammunition-train and provision-train, distributed habitually as follows: Behind each regiment should follow one wagon and one ambulance; behind each brigade should follow a due proportion of ammunition - wagons, provision-wagons, and ambulances. In case of danger, each corps commander should change this order of march, by having his advance and rear brigades unencumbered by wheels. The separate columns will start habitually at 7 a.m., and make about fifteen miles per day, unless otherwise fixed in orders.

IV. The army will forage liberally on the country during the march. To this end, each brigade commander will organize a good and sufficient foraging party, under the command of one or more discreet officers, who will gather, near the route traveled, corn or forage of any kind, meat of any kind, vegetables, corn-meal, or whatever is needed by the command, aiming at all times to keep in the wagons at least ten day's provisions for the command and three days' forage. Soldiers must not enter the dwellings of the inhabitants, or commit any trespass, but during a halt or a camp they may be permitted to gather turnips, potatoes, and other vegetables, and to drive in stock of their camp. To regular foraging parties must be instructed the gathering of provisions and forage at any distance from the road traveled.

V. To army corps commanders alone is intrusted the power to destroy mills, houses, cotton-gins, &c., and for them this general principle is laid down: In districts and neighborhoods where the army is unmolested no destruction of such property should be permitted; but should guerrillas or bushwhackers molest our march, or should the inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct roads, or otherwise manifest local hostility, then army commanders should order and enforce a devastation more or less relentless according to the measure of such hostility.

VI. As for horses, mules, wagons, &c., belonging to the inhabitants, the cavalry and artillery may appropriate freely and without limit, discriminating, however, between the rich, who are usually hostile, and the poor or industrious, usually neutral or friendly. Foraging parties may also take mules or horses to replace the jaded animals of their trains, or to serve as pack-mules for the regiments or bridges. In all foraging, of whatever kind, the parties engaged will refrain from abusive or threatening language, and may, where the officer in command thinks proper, give written certificates of the facts, but no receipts, and they will endeavor to leave with each family a reasonable portion for their maintenance.

VII. Negroes who are able-bodied and can be of service to the several columns may be taken along, but each army commander will bear in mind that the question of supplies is a very important one and that his first duty is to see to them who bear arms.

 — William T. Sherman, Military Division of the Mississippi Special Field Order 120, November 9, 1864

November 8, 1864--- Abraham Lincoln Wins A Second Term

NOVEMBER 8, 1864:       

Abraham Lincoln is re-elected President of the United States. The North, the South, and Europe watch anxiously as United States citizens go to the polls this day to choose a Chief Executive. Everyone concerned knows that the election of 1864 is a plebiscite on the conduct of the war. It is also unique in that no republic has ever held an election in the midst of a civil war. The Confederate States of course, cast no popular votes and their 80 electoral votes are a nullity. Nobody really knows how the election will turn out.

 

Lincoln himself is unsure. Although most of his advisors are blithely confident that the President will be re-elected, Lincoln himself is the canniest of politicians who is aware of just how fickle the American electorate can be. He knows that the recent string of Union victories --- Mobile Bay, Atlanta, Opequon (Winchester), Fisher’s Hill, Athens (Alabama), Marianna, Allatoona, Glasgow, Cedar Creek, Westport, and other smaller contests --- have bolstered Union morale magnificently. 

But he also knows that just about two months ago his chances for re-election were so nonexistent that he formed a Transition Committee to aid the new President in prosecuting the war. And he has not forgotten that the Richmond-Petersburg Line has not broken, that John Bell Hood is moving toward Tennessee, and that Nathan Bedford Forrest is wringing victories out of the very stones of the South. The Confederacy may be on her knees indeed, but she has risen before to grasp the Union by the throat to be knocked into the dirt. The Summer of ’64 has left a bitter metallic taste --- the taste of spilled blood --- in Lincoln’s mouth.

General George B. McClellan resigns his commission in the morning so that he can take the Presidential Oath of Office as a civilian.  No one knows whether the “Soldier Vote” will go to Lincoln or to the still-admired and respected and beloved “Young Napoleon.”

 

If Lincoln has one trump card, it is his sour Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton. Although Stanton once referred to Lincoln as “that long-armed creature,” he has come to love the President, who he sees not only as a great military and political leader but as a moral force and an avatar sent from elsewhere to guide the nation through its darkest peril. 

Stanton (with and without Lincoln’s permission) has taken steps to ensure the President’s re-election:

 

Stanton has furloughed nearly 100,000 men from the Armed Forces and has given them free transportation home so they can vote. Men in remote and forgotten frontier outposts whose only duty in the war has been to scan the horizons for Indian attacks that never come, suddenly find themselves being greeted by the Mayors of their hometowns, feted as heroes, and being led by the hand to the voting booth. Men in a thousand garrisoned towns are given leave, their places temporarily taken by U.S.C.T. (who cannot vote) and by avowed Democrats (whom Stanton does not want to vote). They are met by mothers and fathers and siblings and wives and sweethearts and children at the nation’s railroad stations who rejoice that the kind government of good President Lincoln could spare them to come home. For men in critical positions --- and in combat --- who cannot be furloughed, Stanton has convinced at least the Republican Governors of the States to experiment with a revolutionary new way of voting --- the absentee ballot --- and has made sure that the ballots can reach local Supervisors of Elections in time to be counted by designating them as military dispatches.

Stanton has also ensured a smooth and undisturbed electoral process by placing thousands of Federal troops on alert in Chicago and New York (both suspected of being terror targets on Election Day). He has likewise made sure that the election proceeds undisturbed in the restored southern states of Louisiana and Tennessee by stationing armed soldiers in every polling place. He has further made certain that there will be no hanky-panky in counting the votes by assigning handpicked, that is staunchly Republican, poll watchers and Elections Supervisors in the restored southern States and the Border States.

Exactly how many McClellanites, Copperheads, and pro-Confederates are kept away, scared away, or chased away from the voting booths on Election Day will never be known. Probably less than can be imagined, more than are estimated. A little voter fraud is encouraged, too: In Indiana, a garrison of Massachusetts volunteers is permitted to vote as native Hoosiers. Undoubtedly Indiana is not the only place this happens.

Still, the election is not an open-and-shut matter. Lincoln needs 117 Electoral Votes to win. No one really knows (until the results come in) whether voting will go easily in the south. New York, with its massive 33 electoral votes, is always a Democratic stronghold. Tennessee is in the midst of battles. Arkansas, though it has a Unionist government, is in too chaotic a condition to conduct an election. The Pacific coast States are too far away to influence. Nevada’s jackrabbit admission to the Union just a week ago is seen as a help to Lincoln, but the butternut counties of Illinois, Ohio and Indiana are Peace Democrat territory as is much of southern Pennsylvania. How Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and particularly bloody Missouri will go is a huge question mark.  

In the event, there are some irregularities. One of Nevada’s three Electors is absent and never casts a vote. After the election the United States Congress refuses to accept Tennessee’s ten electoral votes and Louisiana’s seven as a smack at Lincoln’s Reconstruction policy.  Thus, only 25 Union States participate in the election.

Still, as it transpires, the election is a massive victory for Lincoln. Lincoln wins a whopping 212 (counted) electoral votes to McClellan’s 21, 78% to 22%.    

The incumbent President receives 2,220,846 popular votes to McClellan’s 1,809,445, 55% to 45%, a plurality of 411,401 votes. 

Lincoln garners 70% of the Soldier Vote --- having rejected the “Peace Plank” of his party’s platform and having vowed to continue the war, McClellan has essentially erased any difference between them on the issue --- and a Midwestern soldier’s comment in an exit poll of sorts becomes a household expression: “Why then should we change horses in midstream?”

McClellan wins just three States --- his home State of New Jersey (7 electoral votes), Delaware (3 electoral votes) and Lincoln’s birthplace of Kentucky (11 electoral votes, where he dominates in the Soldier Vote). 

Lincoln does carry New York’s 33 electoral votes by a razor thin margin (less than 1%), Pennsylvania’s 26 by 3.5%, and Connecticut’s 6 by 2.75%. For McClellan’s part, he win’s Delaware’s by 3.6%. 

One has to wonder if Louisiana and Tennessee’s votes would have been counted in a closer election?

The extent of Lincoln’s electoral victory is clear when one considers that even if Lincoln had lost New York, Pennsylvania and Connecticut he still would have received 211 electoral votes, 94 more than he needed to win re-election.  

The Republicans also gained solid majorities in both Houses of Congress in this election cycle.

If nothing else, and there is much else, the Election of 1864 is proof positive of the strength of the democratic process and the republican form of government. 

We cannot have free government without elections. If the rebellion could force us to forgo, or postpone a national election it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us.” --- Abraham Lincoln