A Proposal for
The Union: Ordeal and Redemption, May-November 1864
Mark Grimsley
Department of History
The Ohio State University
230 West 17th Avenue
Columbus, OH 43210
Overview
Around August 11, 1864, Republican political boss Thurlow Weed assured President Abraham Lincoln that his reelection was "an impossibility." Not long afterward, the publisher of the New York Times informed Lincoln that, based on an extensive canvass of the president's staunchest friends throughout the North, "the tide is setting strongly against us." Lincoln, he wrote, was poised to lose not only New York and Pennsylvania, which between them had half the votes required to win in the electoral college, but also Lincoln's home state of Illinois. And so it appeared right down the line.
Lincoln's fate seemed overdetermined in the late summer of 1864. The Union war effort had bogged down in stalemate. The Democratic opposition had a strong set of issues on which to capitalize, including conscription, emancipation, and Lincoln's supposed abuses of his presidential power. Furthermore, Lincoln's own Republican party had little enthusiasm for his candidacy. Some of its members had already bolted in favor of John C. Frémont. Others, furious at the president's pocket veto of the Wade-Davis Reconstruction bill, were on the verge of withdrawing their support. A Republican executive council decided that it was "useless and inexpedient" to back Lincoln's reelection. Its members agreed to call a new convention "and, if need be, to nominate some candidate who can unite the entire loyal vote."
The final week of August was the most critical phase of a six-month period-May through November 1864-that witnessed the final turning point of the Civil War. A protracted military stalemate during these months, coupled with a Democratic victory at the polls, would most likely have resulted in peace negotiations and eventual Southern independence. The election of an alternative Republican candidate would have altered the course of Reconstruction, as would the election of a Democratic candidate in the context of a successful Union war effort. Each of these were real possibilities. The choices and outcomes during this small slice of time had extraordinary implications for the future course of American history.
The Union: Ordeal and Redemption, May-November 1864 is a brief work, about 60,000 words in length, that examines this crucial period through the lens of contingency. The term is used in two senses: first, the real choices that living people actually made, and second, pivotal moments when events moved in one direction but could well have moved in another. It focuses on three arenas in which contingency operated most significantly: 1) Lincoln's bid to achieve and retain his party's renomination, and the efforts made to strip him of it; 2) the Democratic party's handling of the 1864 campaign; and 3) military operations, particularly the Atlanta Campaign but also others before and after. In addition to examining these arenas in detail, it also focuses on the interactions between them, as well as other key developments; e.g., Confederate efforts to influence the election through disingenuous peace feelers.
Lincoln's renomination in 1864 was hardly a sure thing. For a generation the United States had possessed a tradition of one-term presidents. Since 1840 no incumbent had even received his party's nomination. Powerful figures within the Republican party looked askance at Lincoln's policies and abilities. Had they been able to settle on a single alternative candidate, had Lincoln's state-level political support been less well-organized, or had the military situation not improved in September 1864, it is not unlikely that Republicans would have rallied around a different presidential candidate in the autumn election.
The event that ensured the safety of Lincoln's renomination was Gen. William T. Sherman's capture of Atlanta on September 2, 1864. This military triumph generally receives credit for scuttling all chance of a Democratic victory at the polls. But a good case can be made that the Democratic candidate, George B. McClellan, retained a reasonable prospect of winning the White House even after the fall of Atlanta. As late as October, Lincoln anticipated barely squeaking through to reelection in the electoral college, and he carried ten states by less than 55 percent of the vote. Indeed, a shift of just 60,300 votes in those ten states would have converted Lincoln's electoral landslide into a McClellan victory of proportions almost as impressive. The fact is, it required Democratic mistakes as well as Union military success to ensure Lincoln's reelection. The most serious misstep-the embarrassing "war-failure" plank of the Democratic platform-might well have been avoided had McClellan's managers paid as much attention to the crafting of the platform as they did to fending off the potential candidacy of Gov. Horatio Seymour of New York.
Still, Sherman's Atlanta victory undoubtedly had potent political consequences, raising the question of the likelihood that Confederates might have protracted resistance long enough to maintain the military stalemate by an additional four to six weeks-the minimum time necessary to seriously jeopardize Lincoln's chance for reelection, based on the early state elections in some Northern states as well as the call for a September 28 convention in Cincinnati to reconsider Lincoln's nomination. Such an outcome is completely within the realm of possibility.
The Atlanta campaign began with the Union and Confederate armies somewhat more evenly matched than those in Virginia, where the Confederates successfully created a deadlock that persisted until the winter of 1865. A series of errors in May on the part Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, commanding the Army of Tennessee, allowed Sherman to get much closer to Atlanta than he might have done. During June Johnston managed to stabilize the situation, but in July he failed to prevent the Union army from breaching the Chattahoochee line, which led to his replacement by Gen. John B. Hood. Hood's attempted counterstrokes in late July were reasonably well-executed and came close to success. In any event, they led Sherman to spend most of August in what amounted to a quasi-siege of the city.
The capture of Atlanta came about as the result of an audacious turning movement that landed Sherman on the Macon railroad at Jonesboro, thereby cutting Hood's line of communications and forcing a withdrawal. A quicker response by Hood might well have thwarted this movement, which at best would have protracted the stalemate. At worst-as Sherman himself acknowledged-he could have been cut off from his base, obliging him to move to a new base at Savannah or somewhere on the Gulf coast. Had this occurred while Atlanta remained in Confederate hands, it would have had every as bad an appearance as McClellan's "change of base" during the Seven Days. Lincoln's candidacy could scarcely have recovered from such a debacle. Even after the fall of Atlanta, the Confederates made a series of bids in Georgia, Missouri and Virginia to restore the strategic equilibrium. Had any of these efforts achieved even temporary success, they might easily have once again dampened Lincoln's prospects for reelection.
Resources Needed to Complete the Work
Five maps are required: one illustrating Grant's plan of campaign for 1864; one of operations in Virginia, May-November 1864; and three of the Atlanta campaign, May-September 1864. The estimated cost is $100 each, for a total of $500.
About the Author
Mark Grimsley is an associate professor at The Ohio State University, where he teaches military and nineteenth century American history. His first book, The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy Toward Southern Civilians, 1861-1865 (Cambridge University Press, 1995), received the Lincoln Prize in 1996. Other works include Gettysburg: A Battlefield Guide (University of Nebraska Press, 1999), co-written with Brooks D. Simpson; The Union Must Stand: The Civil War Diary of John Quincy Adams Campbell, Fifth Iowa Volunteer Infantry (University of Tennessee Press, 2000), co-edited with Todd D. Miller; and The Collapse of the Confederacy (University of Nebraska Press, forthcoming in 2001), co-edited with Brooks D. Simpson. He also prepared the chapters on the American Civil War for Warfare in the Western World , the new military history textbook in use at the U.S. Military Academy.
Chapter-by-Chapter Outline
Introduction
Sets up the background and key issues involved in the 1864 military campaigns and election, with emphasis on Grant's campaign plan for 1864, the key political issues, and the Confederate government's strategy for influencing the Northern election.
Chapter 1. "One Long Funeral Procession": The Union Spring Offensive
The first section of this chapter discusses Northern expectations for the spring campaign of 1864. Subsequent sections address how the course of operations during May and June at first raised and then dashed Northern hopes, as Union gains in the early weeks, achieved in Virginia at the cost of 55,000 casualties, degenerated by mid-June into stalemate. It concentrates on the Overland and Atlanta campaigns, but also addresses such humiliating Union setbacks as New Market, Bermuda Hundred, Brice's Crossroads, and the opening of the Shenandoah Valley to a strong raid by Confederate forces under Lt. Gen. Jubal Early.
Chapter 2. "This Convention Hasn't the Enthusiasm of a Decent Town Meeting": Politics in the First Half Year
This chapter examines the efforts made to draft U. S. Grant as a presidential candidate in early 1864; Salmon P. Chase's abortive candidacy; the candidacy of John C. Frémont under the "Radical Democracy" rubric; Lincoln's June renomination in Baltimore despite attempts made by Lincoln opponents to postpone the convention, as well as the somewhat tepid support of many delegates; and Democratic efforts to create a campaign posture that would capitalize on Lincoln's vulnerabilities without the appearance of disloyalty.
Chapter 3. Summer Stalemate
This chapter deals with military operations during July and August 1864, with emphasis on Union setbacks such as the Confederate raid on Washington, the burning of Chambersburg, Pa., and the battles of the Crater and Ream's Station. It also addresses the inconclusive fighting around Atlanta, in which Confederate ripostes failed to defeat Sherman but Sherman proved unable to find a way of capturing the city.
Chapter 4. "I Am Going to Be Beaten": The Nadir of Lincoln's Hopes
This chapter concerns Lincoln's effort to pick his way through the disingenuous but troublesome Confederate effort to launch peace negotiations in the summer of 1864, which Lincoln accurately believed would stall the Union war effort beyond possibility of recommencement and thus assure Confederate independence. It also examines the Wade-Davis Manifesto and the August movement to dump Lincoln in favor of an alternative candidate. The emphasis is on Lincoln's careful decision-making to avoid exacerbating these threats from his conservative and radical flanks.
Chapter 5. The McClellan Candidacy
This chapter deals with the Democratic problem of sustaining a coherent alliance between the peace and "legitimist" wings of the party, the August convention in Chicago, the maneuvering to assure McClellan's nomination, and the fight over the Chicago platform, which resulted in a plank declaring the war a failure.
Chapter 6. "Atlanta Is Ours"
This chapter focuses on Sherman's capture of Atlanta in early September 1864, with particular emphasis on the final Union maneuver to cut the city's rail connection with Macon; Hood's inability to arrest this maneuver in time; and the two-day battle at Jonesboro, which forced the Confederates to abandon Atlanta.
Chapter 7. Forlorn Hopes
This chapter addresses three efforts made by Confederate forces to restore the strategic equilibrium in the weeks between the fall of Atlanta and Lincoln's reelection: Maj. Gen. Sterling Price's invasion of Missouri; Hood's efforts to cut Sherman's line of communications with Chattanooga; and (after two defeats at the hands of Sheridan's army) Early's counteroffensive at Cedar Creek. The key issues here are how close these efforts came to short-term success and to what extent they could have influenced Northern balloting. As events actually transpired, neither of the first two counteroffensives came to much; while Early's attack at Cedar Creek, after routing Sheridan's army in the morning, became by late afternoon one of the most dramatic and lopsided Union victories of the war, and as such, a political bonanza for the Republicans.
Chapter 8. The Election
This chapter examines the election of 1864, including the early state elections in October, that acted as a bellwether for the November presidential canvass. It looks at the issue of who voted for Lincoln and why; the importance of the soldier vote; and the closeness of the contest in crucial Northern states like New York.
Chapter 9. Assessment
This chapter analyzes the key turning points of the 1864 election: the possibility of Lincoln's defeat for renomination or his replacement; and of his defeat at the polls if Frémont had stayed in the race, if the military stalemate had continued, if the Democrats had not undercut themselves with the "war failure" plank, or if the Confederates had restored the military equilibrium through autumn victories in Georgia, Missouri, and/or the Shenandoah Valley. It also examines the likely consequences of a McClellan victory. Even if McClellan had chosen to continue the Union war effort, as his acceptance letter promised, it would at the very least have been impossible for him to have pursued conscription or emancipation, two essential war measures. In the context of military situation as it stood by November 1864, this may not have mattered, but if McClellan won in part because of military stalemate, it is unlikely that he could have re-energized the Northern war effort. There is, moreover, a considerable possibility that he would have responded Confederate peace overtures, either from personal conviction or because his party would have forced him to do so.