Lincoln: 1864

On this episode of Our American Stories, outside of 1776, 1864 is perhaps the most consequential year in American history. Here's the story of how Abraham Lincoln almost wasn't re-elected.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we returned to our American stories. Up next, the
story about a consequential year and a consequential man. Here's
the late historian Charles Braslin Flood to tell the story
of eighteen sixty four and Abraham Lincoln.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
On that New Year's Day of eighteen sixty four, the
Civil War had been going on for thirty three months,
on its way to being what is the bloodiest war
in American history to date. In November of eighteen sixty four,
there would be a presidential election that was going to
be a referendum on the war. In hindsight, it's easy
to say that, of course Lincoln was re elected and

(00:46):
the North won the war, but there were an endless
number of times during eighteen sixty four when it did
not look that way. Please remember that military success or
failure was inextricably linked with what would be Lincoln's political
success or failure. Four days before the Baltimore political Convention
in early June that nominated Lincoln to run for a
second term, Ulysses S. Grant presided over a military disaster.

(01:11):
His forces had been taking terrible casualties as they moved
south against Roberty Lee through the battles of the Wilderness
and Spotsylvania. Now he started one of the largest attacks
of the war at a place in Virginia called Cold Harbor.
Grant had one hundred and eight thousand men and threw
them straight at Lee, whose fifty nine thousand men were
well entrenched. In the first hour, and some say even

(01:34):
within the first twenty minutes, seven thousand of Grant's men
were killed or wounded. With the Union attack repulsed and
nothing gained, but the bad news went on for many
more weeks. At one point Grant had lost more than
forty thousand men in thirty days, and that figure grew
to his having lost sixty thousand men in forty five days,
sixty thousand men dead and wounded to advance sixty miles.

(01:58):
Also during that time, Juble Early once again erupted from
the Shenandoah Valley. He led a massive raid that brought
a force of twelve thousand men right to the edge
of Washington's fortifications, five miles from the White House. Lincoln
and Mary went out to Fort Stephens, the focal point
of the attack. At one moment, the Confederate advance came

(02:18):
to within one hundred and ten yards of the fort. Foolishly, Lincoln,
wearing a stovepipe hat that made him a target seven
feet high, climbed right up on the parapet in the open.
Some Confederate snipers positioned a few hundred yards away started
firing at him, missing him but wounding with a ricochet
an officer who was standing just below the parapet. It's

(02:39):
worth mentioning that this is the only time that an
American president has been under enemy fire while serving in office.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
All of this.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
News frightful Union casualties throughout northern Virginia and Confederate striking
at the Capitol, was coupled with bad news from Georgia.
As William To comes to Sherman slowly struggled towards Atlanta
on the Southern Front. That coincided with half true rumors
of peace feelers going back and forth between North and South.

(03:07):
The Northern public was increasingly confused and disappointed in Lincoln
and his administration. Much of the press was coming out
against Lincoln. Even his own advisers were warning him that
the tide is turning against us. The Union's economy was
intertwined with all this speculation and gold in New York
City indicated fears that the North financial structure might collapse.

(03:30):
The national debt was at its highest, the public credit
was at its lowest, and the Treasury was running out
of money paying for a war that appeared to be
at a stalemate. In foreign business dealings involving valuations of
the dollar, it dropped to a new wartime low of
thirty seven cents. Prosperous Republicans who wanted Lincoln to be
reelected were nonetheless getting rid of Greenback's by buying land.

(03:53):
They were doing that on the theory that land would
still have value even if the Democrats were elected, and
to repudiate federal government securities right down to leaving the
dollar worthless. On August twenty third, Lincoln involved himself in
an extraordinary act that demonstrated his belief that he would
lose the election. When the members of his cabinet assembled

(04:15):
for one of their Tuesday afternoon meetings, they found Lincoln
asking each of them to sign without knowing what it
said the back of a folded over and sealed document,
what Lincoln had written that morning, what they could not see,
and what he was asking him to endorse sight unseen
by placing their signatures on It was this statement this morning,

(04:36):
as for some days past, it seems exceedingly unlikely that
this administration will 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.
And though he was pledging himself and his cabinet to
make an orderly transition to what he thought was going

(04:56):
to be McClellan and a democratic administration. So if anybody
tells you that by eighteen sixty four Union victory or
Lincoln's reelection was in the bag, I would respectfully refer
them to Lincoln's own estimate of the situation. He remained
determined to do everything he could. He backed Grant and
his other generals to the hilt, but speaking to a

(05:17):
radical Republican, he told the man, you think I don't know,
I am going to be beaten what I do, and
unless some great change takes place, badly beaten. A week
after Lincoln said that, Sherman sent a telegram North that read,
Atlanta is ours and fairly won. Everything changed there. It

(05:39):
was the news bringing the hope that so many in
the North had lost Even the most ardent Confederates saw
this as the enormous strategic victory that the Union had won. Atlanta,
the south second most important city after Richmond, dead center
in what had been Confederate territory, had fallen. There were
still nine weeks until the election, but everything began to

(06:01):
go Lincoln's way. He was re elected in an electoral
college landslide, not so decisive in the popular vote, which
came in with Lincoln winning by four hundred thousand out
of four million cast. There was yet another exceedingly important
factor in play, and I have to say that a
number of studies, I think have not given this quite

(06:22):
enough attention. That was the military vote. Here you had
close to a million young men from families of different
political persuasions. Many of these soldiers were being shot at
every day. No one could be sure that they would
vote to continue a war in which so many of
their comrades were being killed and maimed. It's worth noting
that in the military vote, ballots cast by soldiers who

(06:45):
knew they were continuing, they were voting to continue risking
their lives. He triumphed by three to one, and on
Christmas Day of eighteen sixty four, Lincoln read another telegram
from Sherman which said, I beg to present you as
a Christmas gift the city of Savannah with one hundred
and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also

(07:06):
about twenty five thousand bales of cotton. So as eighteen
sixty four ended, the war was at last winding down
in thirteen more weeks Roberty Lee, which surrendered a grant
at Appomatox Courthouse. Seventeen days after that, Lee's West Point
classmate Joseph E. Johnston, which surrendered the Confederacy's other sizable
forces to Sherman in North Carolina. Between those two surrenders,

(07:30):
John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln in Washington on April fourteenth,
eighteen sixty five. At the end of my book, I
look ahead to those events of eighteen sixty five, but
my detailed treatment ends where it began, with the White
House New Year's Day reception of eighteen sixty five. And
here again is the essential Lincoln, the ultimate politician who

(07:52):
nevertheless transcended the political strife, the indispensable man who appeared
in our nation's convulsive hour, the resolute figure who proved
that character is destiny. At this reception, a nurse who
served with the Union Army, Ada Smith, had come by
herself to the White House to pass through the long
receiving line and wish the President well. As she came

(08:14):
through the door, she recognized a crippled lieutenant named Gosper,
who had lost a leg and was hobbling forward on
crutches as he made his way to the East Room
in the fighting around Petersburg earlier in the year. Ada
had been his nurse when he was brought in with
his right leg shot off, and they became friends during
the time she cared for him. They greeted each other

(08:35):
and joined the line of hundreds that wound around the
East room, waiting to shake hands with Lincoln, who had
married beside him. From where he stood, Lincoln saw Gosper.
He broke away from his place and came striding from
the other side of the big East room to greet him.
He took Gosper's hand, and what Ada remembered as and
I quote a voice unforgettable, said God bless you, my boy.

(08:59):
As they left, Gosper said to her, I'd lose another
leg for a man like that, and.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
A special thanks to Charles Braslin Flood. This audio is
from the US National Archives, and we thanked them for it.
The story of eighteen sixty four, a consequential time for
our nation when we were perhaps never more divided, and
how Abraham Lincoln rose to the occasion. That story here
on our American Stories