Diary of Orrin Brown, Kalamazoo, Michigan
Tuesday–Oct. 11th
Clear and warm–our town have their quota full and the boys have their discharge and start home this afternoon. I have two friends here yet from Pipestone but they have got furloughs and are going home tonight so I am left alone. We had two rousing war speeches this evening, one from a soldier the other from the Hon. Mr. Plimpton of Niles we also held an election in the barracks it resulted in 60 for Lincoln and 26 for Me so that the boys go to bed with light hearts.
President Abraham Lincoln’s re-election in 1864 was by no means assured. In fact, the outlook for President Lincoln’s reelection in October 1864 was widely regarded as bleak and uncertain. Lincoln himself believed it was highly likely he would be defeated, as he noted in an August 23 memorandum, stating that it seemed “exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected”. Throughout the summer and into early fall, Lincoln’s popularity was low due to the prolonged and bloody Civil War, heavy Union losses, and divisions within his own party
What had first looked to both sides to be a quick little contest became the national tragedy of the Civil War, four years on at this point. Prominent voices argued for postponing the election due to the national crisis, but Lincoln insisted on proceeding. A group of Republicans, pressing for more radical action, nominated popular former Senator, General John C. Frémont for the Presidency, in reprise of his nomination as the Republican Party’s first candidate in 1856. Democrats, split among themselves, nominated General George B. McClellan who personally opposed the party’s peace platform. Despite his failings as a commander, McClellan had blocks of support in the North. Fremont withdrew in September 1864, however, after the fall of Atlanta, securing a solid block of Union votes for Lincoln in November.
Read more:
- Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman by Robert L. O’Connell (Random House, 2014)
- Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin (Simon & Schuster, 2006)
- Reelecting Lincoln: The Battle for the 1864 Presidency by John Waugh (Grand Central Publishing, 2009)
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