Page 381 - American Stories, A History of the United States

tABLe 15.1 tHe eLeCtION OF 1864
15.1
Candidate Party Popular vote electoral vote*
Lincoln Republican 2,213,655 212
15.2 McClellan Democratic 1,805,237 21

*Out of a total of 233 electoral votes. the 11 secessionist states—Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana,
Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, tennessee, texas, and virginia—did not vote.
15.3
growing opposition within his own party, especially from Radicals who disagreed with
his lenient approach to restoring seceded states to the Union (see Chapter 16).
15.4 The Democrats made a strong bid for the White House. Their platform appealed
to war weariness by calling for a cease-fire followed by negotiations to reestablish the
Union. The party’s nominee, General George McClellan, announced he would not
be bound by the peace plank and would pursue the war. But he promised to end the
conflict sooner than Lincoln could because he would not insist on emancipation as a
condition for reunion. By late summer, Lincoln thought that he would lose.
But northern victories changed the political outlook. Sherman’s invasion of Geor-
gia went well. On September 2, Atlanta fell, and northern forces occupied the hub of
the Deep South. The news unified the Republican party behind Lincoln. The election
itself was almost an anticlimax: Lincoln won 212 of a possible 233 electoral votes and 55
percent of the popular vote. The Republican cause of “liberty and Union” was secure.
(See Table 15.1)
The concluding military operations revealed the futility of further southern resis-
tance. Sherman marched unopposed through Georgia to the sea, destroying almost
everything of military or economic value in a corridor 300 miles long and 60 miles wide.

Read the Document General William Tecumseh Sherman, On War (1864)

March to the sea this illustration depicts General William tecumseh Sherman’s successful Union Army
march through Georgia from May 1864 to December 1864. Sherman’s destruction of almost all valuable military
and economic assets in Georgia and later in the Carolinas during this period broke the will of continued resistance
by Southern forces.
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