This talk was part of the symposium hosted for the emerging civil war block. Good afternoon, it is my pleasure to introduce ray andrew red, a native of county pennsylvania. He holds a bachelors degree and masters degree in American History from Indiana University of pennsylvania. He holds a masters degree in Library Science from the university of pittsburgh. He is the director of the library where he is also an adjunct professor. Two volumes of the study guide, point of no return is part of the turning points collection. It is on the 1864 president ial election and the confederacy. Currently, gettysburg churches have become a brief introduction to the civil war medicine as what he is currently working on forthcoming in 2018. In 2016 he received permission to create a wayside memorial marker in canada spur pennsylvania. Let herman was the medical Service Director in 1862 and 1863. This market was dedicated on november 11th of 2017. Since 1993 he has reenacted American Civil War met federal medical service captain and most importantly as president Abraham Lincoln. With that please welcome rea andrew red as next speaker. applause id like to start by saying thank you for the donors that step forth this time last year when i made a small announcement about the Jonathan Liverman marker from the Pennsylvania Historical Museum commission. We dedicated it it pennsylvania in Washington County on his boyhood home which is now the borough building. I might tell you again that we are working on another one. They determine hospital in gettysburg looks like it will be purchased and used for retail purposes. Im working with the Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association to try to find a few acres where we can put up a marker like this for the jonathan letter in hospital. Thank you very much for the donations that came up from the gofundme page from several different states outside of pennsylvania. Today we are going to look at dont pointed over there, were not. Backwards . There it is. Upside down and backwards. Okay. The point of no return. Abraham lincoln and the election of 1864. We are going to look at this as if this is 2018, and we are going to look back on it and see some serious types that have come forth in the past several decades. We will look back on it and say of course he was going to get reelected. That is the impression most people have if you read any textbook or most popular treatments. Lincoln is elected in 1864 . Who is going to doubt that . We will see there is 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 they are not doing that. Are any of the individuals who did not vote for him giving up and saying, just forget about it . Hes there. Thats not going to happen either. Okay, we are going to look at some of the things we know. Was lincolns second election to the presidency a turning point in the civil war . We debated that back and forth. What is the turning point . Also, is it the doom of the confederacy . Like many people would think reading the story, that is indeed the tomb of the confederacy. Could we have had a president mcclelland . If he had won this election with the confederacy be saved . Were they all hoping for mcclelland to be president of the United States . Was there any promise to that . Did he say i will save the confederacy or make my policy such that we will not have a war with confederacy anymore . Those choices are going to be very clear in this election and i will tell you right now neither link in or mcclellan is going to change minds in this campaign. The whole goal of this election was to get polls filled up with voters. Like 2018 coming up, no one is changing minds here. Its like anyone who shows up to the polls will make the next election possible. Looking back on it, you look at the electoral college. 212 electoral votes for lincoln. Is that a surprise . Probably not. In our day and age. We look at lincoln, the second inaugural, the assassination, the monuments and say of course he should have been president a second time. Mcclellan what chants did he have . 21 electoral votes, not much at all. Mcclelland one delaware, one new jersey, he won kentucky and that was it. You have 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 1860 for both. Lincoln, when we look at the numbers, 55 of the popular vote. Thats incredible for a guy whos been in office on the job for four years. Only 39 of the vote came from the north. When you look at that number its like Everybody Loves lincoln. That 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 state before for any president ial election. Lincoln and other people say, you know, for good reasons we have to make sure that these soldiers come home, or we set up the ballot box on campaign or in the camps. The soldiers have to vote. We will find out, and this will be one of those things that yes of course that has to happen, this is the way it needs to be, we know what has been done, three out of four soldiers in the union army voted for Abraham Lincoln. One out of four voted for mcclellan. We think was the army ever mcclellands army . Were they ever vote for him 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 did not know this in advance, he was rolling the dice. If we have voters in the armies, theres going to be republican voters, democratic voters, there will be voters who did not vote for me in 1960. Theres also going to be some districts in louisiana, they are democratic in 1860. And kentucky which he lost in 1860, they are going to produce votes in the general election and are they not going to vote for lincoln because they are democrats . It should be no surprise that this is the electoral map of 1864. Two new states joined the union in 1864 that did not vote in 1860. We have the state of new van dijk, brand new during the middle of the civil war. Kansas now has a state constitution and is organized. Lincoln is going to win both of them. We see here that 212 votes in the electoral college, of course hes going to be reelected. There are some assumptions here that we have to look at and examine. We have to look at the Republican Partys previous losses in the campaign of 1862. They did not win much. They just about broke even in 1862. A new issue in 1864 is the reconstruction. As we pointed out several times today, you have two plants. You have the abolitionist plan 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. You are going to find one out of ten voters in the south saying i have always been loyal to the union. They are going to be struggling over the reconstruction vote. We will look at the confederates vote, how they treated Jefferson Davis and looked at him. How they thought about the politics of the time and whether they thought they had hope after the second inauguration of lincoln. We are going to look at lincolns enemies. Who despised him. We know mcclellan, we call him the original guerrilla, the baboons, did more soldiers have that opinion . Can we actually say this was a turning point. As one of the things we sort have wrestled with today so far. Your turning point might not be that persons turning point. The importance that we set on things is part of our perspective and the way we see the world. We are 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. It looks like this. He writes it on the inside, folds it twice. Takes it to the next Cabinet Meeting. He lays it out. He says sign this. He has at a Cabinet Meeting and says you cannot read what is in here but i want you to sign the back. This document was found in his desk after the assassination and went to the library of congress. So, inside here are 16 words. 60 words. On the back are the seven signatures of the cabinet an 1864. I have to mention their names. The first person to sign this is the secretary of state, william stewart. He passes it along to the department of treasury. He passes it on to edward stanton, secretary of war, we learned is in the hands of the radicals. He is a lapdog for ben wade on the committee on investigation of the war. Gideon wells gets it next. Pass it on to post general gibson. Pass it on to a shirt whos the interior department. Theyre living in suspense. Lincoln says you have your names here so sort of like a contract i have to tell you what you have signed on for. He does not do that. He goes into his coat pocket, and holds on to it and starts his meeting. So, this is called the blind memorandum because who is blind . The cabinet people signed a blind blank piece of paper. Did not say what the message was. It starts like this. This morning like sundays 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 i am withdrawing my name from the republican ballot. First three, people actually saying i will take that job. We will talk about those people who are all republicans who say you need to leave and i need to get in there and make us win this war and the election. Also, if he wants to fix the situation, he might say i am willing i will not be reelected, im 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, match in the lowest part of hell. If i pull back on the emancipation proclamation and abolishing of slavery look under hell for me because that is where i will go. Did lincoln actually give up his reelection on august 23rd, 1864 . His blind memorandum, he has all the cabinet members signed on. Whatever is in the paper they have to do. This is what is in the paper they did not get to read. Then it will be my duty, the cabinet members, to cooperate with the president elect, george b mcclellan, so as to save the union between this election, will say november 64 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 we are going to look at, 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 were his policies going to be. Lincoln says if he wins it, and it looks like he is, its over. He will not be able to save the union. Will he say the confederacy . Is that possible at this point if you elect mcclellan as president . 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 of 1864. The convention is going to be in baltimore in june of 1864. He will be nominated and this is the plant. He does not attend the convention or make speeches their, this is the plank they will be riding for him that he has to run on. First of all, we are going to finish the war. We will continue the war until we have a military victory on all fronts. There will be no armistice. There will be an end to slavery. That is what he is standing on. The Democratic Party which meets in august, maybe it was july, 1864 in chicago flip sided that. They are committed to an armistice on march 5th 1865 when mcclelland becomes president. He will declare a cease fire. All guns will be silent the day after he becomes president of the United States. And, they are going to invite russia, theyre going to invite england, theyre going to invite france and probably meet in paris. Those three powers are going to sort things out for the confederacy and for the union and say okay we are going to put this all in place. You guys stop shooting each other and we will work this out and you will be happy when we get done. Try to imagine them doing that knowing what we know about world war one in the palace of versailles. The democratic platform says any decisions about slavery go back to the states. We will not have the Supreme Court do any Court Sessions on it. No decisions. No legislation. Whatever we have to say about slavery, the states will decide for themselves. We have some foregone conclusions with the renomination of lincoln. Now, what he knows that we do not think about much there has been no sitting president since 1840 that has received a renomination. Washington, jefferson, madison in row. All to turn people. Jackson was the last one in 1832. 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 in 1856 and pennsylvania. They had around one cancer candidates so far that had lost. The second one, lincoln won the presidency but only with 39 of the vote in the north. He was not on the ballot in the south at all. So we have got the g8 and company. I dont think we do policy that way these days. They rented hotels and had the brandy, wine, jim and cigars. Hashed it out and decided who is most likely to win. When lincoln said i dont think i can win this, his friends are coming up to him and saying i dont think so abraham. It is not happening for you. Heres the challenges and the challengers. We have to remember there is no primary season. With our own politics, it starts almost a year in advance and then january, february, march crimes on. There is none. They have the nomination in june, they have the vote in the fall. I also want to remind you there is no National Election day the first tuesday after the first week of november. Some states that control the way people ballot, they started the last week of september. August 23rd 1864 when lincoln says, i do not think i will be reelected, the election starts and 30 days. Hes not reading the future 60 days or 75 days in advance. He says in four weeks the ballot will start in may, new hampshire, worked down to the points where ballots will be cast in october, november, and we will know in november but the balloting for the presidency starts in the last week of september. Who is available if the republicans want to split . There is a top at the time that the republican parties were gonna be too. There would be lincoln and there would be the challenger to lincoln. The democrat. A high senator secretary of treasury salmon chase, he is treasury secretary most of the time, but he works with lincoln and someone leaked that he was running a third party. Lincoln does not fire him. He doesnt use the treasury after the mid summer 1864. He put some aside and he sorts of looking at chase like, you know who is sick . Supreme court justice, a few salmon chase want the presidency, go for it. But if i do win, you could be chief justices Supreme Court. What will you do . Sam in peace chase says nothing for about 90 days about i want to be president of the United States. By july, when tani is on his deathbed, hes upset and says, nothing. He is the type of guy who is looking at the future and says he would rather be chief justice of Supreme Court then live in the white house. Lincoln made him chief of justice. We talked about fremont. 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 worked with the committee on the conduct of the war. They were very enthusiastic about him. Lincoln had to chastise him back in 1862 when fremont to try to free some slaves and lincoln said, i cannot do that, i can only do that and im not doing that yet. Horace greeley, newspaper editor at the new york tribune, he says, i can do that job. I can do it better. He has a type of appearance with big whiskers and a tall hat. People like to read his work. They are all saying we are going to get the voter that Abraham Lincoln cannot get. The democrats. And those individuals who are saying no link in. I cannot stand the guy. We will pick up those voters and make republicans for one vote, and we will get the presidency. Lincoln you that right away. We will look at that in a little bit. So june seven 1964, they are in baltimore. 1861, i conspiracy to assassinate lincoln. They rebrand the Republican Party saying it is going to be difficult for a democrat to vote in that Republican Party and so why dont we just changed the name of the Republican Party so most democrats will feel okay with voting for a republican. It is now called the National Union party, as of june 7 and 8, 1864. Remember, lincoln won in 1860 with only 39 of the vote, which came from the north. They need to pick up an additional 20 from somewhere. Theyve got to get more republicans to the polls or they have got to have democrats who are enthusiastic about the war to come and vote republicans. They are also looking for voters out of the borough voter state. Union sympathizers that have moved from tennessee and kentucky because they were being persecuted for not being confederates the republicans are running on a platform of unconditional surrender. There is no defeat here. The confederacy must cave in they are also running on a platform that there will be a 13th amendment. Let us take a step back and say, what did lincoln know about the 13th amendment . There has been two. The first one appeared in january of 1861, it was called the corwin amendmen