anniversary of the civil war with the people and events that shaped the era. p.m.days at 6:00 and 10:00 eastern here on "american history >> next, the role of the union 1860in abraham lincoln's four reelection. jonathan wright argues many soldiers joined the army in support of the union, not necessarily in support of abolition. he explains how many troops had to be coursed into supporting the republican president as he challenged the democratic arctic's pro-slavery candidate. ofsident lincoln earned 80% soldiers' votes. the new york historical society and bryant park corporation posted this hour-long event. >> good evening. wonderful to see everybody out on this beautiful summer evening. it is a pleasure to introduce tonight's speaker and to partner with the bryant park corporation in this summer series. always wonderful to come out to

the members and sometimes we have members from the museum and members of the town so coming out to support a spirit we really do appreciate the support here jonathan white is an assistant professor of american studies and a fellow at the center for american studies at christopher newport university where he serves as the prelaw advisor for he is the author of "abraham lincoln" and "treason in the civil war." he is currently at work on three books. please join me in welcoming jonathan white. [applause] >> thank you for having me. i love having an opportunity to

come to new york city. this is only my third trip here. i spent two weeks air about eight years ago with a fellowship at the new york historical society. i love going there to do research and a stopped by there this afternoon with my daughter who is 14 months old, and we had to get a picture of her next to 's statue out front. my poor daughter has excellent into more civil war sites than i think most people see in a lifetime. part of me on this, when she was born, we do not have a name for her. asnnounced her on facebook mary todd lincoln white or the worst part about that is about half of my friends believed it. abouti am here to talk the election of 1864, and this is the 150th anniversary of that election. i think it is the most important election in american history. it sealed the doom of the confederacy and set the stage for the destruction of slavery. prior to that election, many americans doubted that the

election would be held at all. you will see a lot of new yorkers in this talk. , a professor at columbia university, wrote in comet 1850 4 -- if we triumphantly out of this war with the presidential election in the midst of it, i shall call it the greatest miracle in all -- historic course of events the greatest miracle. well, that miracle did take 1864,at on november 8, americans, both civilians and soldiers, voted throughout the nation for president, and unbelievable feat. the first time in our history there had been a popular election like that your two days later, president lincoln addressed a gathering of well-wishers at the white house, saying to them that we cannot have free government without elections. and if the rebellion could force a nationalone election, it might fairly claim to have already conquered and

ruined us. well, lincoln had recent to feel confident. days earlieron two by a landslide pretty carried 21, electoral college 212- and got 55% of the popular vote and most amazingly, he got 80% of the soldier vote, a huge number. so many in the north were celebrating this victory. they knew it meant the war would soon be over. there was a grand celebration held at the cooper union not too far from here. the organizers of the celebration sent a letter to william: bryant -- i figure since his statute is around the corner i had to bring bryant into this. he was too busy to attend. he said he already had a prior commitment. but he said to the organizers of the event, i shall be present with you and spirit and will take part in the rejoicing

conspired by the glorious result of the late election which should be chronicled among the signal favor shown by providence to our republic. he concluded that short note by claiming that lincoln's reelection will "do more to hasten the close of the war than 20 battles." from these perspectives, the appears of 1864 really like a providential miracle. in a lot of ways, it was. i mean, it was a remarkable event to be held in the midst of a civil war. yet, i think it is important, when we look back at it 150 years later, we do not lose a sense of contingency to for much of the campaign, lincoln's reelection was far from certain. lincoln hadst, become convinced he would lose. on august 23, he sent a little memorandum to himself that is now known as the "blind

memorandum," and he essentially said that it has become clear to me that i am going to lose this election. and a candidate who beats me, the democrat -- he does not name names, but the person who beats me will have secured his election on a basis by which he will not be able to restore the union. but lincolnasing, essentially said i have got to do what i can between election day and the inauguration next march to restore the union. i will work with the president-elect. he took his little memorandum and folded it up and sealed it. he brought it to a cabinet meeting. he had all of his cabinet members sign it. they did not know what they were signing, that lincoln was forcing them to sign on to winning the war and restoring the union with the president-elect. lincoln ended up winning, and in a later cabinet meeting, he opened this thing up and show the cabinet officers with a

signed onto and they had a little bit of a laugh about it. -- it gives you a sense of of the election was unsure. i want to capture aces of what the election looked like for americans, particularly for new yorkers, in the months leading up to the election for her today is july 30, 2014 and i almost said 1854. i want to look back at what new yorkers were thinking about on july 30, 1864 and last week i had this idea and went to my library at christopher newport university and guide out -- and got out the newspapers. i looked at the newspapers from this day 150 years ago to see what new yorkers were reading about. i will give you a sense of what they would have come across. if you opened up a new york newspaper 150 years ago today, you would have read a smattering read about a rebel raid into maryland, read about union troop movements around petersburg, virginia, which is very close to where i live now,

and the reports seemed positive. you would have read about guerrilla warfare in missouri and kentucky. would havengly, you read about the northwest conspiracy. i do not know who is familiar with this, but union military authorities had just uncovered, or so they claimed, this massive plot in the old northwest. two nay we know the old northwest as midwest. they had uncovered this massive plot where there were suppose it's secret societies all over the place of being run by democratic leaders. these secret societies were organizing with confederate agents in canada, and they were getting money and guns, and the plan that these secret societies d was we are going to take his guns and go to union pow camps in the north, and we are going to break in and give these

guns to confederate pow's, armed them, and then overthrow the union and loyal northern governments from within. this was breaking news july 30, news july 30, 1864. if you were a new yorker 150 years ago, these are the stories you would have been reading about it if you opened up the "new york times," i will give you some specifics, you would have found a recipe for blackberry brandy for soldiers. i wanted to try to make it before i came so i could tell you how it was, but i did not have to appear you could have read about a baseball match between the philadelphia athletics and the brooklyn resolute. the philadelphia team won 29-12. i come from philadelphia, and you know i will never see a score like that in the near future from my hometown boys. you would have read excerpts --m graduates and speeches graduation speeches from

colleges around new york and new england. you would have read about the ,rrest of an irish immigrant offense was having two wives, trial set for september. if you turn to the pages of the "new york herald," you could have come across a list of things to do in new york on the evening of july 30 1854. you could have gone to a concert at central park, weather-permitting. you could have seen a list of all the musicals and plays going on on broadway. if music and theater is not your thing, you could have gone to barnum's museum which was promoting two giants and two dwarves for your viewing pleasure. about awould have read massive jewelry heist that took place not too far from here. if you try to the classifieds, the most important newspaper, women could have purchased for self-adjusta

envelope a secret every married woman should know. the neri -- the very next ad was for this -- divorce is legally procured in another state without publicity or change of ce.ident i gave this trial talk to my wife to tonight to go up in she was generally paying attention, but when i got to this line, she wanted to know what the secret is that everyone married woman should know but i looked at her and said, i have no idea, but if i did, i would charge 50 cents for it appeared on the whole, the news that new yorkers were 18 64 was july 30, positive. but new yorkers did not yet know what had taken place on july 30, 18 54. set rebel raid into maryland cap going and got into pennsylvania. and convinced that desk and venture it's there when to the city and demanded money from the residence and they turned over money, and then confederates demanded more and said pay as

are we will burn down your town. those residents turned over more. the confederates cap demanding more money until finally there was none left and the confederates burned down that city. i think only two buildings survived. further south closer to where i live near petersburg, there was the battle of the crater that some of you may be familiar with. for weeks leading up to july 30, there were pennsylvania coal miners who were in ulysses s. this's army, and they had idea -- we can dig under the confederate lines around petersburg, packed the tunnel exploded,namite and and the confederates will never see it coming to the union generals of this was a good idea, so they did this. at 4:00 a.m. on july 30, 1854, they lit the fuse. so some guy goes into this tunnel, lights the fuse, comes out, and they wait. nothing happens. some poor guy had to crawl back

in there to see what the matter was. the fuse had gone out. he relates it, comes back out, and there is a massive explosion that creates a huge crater. the crater is still there today. the union troops should have gone around the crater when they attacked, but instead, they went into it. and when they got to the other end, they found that they cannot scale the wall, so they were stuck there. the confederates were shocked at first and many were killed. by the time the confederates gained their bearings, they realized they could just fire right into this hit and kill enemy soldiers. if any of you have seen the movie "cold mountain," this one the opening scenes. a very well.ures even further south, union general sherman was stuck outside of atlanta, unable to capture the confederate stronghold. 1854 with actually a pretty awful day for the union. and in the following days, new

rs would open up their newspapers and read about the terrible news. there is a very famous new york lawyer named george to bolton strong. he recorded in his diary on july 31, he said -- it is the hottest day of this burning summer, according to my sensations if not the thermometer appeared i stayed indoors tonight steaming with perspiration. at 2:00 in the afternoon, he got the afternoon addition of a local new york newspaper that reported the debacle that had taken place in petersburg, and strong one back to his diary and described what had taken place. have nouded this -- we right to expect speedy victory in this war or to ask that until we be suppressed have suffered more than we yet have done. well, the news of july 30

captured, i think, how the summer of 1864 felt too many people in the north. it was a long, hot, awful summer. 1864, ulyssese of s grant and robert e lee had pummeled each other outside of richmond, near richmond and virginia. grant lost 60,000 men during that time. in the midst of all that carnage, abraham lincoln was renominated by the republican party for president. platformt on a pledging a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery. if any of you have seen the wonderful spielberg movie "lincoln," you know how that turned out. although his nomination was notimous, he was necessarily well-liked by everyone in his party. the radical wing of his party were doing everything it could to get rid of him before his renomination. the secretary of the treasury

as using his position treasury department secretary to use patronage, putting people into useful positions who might be able to help get rid of lincoln as a republican nominee. and after lincoln was nominated, a major general named john charles fremont refused to drop out of the race until september. so fremont had actually been the first republican candidate for president in 1856, and he was threatening to divide the party if lincoln would not drop out of the race. the democrats had been planning to hold their convention on july 4. what better patriotic than to hold a convention? and the democrats saw how badly the war was going to her they thought, maybe we should wait and see how much worse it gets andre we choose our nominee also write to our platform. so they waited until the last three days of august.

when they convened on august 29 in chicago, they chose to nominate george b mcclellan for president and george h pendleton for vice president. george mcclellan had been a very popular army officer in the first two years of the war and was loved by his soldiers. they absolutely adored him. the democrats hoped that they some of theer soldiers' votes that they nominated mcclellan to mcclellan was a fairly moderate candidate who was prounion and pro-war, but he was also proslavery. the vice presidential nominee was the more presidential one. george h pendleton, who is also depicted in the spielberg movie -- if you want to see one of the copperheads who opposed the 13th amendment, pendleton is one of them. he was a congressman from ohio. pendleton was ardently proslavery and also antiwar. what the democrats hoped that

they could do was balance their ticket. we are going to have a pro-war candidate for president and an antiwar, known as a copperhead candidate, for vice president. and that way we can have a broad appeal to a lot of different democratic voters. the democrats then wrote the platform. and they made one huge miscalculation in their platform. if you read the democratic let form, it is a huge indictment of the lincoln administration. they called the war a failure to keep in mind, the summer has been going very badly. lincoln thinks he is going to lose them as of they call the war a failure. well, the timing could not have been worse for the democrats. the very day after they adjourned, william tecumseh sherman captured atlanta. this capture of atlanta sent a thrill through the north. from that point forward, it was pretty clear to most observers that lincoln was going to win.

general overview of the election. what i want to do now is tell you a little bit about the research in my book, research that no one has really done before. my research focuses on lincoln emancipation and his reelection in 1854. 19 northern states actually passed legislation authorizing soldiers to vote away from home. differentlation took forms. in some states, soldiers were allowed to vote in the field and they actually set up polls and people would vote a longer company streets. other states did it through absentee balloting to her new york, for example, the governor 1860 threea law in authorizing soldiers to vote because he said our state constitution requires people to vote in new york. so the new york legislature that if hehought vetoes it again, we need another plan. so let's let soldiers fill out their ballots in the field and then they will mail them home,

and someone at home will cast the ballot for the soldier. that way the ballot is being cast in new york. that is how new york soldiers voted in 1854. i began this research when i was an undergrad, so there are parts of my book that i wrote when i was around 21 years old. if any of you buy it afterwards, i hope you do not notice which parts i wrote when i was younger. but i was studying under a professor named mark neely. he is one of the most important historians of the american civil war today. he is a wonderful historian. i was taking a civil war class with him during my senior year and wanted to do an independent study during the spring of my senior year with him. this was the fall of 2000, during the bush versus gore election fiasco. so i told him i would like to do an independent study and he asked what i wanted to write about. i gave him an idea and he's a that is not a very good idea. he said come that in a couple

days and we will talk about good ideas and he did not put it quite like appearance i went back and he gave me a few topics that i could do as an undergrad in the middle of nowhere in pennsylvania it does pennsylvania. one of them was the soldier vote. i had never heard of it before. i had never known that soldiers had voted to it i had never heard of contested elections before bush versus gore. there were a lot of contested elections in history. it seem like an interesting topic to me. i did not know at the time that mark had been planning on writing about the soldier vote in a book he was writing then, but he instead very graciously gave the topic to me. as a master's student, i published three articles out of it and now finally my book. i was thrilled to be able to dedicate the book to mark neely. sorry for the little tangent. as i mentioned earlier, 80% of the soldiers who voted voted for lincoln. historians have generally looked at the statistics, and they say

it is pretty obvious, the soldiers supported emancipation and the soldiers supported lincoln that is why 80% of them voted for him. that in my book, i argue that i think historians have been getting it wrong for the last 150 years. i can only briefly summarize my findings tonight, but the main thrust of my book is to show how democrats in the army were intimidated and coerced into silence throughout much of the war. when they opposed emancipation. and the link in administration used to wear sieve measures as a way to try to teach the soldiers that they needed to fight in a war for emancipation. keep in mind, when the war begins, lincoln's argument is that this is a war for unions, say i amers enlisting enlisting into the union to its own lincoln had to teach them, i

argue, that they needed to fight for emancipation. 1854, the election of there are a lot of soldiers opposing emancipation, speaking out against it. so the war department used a lot of energy to try to force them emancipation or die will give you a couple examples of things i found. the assistant secretary of war was a man named charles dana, a new york newspaper editor before the war. he regarded that he recalled in his memoirs years after the war, he said all the power and influence of the war department was employed to secure the reelection of mr. lincoln. his recollection is a substantiated by historical evidence i found from the election of 1864 itself. the secretary of war at the time ed wednesday.d he used immense power to bring voters into line, to make sure that they either voted for lincoln or they did not think too badly about the president.

stanton dismissed dozens of officers during the summer and fall of 1864 when they spoke out against lincoln. on one occasion, he dismissed almost two dozen at one time. one of the u.s. senators from new york was a man named edwin morgan who once served as governor of new york, and morgan went to stanton and said there are some quartermaster clerks out there for mcclelland. and stanton outright dismissed 20 of them. one of the clerks went to stanton and complained here it stanton said, when a young man receives his pay from an administration and spends his evenings denouncing it in offensive terms, he cannot be surprised if the administration prefers a friend on the job. now, stanton made very little effort to hide this sort of partisanship. he learned about one officer who was wagering that against the

republican governor of indiana, which was illegal, still is, i think are the soldier is betting against the republican. boasted toearned, he a republican gathering at the white house and said, i reduced him to a captain and ordered him south of the other day. in other words, sending him to the front. weeks agoat quote two for one of the hardest things about my job as you always find great things after the book is out. there it is. democrats noticed what was going came to believe that stanton was taking the sort of vindictive actions so that he could control the officers in a way that would not only in th influence their votes but would influence the enlisted men serving under them. democrats learned they needed to keep quiet if they opposed

lincoln in the field. i found a letter from a kernel and ohio named durbin ward. i found a letter he wrote in 1854 where he said -- i am german to because just because publicly speaking my political opinions might cost me my commission to find a massachusetts artillerist who think toivate letter i his parents. he said he could not voice his political opinions during the election campaign because i might be called the copperhead, which was a republican epithet for democrats, and he said perhaps a poor guy like me might get shot. other forms of intimidation took place, as well to her and i found a newspaper article about something that took place around the west point. there were a bunch of soldiers or cadets at west point and the democrats wanted to go to a democrat campaign rally. you do that in election season here they went to hear a pro-mclellan campaign rally and the superintendent found out.

incidentally, the previous superintendent had been dismissed in july of 1864 because stanton found out he was a democrat. so the new superintendent found out the soldiers were going to hear a democratic meeting, and when they came back, they were put into the guard house pair the next morning, they were made to drink the jury ditch for the superintendent's water closet, so digging a toilet. republicans who want to republican campaign rallies near west point faced no such intimidation. one of the things that is at the courtof my research are martial records, records that have really not yet been mines well enough by historians. there are 75,000 court martial records at the national archives. i found a number of democratic officers who were court-martialed for speaking ill during the election season to it i cleared this with c-span because some of the languages and little colorful, but i want to give you a couple

examples of things people were court-martialed for during the election. there was a lieutenant from the 50th new york engineers named n who wassti court-martialed and dismissed in september 1854 for saying he would "stamp lincoln finer than dammed if iwould be would give it." another would said "lincoln is a bitch and those who voted for him are also." my favorite one comes from an illinois captain named john gibson to you was court-martialed and dismissed from the army for saying he would rather sing to hell than free the negroes and that old abe lincoln is a god damned old shit.

think of you always things later, but i thought that probably would've been a great title for my book. these guys and many more like him were court-martialed. some of them deserved it for some of the things that were said. someone not even the excerpts i have given you. but they were court-martialed because the lincoln i argue, wanted to teach the soldiers to not criticize emancipation for her not criticize the war, policy of the government, official military policy of the government. and it was effective. to keep theirle opinions to themselves. some of the most egregious political favoritism involves furloughs. not all soldiers, as i said, voted in the field. not permit did soldiers to vote in the field. to republican governors from those states wrote letters to secretary of war stanton, and they are in the library of

congress, saying would you please for low republican soldiers to come home and vote was to mark we're going to lose the election in our state if you do not do that. stanton was perfectly happy to oblige. i found a doctor from indiana who was taking care of wounded soldiers to he wrote a letter about one wounded soldier from indiana and said this -- you should give them a furlough to go home to vote against his vote will be as much or more value in the presidential election in this state than his service might otherwise render the government. in other words, his bullets will be more important than his ballot. officers throughout the union army granted furloughs to republican soldiers and they were allowed to go home to vote. while democrats were kept in the field. i want you to think about this for a moment. some of the soldiers had not been home for many months, if not several years. getting a furlough to go home to

vote was a huge thing, because it meant you got to see your parents or your siblings or your wife or children, people you had not seen for a long time. so democrats are going to rightly complain about this. i found a pennsylvania election commissioner who reported that democrats were threatened to be sent to the front if they voted, while an illinois soldier noted that his regiment was told to see how many would vote for lincoln if they had a chance to go home. so a lot of democrats are going to take this chance to die found one soldier from new hampshire, a sharpshooter, and he wrote a letter to his brother. he said, i shall be as black as the darkie to get a furlough home to vote. he was referring to the epithet democrats used to refer to the republican party. democrats often called the republican's the black republican party. so he was using code words. d and then a long

hyphen, saying i am willing to vote the black republican ticket if it means i can go home. not all were willing to sacrifice their principal spirit in new jersey voters that i suppose i might have gotten home if i would have said that i would vote for old abe, but never. i would sooner stay here for another year then come home and vote for him. well, for those soldiers who did vote in the field, they found it was not necessarily easy to vote the democratic ticket. many democrats complained that they could not find ballots in the field. others complained they were not allowed to read democratic newspapers or campaign literature. you all know how important it is in an election to be up to read both sides, right? i found one private from the 75th ohio, and his name was rufus miller. when he found out there were no

democratic ballots in his camp, he angrily exclaim i would rather vote for geoff davis than abraham lincoln. he was court-martialed for saying that in camp. another new york soldier -- such mean contemptible favoritism or partisanship is shown from lincoln by many officers in the army that hundreds of soldiers have been literally prescribing from voting from their officers and they have been obliged to five mcclellan ballots from other sources. , historians often point 80% of thencoln won soldier vote, but i do not think they have offered a satisfactory explanation of what that statistic means. certainly, many union soldiers supported lincoln and supported emancipation and they voted for him, no doubt about that. but i do not think their support of lincoln was as universal as

most historians would have it. i think the 80% statistic is deceiving. clearly, i think i have shown -- and i show in the book that many democratic soldiers were intimidated or coerced into voting for lincoln. i think of even greater importance is looking at the soldiers who did not vote. i believe that many democrat soldiers chose not to vote in 18 to the four because they sell lincoln as an abolitionist on the one hand, and this all their on thety as disloyal other again, august 1854, the democratic national convention in their platform called for a failure -- called the war a failure. if you are a soldier that has been fighting for up to three years, are you going to vote for a party who says that what you're doing is a failure? many chose not to. voter turnout among the soldiers is something no historian has ever considered before when they have looked at the election. but i think it can reveal a lot

about what was going on. i found a wonderful letter from a corporal named george buck. he served with the 20th michigan volunteers. two days after the election, he sent a letter to mcclellan, the democratic candidate who had just lost, and this is what he had to tell mcclellan -- he claimed that the power of the military was used without stent to keep soldiers from voting democratic party said some soldiers were offered promotion if they would vote for lincoln, and he said democrats were reduced to the ranks or a place at the front at every engagement if they chose to vote for you. we have seen that testimony elsewhere. he said he knew of hundreds of soldiers who voted for lincoln under protest and hundreds more of your most ardent admirers who did not vote at all. he wanted to back up what he said. he said that there are over 300 men in my regiment who are eligible to vote, but only 188

ballots were cast. that was the only evidence he could show the people were feeling estrogen not go for mcclellan. democratic whoa would say that the half on republicans who have admitted as much per die found one supporter -- soldier who supported lincoln in the election, but he was upset with the way secretary of war stanton was acting. andoted the petty tyranny persecution that stanton practices against subordinate officers. he's at any soldier who does not agree with the administration must be got rid of, no matter how honorably that soldier has served. he gave examples in his letter. he said you would scarcely credit the number of such cases as of this, cases of petty spite , fitting rather a bad-tempered and thean a great unified cabinet member, referring to stanton.

unlike democrats, it was extra quite easy for republican soldiers to vote. i found an account by a confederate, a confederate from maryland. he and his men captured some union soldiers just prior to the election. they forced the union soldiers to take off their blue uniforms the confederates put on the uniforms to her than they got lincoln possible à la, they went to the union camps, went to the polls, and voted for lincoln. they did not support lincoln but wanted to prove a point. after doing this, one wrote, for of course, knowing could object to us after voting for lincoln. of evidencet suggests that there was a great amount of pressure and even coercion to tell the republican party line. i found something that said if i was a civilian, i would say what i thought about it, about the election, but at present, i

think a better keep silent, and that was an artillerist. so what does this all mean? first, i have to say, i love abraham lincoln and think he is our greatest president. i have written several books about him. i have about seven more i plan to write. i would not devote all this time to lincoln if i did not think he was worthy of the study. certainly, i think his reelection was the best thing that could have happened. it led to the death of the confederacy and the ultimate extinction of slavery. but i also think it is important to understand the mechanisms of how the election took place. it was mostly a free election, but not entirely a free vote. i think that having this broader understanding helps us better understand how politics worked during the civil war and also questions and issues related to civil liberties in wartime.

whenever scholars and tv pundits talk about civil liberties in wartime, they talk about the effect that war has on civilians. but i think we can also learn a lot when we look at the effect that war has on soldiers. all that said, lincoln would have been reelected even if stanton had not gone to these great measures in the months leading up to the election. second, i think that the pattern emerged -- and that emerged in the summer and fall of 1864 had actually also taken place earlier in the election. i did not get into this in my talk but i have to throw chapters on it in my book appeared what i found was in the the emancipation proclamation was issued, the war department and state department were taking the same kind of measures. i think this is important because it shows us just how honest lincoln was about emancipation. lincoln knew that there were a lot of soldiers who opposed emancipation, and he was going

to go to great lengths to try to teach them that emancipation was a cause worth fighting for. unless i appeared to be coming down to critically on the lincoln administration during the summer and fall of 1850 four, let me just close with two positive observations about the significance of the soldier vote of 1860 four. the first is this -- permitting soldiers to vote was an incredible innovation. we take absentee balloting for granted today. in fact, there is one state, oregon, requires all voters to vote by absentee ballot. if any of you are not around in november when you have your congressional elections, you can request a ballot and go vote and know it will think anything of it. that is just how we do things. well, absentee balloting was not common in the 19th century. i found one example where during the american revolution, new

york soldiers were a lot to vote absentee in 1777, but that never became an official policy. during the war of 1812, 2 states passed legislation for soldiers, pennsylvania and new jersey. new jersey repealed its law in 1815 it's a with the civil war began, pennsylvania was the only the books a law on permitting soldiers to voted soldiers voted in pennsylvania a 1855 -- 1851 and there was tremendous amount of fraud at one regiment from philadelphia cast more than 900 ballots, even though there were not even 900 men in the regiment of the state supreme court struck that law down. would republican politicians began to realize in 1861 through 1863 was we got hundreds of thousands of men making the ultimate sacrifice on the battlefield for their nation. the of all people deserve right to vote.

anyone who makes that sacrifice. so beginning in 1861 and all the way of through the election of 1854, states throughout the north began passing legislation enabling soldiers to vote. this was a remarkable expansion of democracy in america, and it again sets the precedent for absentee balloting today. finally, i will close with this -- i think that the republican policy for permitting soldiers to vote during the civil war had a wide ranging implications. if voting is based on service to one's country and you have 200,000 african-american men serving in the union armies during the civil war, then surely they, too, deserve the right to vote. i think there is a direct connection between these 19 northern states passing laws allowing soldiers to vote and amendmentsd 15th

being ratified into the constitution in 18 68 and 1870 the republican policy of granting soldiers the franchise is tremendously important for .he coming of black suffrage with that, i am happy to entertain any questions. thank you so much for coming out tonight on this beautiful evening. [applause] i think there will be a microphone. if you go to the microphone -- >> thank you. it was excellent. the union high command was very politically diverse. hancock and need were democrats. however, howard was an abolitionist. butler was a war democrat, assuming anti-slavery. have you found anything on the question of emancipation and how union high the

command? >> it is a great question. secretary of war stanton got a letter, i want to say in september, where he got word, that there were several regrets and the highest echelon of union officers who were going to use their influence to try to affect the election, and the letter asked stanton to use his remedy to deal with them. it was essentially dismissing them. i have only found one brigadier general who was dismissed for opposing emancipation, a guy named james spears. at first to try to commission some a to write an op-ed against emancipation. he was acquitted of that. then i think he wrote one himself. lincoln handwrote on his file at ,he national archives now dismissed. other than that, lincoln was very fair-minded, and lincoln wanted a fair vote. he said as much. we have his words to that effect. as far as i know, he did not get

rid of any of those democrats like hancock. you mentioned butler. whoer was a war democrat moves into the radical republican camp by the end of the war. he was from massachusetts. butler actually got about 5000 soldiers who he brought to manhattan. he was worried there was going to be up evil here. he figured out he could not put them in the city, people would not really go for that. but they were in boats around the coast of manhattan, ready to come into the city should there be any upheaval on election day. butler was an ardent guy and was going to go to great lengths. for the new york soldiers among him, he kept them on the new jersey side of the water because they had already sent in their absentee ballots. the loss to belated that if they came to new york, their ballots would be void. he was very strategic in that. >> i have two questions.

number one, stephen pendleton, the democratic candidate for vice president -- >> george pendleton. >> george pendleton, thank you. must havedleton, he been aware of the pressure that was exerted on democrats in the army. did this have any influence on influence ontion, him when he became senator in ?he 1880's >> with civil service reform? >> yes, with civil service reform. my second question to you mentioned francis lieber at the beginning of this talk. is that the same person who wrote the whole code? , the first question is

about george pendleton. i did not mention this but meant to. george pendleton is famous today as the father of civil service reform. i think it was 1883 that the civil service act was passed. i do not know if the shenanigans of the election of 1864 influenced him. politicians were certainly aware of some of these things going on because soldiers would write to politicians after they had been at whatd to say look just happened to me. one of his closest allies was an ohio congressman who was actually kicked out of union camps for trying to settle democratic -- trying to peddle democratic tickets. probably most is famous today for having written what is known as general orders number 100. a code ofasically war, a code of law that would guide union were policy when

waging war. so, yes, same man. >> thank you. >> of course, the question that comes up is that lincoln wanted a fair election, but as far as he wasers in chief go, probably the strongest we ever had, most intimately involved in the conduct of the war. stanton quite well, of course. with all the court-martial's going on, what does lincoln know? what did the president know and when did he know it? following that, do you have any evidence of what lincoln thought about all these court-martial's? >> it is a great question. i do not know. lincoln did not keep a diary, unfortunately, so i do not know his most intimate thoughts on this issue. -- he ended upll

having to approve a lot of these. any time a soldier was sentenced to be executed, lincoln would have to approve it first. i found one soldier who deserted who was sentenced to be executed and lincoln appears to have allowed the execution to go isward, although these older not listed on the list of men who were executed during the war. lincoln approved a lot of the dismissals. there is a very famous case that took place in 1862. there was a major named john key who served in maryland. he was rumored to have -- he was overheard to have said, you know, we do not really want to hurt the south that badly. we just want to bring them to a point where they will surrender protect back and we can slavery. when lincoln heard about this, the whitekey into house office and talked to him about this. he said, yeah, i said that and

stand by it. key thought that was ok but lincoln said, you know, you seem like a competent officer, but i cannot allow you to be talking like that because it will demoralize the men and they will think the war is not worth fighting for. lincoln not only dismissed key from the army, but he had his private secretary and on him as we write a newspaper editorial talking about how this was the right thing to do. that was published throughout the nation. i think that lincoln understood you had to get the people onto your side. he knew how to use the newspapers to get his point across. in a lot of cases, many of the ones i found, lincoln upheld the punishment because he thought it was essential. lincoln was not vindictive the way i think staton was. some of these dismissals were not done by court-martial, so they may never have even come desk, and hen's

was managing so many things that he may not have known about a lot of them. i just do not know. thank you. >> thank you for an excellent lecture. what, if any, significance do you attach with respect to the fact presidency that he was a practicing lawyer for many years? and how do you reconcile that or view that in light of the position that was taken with respect to the suspension of habeas corpus? for just have to thank you that question. they mentioned in my introduction that i have a book coming out in april called lincoln's advice for lawyers." it is a wonderful little gift i recommend for your loyal -- your lawyer friends. .t will only be $12.99 lincoln was a brilliant lawyer, and he began practicing law

around 1837. lincoln's major approaches to the law was trying to bring peace to neighborhoods. lincoln believed that it was important, if at all possible, to settle out of court. he thought litigation was a bad thing. if it could be avoided, that was the best way to gopi at i found one letter where lincoln wrote to -- there was one guy suing another one, and he said to his client, you know, if you can settle with this other person, i will not charge you anything. that is how much lincoln wanted to settle out of court. i think lincoln brought that , wanting to beh a bull to work with people and wanting to resolve issues, and ultimately, he was trying to resolve issues between two big neighbors during the civil war, the union and the confederacy.

your question was about habeas corpus and whether his practice as a lawyer influenced that decision. >> [inaudible] >> right. sure. lincoln'snow if practice as a lawyer prepared him necessarily for that specific issue. i will briefly summarize. tooote the book about this, . at the beginning of the civil war, secession was on the move. seven states had already seceded before lincoln even became president. in april 1861, the upper south seceded. and maryland was on the verge of secession, so lincoln thought. lincoln looked at this situation and thought, i cannot allow

maryland to secede because if they do, the national capital will be surrounded by an enemy nation. so lincoln center private letter to his commanding general, to suspend scott habeas corpus along the military line between philadelphia and washington, d.c. he eventually expanded it to new york and even beyond. was that thent military could arrest civilians and detain them indefinitely without charges, as long as public safety required it. lincoln faced this decision on article one, section nine, of the constitution, which says the privilege of the writ of hay be as nervous shall not be system -- disbanded and less there is innovation to the public safety that requires appeared lincoln looked at the situation and said, well, i have a rebellion on my hands and i think public safety requires it. most legal theorists looked at that clause of the constitution

is aaid, clearly, that legislative power because it is an article one of the constitution, the clause having to do with congress. but lincoln looked at the situation and said, the constitution is silent. it is not say who can suspend it. just as it can be suspended. also, congress was out of session as was -- and was not supposed to come back and tell decent appears lincoln thought, do i just wait until they come back in december? by then the rebellion might be over with the confederacy being its own nation. so lake and claimed that constitutional authority to be up to act as an executive with great authority. for this one -- unfamiliar with the case, i do not know if lincoln poss practice as a lawyer -- he just never would have dealt with a case quite like that. it i do agree with you that think he was a very deep constitutional thinker. you read his speeches from his

1838 lyceum address and the dread's got speech, and he is thinking about the meaning of the words of the constitution or die think he gave a plausible reading. a lot of people disagreed, but he was in a pretty tough spot. he managed it pretty well. nothat if atlanta had fallen on september 1, and what if johnston had stayed in office ?nd not been removed and atlanta stays up until the election -- do you sense of that that would have resulted in lincoln losing the election? and if lincoln does lose the election, what would that have resulted in? -- what --lellan would a mcclellan administration resulted in a lost war for the north? >> >> a great question. the what if's are the hardest

because we do not know. i will give it my best shot. let's assume atlanta does not fall and lincoln does not win reelection there were a few other union victories during that time. mobile bay fell and sheridan road through the shenandoah valley. it lets assume that mcclellan wins. mcclellan was ardently pledged to winning the war and restoring the union for generations, historians thought that mcclellan was not pledged to that. there was a famous 1930's article that was based on bad research that said mcclellan wavered and was not as strong on the union as we thought, but that myth has been debunked. mcclellan would have done what he could have done to restore the union, but mcclellan would t the emancipation

proclamation in place, and he tryingave been fine in to win the war in letting the south keep slavery. mcclellan would have had a lot of peace democrats who voted for him who would have said, wait a second, the platform says that we want to have a convention of the states and negotiate with the south. you ow e that to us. how he would have handled that is impossible to know. but i have read several letters by democrats, soldiers who say a want to vote for mcclellan, but what if he wins and then dies? then you get a peace democrat. and there were people who thought mcclellan might get knocked off, and peace democrats would come in and say we wronged you and you should go in peace. my answer is all over the place, but it is a what if. i hope that helps.

>> actually, my question has been answered as i stood in line. the question is this -- what was able lincoln poss attitude for the coercion of mcclellan and other members of his administration for coercing the them in and demoting court marshaling them? however, the answer seems to be he did not exactly reject this practice, but he did not condone it either. benevolent, beloved abe really was a politician and knew how to handle any controversial situation. however, i am satisfied with the fact that he never condoned it and did not reject it. by the way, speaking of you, professor, i always thought that i was new york's premier civil war historian.

now i see that i am number two. >> awww. thank you so much. thank you for an excellent lecture. said who votes where. it was a secret ballot, white and they take the furlough and vote? >> excellent question. the secret ballot is known -- during the civil war, the local government did not make the ballots the way they do today. the political parties would print their own ballots. they were often printed in distinctly colored paper. when you voted, you walk to the pole with a yellow ballot or a pink ballot, and everyone knew how you were voting. not only that, when you got to the poll booth, you voted into a

glass bowl. the really was no secrecy. you cannot say i will vote another way and vote another. that is why the intimidation is a powerful. seen to bes will be voting in a particular way. obama know that president dismissed that it was general , but ifal and others somebody is in the military, can he express any opinion that is in competition -- contradiction to his offices? >> i don't know what the rules are today. there are prescriptions on criticizing. in the civil war, and the articles of war, which had been adopted by congress, there was the fifth article of war, and that prohibited criticizing the president or the congress or the

governor of your state. that is what a lot of these guys were charged under to the question is, if you oppose a policy like a mensa page and, which was controversial, and if you consider yourself a citizen first -- these are the guys that saw themselves as citizen soldiers and they were going off to fight for. and then they would go home -- they never believed that they lost their right to free speech. when they are court-martialed, they make this claim. they say, i never thought i lost the right to speak freely on political issues. i am an american citizen. the army held otherwise. context, --entucky contemporary context, they cannot say whatever they want. they cannot put as either commanders. -- they cannot criticize their commanders. it was not just a political

maneuvering. it undermines the army and morale. >> absolutely future. thank you for eliminating best. question, you mentioned that lincoln was buried pessimistic about his chances in the war. i assume the election only took place in the northern states. the question is, the republican swept the north in the first election, or what happened in the first election and the second election that caused lincoln to think that he had every bad chance. ? >> that is a great question. there were elections held in confederate states that were

undergoing lincoln's reconstruction plan. correct, voters voted in tennessee, louisiana, and maybe arkansas. -- in tennessee, the military governor was andrew johnson and also the republican candidate for vice president. andrew johnson issued an oath that voters had to take. the oath was buried long. i listed all in the book. the part of the oath required voters to pledge that they opposed an armistice to negotiate with the south. the democratic platform says we stand for an armistice. andrew johnson's of, that was required to vote, essentially made it impossible for democrats to vote in tennessee. that was the first part can you repeat the second part? >> why was lincoln so pessimistic? >> he was pessimistic because

the war was going badly. imagine 60,000 casualties in about a 30 day span. that is a lot of families who will be disheartened. that was the sentiment in the summer of agency four. people did not see the war going well. it is not until the fall of atlanta and mobile bay and the shenandoah valley -- after that, lincoln became confident. in october of agency c4, there were state elections in indiana and pennsylvania and ohio. those elections went republican. bellwether elections. everyone knew that however those three would states went, that was how the election would go in november. the presidential election. by october, lincoln was confident he would win. it was only the summer that he thought he would lose. >> thank you. >> thank you so much. >> you are watching american history tv. 48 hours of proam