By the emerging civil war blog. Good afternoon. Its my pleasure to introduce ray andrew redd, a native of washington county, pennsylvania. He holds a bachelors degree in history and english from Waynesburg University and masters degree from the Indiana University of pennsylvania. His certification is in secondary education and is also from Indiana University of pennsylvania. Holds a masters degree in Library Science from the university of pittsburgh. Hes currently the director of the library at Waynesburg University. Hes the author of the Gettysburg Campaign guide, a study guide. His essay, the point of no return is part of the turning points collection. It is on the 1864 president ial election and the doom of the confederacy. Currently, gettysburg churches became battlefield hospitals, an introduction to civil war medicine is what hes currently working on. In 2016 he received permission from the Pennsylvania Historical Museum commission to create a memorial marker for the home in cansen burg, pennsylvania. He was the medical Service Director during 1862 and 1863. This was dedicated on november 11th of 2017. He was reenacted civil wars and a federal service captain and most importantly as president Abraham Lincoln. With that, please welcome ray andrew redd as the next speaker. I would like to start by saying thank you for the donors that stepped forth this time last year when i made a small announcement about the Jonathan Letterman marker from Pennsylvania Historical Museum commission. We dedicated it in cannonsberg at his boyhood home, which is now the borough building. Were working on another one. The letterman hospital in gettysburg looks like its going to be purchased and used for retail purposes, and im working with the Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association to try to find a few acres where we can put up a markup like this for letterman hospital. Thank you for the donations that came in from several different states outside of pennsylvania. Today were going to look at. We are going to look at this as if this is 2018 and were going to look back on it and see some stereo types that have come forth in the past several decades. Were going to look back on it and say, well, of course i was going to get reelected. Thats the impression that most people have, if you read any textbook or most popular treatments, its like lincoln is elected in 64, who is going to doubt that. Were going to see there are plenty of doubters to his reelection of 1864. How does that relate to the doom of the confederacy . Did the confederates say we give up, hes in the white house, its over, march 4th, 1865, its done . No, theyre not doing that. Are any other of the individuals who didnt vote for him giving up and saying, well, just forget about it, hes there . No, thats not going to happen either. So were going to look at some of the things we know. Was lincolns election to the presidency a turning point in the civil war . We debated back and forth what is the turning point and also is it the doom of the confederacy like many people would think reading the story, that is indeed the doom of the confederacy. Could we have had a president m mcmcclellan . If he had won this election would the confederacy be saved . Were they all hoping for mcclelen to be president of the United States . Was there any promise of that . Did he say i will save the confederacy or im going to make my policy such that were not going to have a war with confederacy anymore. So the choices are going to be very clear in this collection and ill tell you right now neither lincoln or mcclellan are going to change minds in this campaign. The whole goal of the election was get the polls filled up with your voters, sort of like 2018 coming up. No one is changing minds. Its like whoever shows up at the polls are going to make the next election possible. Looking back at it, you look at the electoral college, 212 electoral votes for lincoln. Is that a surprise . Probably not. We look at lincoln and the second inaugural and the assassination and the monuments and say of course he should have been president a second time. Mcclellan, what did he have . He won delaware, new jersey, kentucky and that was it. Got to tell you a note, lincoln at the beginning of the war said if i lose kentucky, we will lose the war. Well, Abraham Lincoln lost kentucky twice. He lost it in 1860 and 1864 both. Lincoln, when we look at the numbers, 55 of the popular vote, wow, thats incredible. For a guy who has been in office on the job four years and only 39 of the vote came from the north. So when you look at that, Everybody Loves lincoln. This is going to be the first time that soldiers are allowed to vote. Soldiers on active duty in the United States never voted in the United States before for any president ial election. Lincoln and other people say, you know, for good reasons, weve got to make sure the soldiers come home or we set up a ballot box on campaign or in the camps and these soldiers have to vote. Were going to find out and this will be one of those things where its like, yes, of course thats got to happen. This is the way its going to be. We know whats been done. Three out of four soldiers in the union army voted for Abraham Lincoln. One out of four voted for mcclellan. So we think was the army of the potomac ever his army that they would vote for the presidency. Also at that figure it looks like a lot of Democratic PartyUnion Soldiers voted for lincoln. If he hits three out of four. He didnt know this in advance. He was rolling the dice. If we have voters in the armies, theres going to be Republican Voters, democratic voters, theres going to be voters who did not vote for me in 1960. Theres also going to be some districts in louisiana, they were democratic in 1860, and in kentucky which he lost in 1860. Theyre going to produce votes now in the general election and are they going to not vote for lincoln because theyre democrats . So it should be no surprise that this electoral map of 1864, two new states joined the union in 1864 that did not vote in 1860. We have the state of nevada, brand new, during the middle of the civil war. Kansas now has a state constitution thats organized and lincoln is going to win both of them. So we can see here that, wow, 212 votes for lincoln in the electoral college, of course hes going to be reelected. So theres some assumptions here that we have to look at and and. We have to look at the Republican Partys previous losses in the campaign of 1862. They didnt win much. They just about broke even in 1862. New issue in 1864 is the reconstruction, and as we pointed out several times today, youve got two plans. Youve got the abolitionist where its five out of ten registered voters in 1860 in the south has to swear a loyalty oath. Lincoln says good luck with that. Youre going to find one out of ten voters in the south saying ive always been loyal to the union. Theyre going to be struggling over the reconstruction vote. Were going to look at the confederates vote, how they looked and treated Jefferson Davis, how they felt about the politics at the time and whether they thought they had hope after the second inaugural of lincoln. Were going to look at lincolns enemies, who despised him. We know that mcclellan called him the original gorilla and did more soldiers have that opinion . Can we actually say that this was a turning point . And as one of the things weve sort of wrestled with today so far, your turning point might not be that persons turning point. The importance that we set on things are sort of our perspective of the way we see the world. So were going to look at how lincoln was looking at the world on august 23rd, 1863. He writes a memo out on a piece of paper that looks like this. He writes it on the inside, folds it twice. He takes it to the next Cabinet Meeting. He lays it out, says, okay, sign this. Hes at a Cabinet Meeting and he says you cant read whats in here, but i want you to sign the back. This document was found in his desk after the assassination and it went to the library of congress. So inside here are 60 words and on the back are the seven signatures of the cabinet on august 23rd, 1864. And ive got to read you their names. You might see them a little bit front and back, but who is there . The first person that gets this piece of paper to sign is william seward, secretary of state. He signs it, he passes it on to the department of treasury, who has also been on the joint committee on the war that we talked about this morning. He passes it on to edward stanton, secretary of war that we lesarned is in the hands of the radicals and he is on for ben wade. Gideon wells gets it next. Ed bates passes it to ed usher. Usher gives it back to lincoln and theyre living in suspense. Is lincoln going to say youve got your names here, sort of like a contract, and ive got to tell you what you signed on for. He doesnt do that. It goes into his coat pocket, he holds onto it and then he starts his meeting. So this is called the blind memorandum because who is blind . The cabinet people signed a blank piece of paper, what they thought the message was inside, but he didnt tell us what it was. It starts like this. This morning was for some days past, it seems probable that this administration will not be reelected. They never saw that. They never saw what they signed on for. Fill in the blank at the end of that. Will not be reelected, so im withdrawing my name from the republican ballot. Theres three people, four actually that say ill take that job. And were going to talk about those guys that are all republican saying you need to leave and i need to get in there and make us win this war and make us win the election. Also, if he wants to fix the situation, he might say will not be reelected, then i am willing to withdraw the emancipation proclamation which is causing so many problems for so many voters. We know from a previous speaker that he said, look, the emancipation proclamation, imagine hell, imagine the lowest part of hell and if i pull back on abolition slavery, look under hell for me because thats where ill go. Now, did lincoln actually give up his reelection on august 23rd, 1864 . Its a blind memorandum, hes got all the cabinet members signed on. Whatever is in the paper, theyve got to do. This is whats in the paper that they didnt get to read. Then it will be my duty, the cabinet members, to cooperate with the president elect, george b. Mcclellan as to save the union. Between this election and well say november of 64 at this point and the inauguration, march 4th, 1865. As he will have secured his elections on such grounds that he cannot save it afterwards. So were going to look and say what happens if mcclellan had won the presidency, what would he be thinking when he put his left hand on the bible and raised his right hand on march 4th, 1865 . What was his policies going to be . Lincoln says if he wins it, and it looks like he is, its over. Hes not going to be able to save the union. Will he save the confederacy . Is that possible at this point if you elect mcclellan as president . So lets look back at october and november of 1864. Lincoln accepted or said you can put my name for candidacy in 1864, he said that in january. The convention is going to be in baltimore in june of 1864. He will get nominated and this is the plank he doesnt attend the convention, doesnt make any speeches there. This is the plank that theyre going to be writing for him that he has to run on. First of all, were going to finish the war. Were going to continue the war until we have a military victory on all front. There will be an end to slavery. Thats what hes standing on. The Democratic Party, which meets in august, maybe it was july 1864 in chicago, flip side of that. Theyre committed to an armocist, saying he will claidee a ceasefire. And theyre going to invite russia, theyre going to invite england, theyre going to invite france, probably meet in paris, and those three powers are going to sort things out for the confederacy and for the union and say, okay, were going to put this all in place. You guys stop shooting each other, youre all going to be happy when we get done. Try to imagine them doing that and knowing what we know about world war i and the palace of v versailles. And they say any decisions about slavery, go back to the states. Were not going to have the Supreme Court do any sessions on it, no decisions, no legislation. Whatever we have to say about slavery, the states will decide it for themselves. So weve got some foregone conclusions with the renomination of lincoln. Now, what he knows that we dont think about much, theres been so sitting president since 1840 thats received a renomination. Washington, jefferson, madison, monroe, all twoterm people. Jackson was the last one in 1832. And since then, americans have rejected the very notion that a president could secede himself. Lincoln was only the second republican candidate for the presidency. The Republican Party was born 1856, pittsburgh, pennsylvania, and they had one candidate so far who lost and the second one, lincoln won the presidency but he only had 39 of the vote in the north. He wasnt on the ballot in the south at all. So weve got b. J. Tubman and company, brandys wines, gins and cigars. I dont think we do politics that way these days, but at this point they rented hoeltss and they had the brandy, wine, gin and cigars and said who is most likely to win. So when lincoln is saying i dont think i can win this, his friends are coming up to him and saying i dont think so, abraham. Its not happening for you. Heres the challenges and the challengers. We have to remember theres no primary season. With our own politics it starts almost a year in advance, january, february, march, it grinds on throughout the primary. Theres none. They have the nomination in june, they have the vote in the fall. And also i want to remind you theres no National Election day the first tuesday after the first week in november. Some states that control the way people ballot, they started the last week of september. So on august 23rd, 1864 when lincoln says i dont think im going to be reelected, the election starts in 30 days. Hes not reading in the future 60 days or 75 days in advance. He says in four weeks the balloting is going to start in maine, new hampshire, work down to the point where theres going to be ballots cast in october and then in november and then well know in november. But the balloting for the presidency starts in the last week of september. Who is available if he wants to if the republicans want to split . And there is a talk at the time that the Republican Party there were going to be two. There was going to be linkicoln and the challenger to lincoln and then the democrat. Ohio senator secretary of treasury sam chase, great friend on the conduct of the war, hes treasury secretary most of the time, but he works with lincoln and someone leaked that he was running on a third party. Lincoln doesnt fire him and he doesnt use the treasury at all after the midsummer of 1864. He sort of put him aside and he sort was looking at chase like, do you know know who is sick . Roger be tanning, Supreme Court justice. If you want the presidency, you go for it. But if i do win, you could be chief justice of the Supreme Court. So what are you going to do . Salmon chase said something for about 90 days about i want to be president of the United States by july when roger tanning starts to get sick on his death bed, he zips it. Hes the type of guy, im looking at the future and i would rather be chief justice of the Supreme Court than live in the white house. If lincoln gets reelected hell probably like me enough to make me chief justice, which lincoln did. John c. Freemont, weve talked about him a little bit. He was the candidate in 1856. Lincoln put him on the back waters of the military. He didnt have any outstanding qualifications other than he was an avid abolitionist. He work with the committee on the conduct of the war. They were very enthusiastic about him. Lincoln had chastise him back in 1864 when freemont tried to freed some slaves. Lincoln said you cant do that, i can only do that and im not doing that yet. Horrace greenly, one of the premier papermen at the time. He said i could do that job. Im a bright, articulate man, everyone loves me and he has a type of appearance with big w whiskers and a tall hat and people liked to read his work. Theyre all going to say well get the voter that Abraham Lincoln cant get, the democrats. And those individuals who are saying no lincoln, i cant stand the guy, were going to pick up those voters, were going to make them republicans for one vote and were going to get the presidency. And lincoln knew that right away. Well look at that a little bit. So june 7th, 1864 theyre in baltimore. Remember, this is the city that had a conspiracy to assassinate lincoln in 1861. They rebrand the Republican Party saying its going to be really difficult for a democrat to vote in the Republican Party, so dont we just change the name of the Republican Party . So democrats will feel okay with voting for a republican. Its now called the National Union party as of june 7th and 8th, 1864. They are looking for war democrats. Remember, lincoln won the election in 1860 with only 39 of the vote which came from the north. They need to pick up at least another 20 from somewhere. Theyve got to get more republicans to the polls or theyve got to have democrats who are enthusiastic about the war to come and vote republicans. Theyre also looking for