blockade: tweaking and evading

Posted on November 19, 2014 by SUMPTER
approaches to Wilmington NC 1864 ( Map of the coast of North Carolina from Cape Lookout to Cape Fear. ; LOC: http://www.loc.gov/item/99447484/)

last (CSA) port standing?

150 years ago today President Lincoln lifted the blockade of Norfolk, Fernandina and Pensacola because those ports had “for some time past been in the military possession of the United States, [and] it is deeemd advisable that they should be opened to domestic and foreign commerce”.

On that same day, “The Confederate raider CSS Chickamauga under Lieutenant John Wilkinson runs the Union blockade off Wilmington, North Carolina, covered by a fog, and anchors under the guns of Fort Fisher.” High tide lifted the ship over a bar and the Chickamauga escaped from the fire of Union ships up the Cape Fear River.[1]

CSS Chickamauga (1864-65) Wash drawing by Clary Ray, 25 June 1897. This ship was originally the blockade running steamer Edith. Courtesy of the Navy Art Collection, Washington, D.C. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

evaded blockade off Wilmington

  1. [1]Fredriksen, John C. Civil War Almanac. New York: Checkmark Books, 2008. Print. page 521-522.↩
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flag presented

Posted on November 18, 2014 by SUMPTER

A widow gave a regiment’s flag to a local Masonic Lodge.

From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in November 1864:

FLAG PRESENTATION. – The Observer says the beautiful Silk Flag, made and presented, fresh and new, by the ladies of Waterloo, to Co. C., of the old 33d. Regiment, and carried by them through their eventful and glorious two years’ campaign by Capt. Brett, has been presented to Seneca Lodge F.&A.M., by Mrs. Brett.

33d New York Infantry (photographed between 1861 and 1863, printed between 1880 and 1889; LOC: LC-DIG-ppmsca-34386)

some members of old the 33d New York Infantry

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Uncle, can you spare a few dollars?

Posted on November 18, 2014 by SUMPTER

“I have a little favor to ask of you today.”

At American Memory you can read a letter written 150 years ago yesterday to President Lincoln. I can’t make out all the words, but it seems that in a celebratory meeting in Cincinnati, John Wilkes, the writer of the letter, applauded so hard at a speaker’s praise for Mr. Lincoln that he “ran a large hole through” his hat (or umbrella?). He requested that the President send him a few dollars to buy a replacement because he couldn’t afford one. He was a hard-working man who voted twice for Mr. Lincoln and would even vote for him a third time.

LC-USZ62-95800

a fortunate few (1782)

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Andersonville North

Posted on November 15, 2014 by SUMPTER

“in a land of plenty; to die of lingering torture.”

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch November 16, 1864:

The Treatment of Southern prisoners at the North.

We find in the Washington National Intelligencer a private letter relative to the condition of our prisoners at Elmira, New York. The editors of that paper give as a reason for its publication that “it describes so feelingly the wretched condition of the miserable beings confined in one of the largest of our military prisons and appeals so fervently and eloquently to our common humanity for sympathy and succor to the sufferers”:

Baltimore, October 14, 1864.

My Dear Sir

Home views. No. 15, Rebel prison - 1865 (Elmira, N.Y. : Published by J.E. Larkin, 118 Water Street, [between 1865 and 1880]; LOC: LC-DIG-stereo-1s02989)

Library of Congress: “elevated view of Elmira prison camp in New York, with a long line of prisoners standing along the fence”

My short acquaintance with you would hardly, under ordinary circumstances, warrant my thus addressing you; but I know you to be a christian gentleman, and as such I appeal to you in an emergency of appalling magnitude.

I have just returned from Elmira. Though not permitted to go inside the prison enclosure, I saw the condition of the fifteen hundred who were taken away for exchange, many of them in a dying condition. There are ten thousand prisoners at Elmira. A great number have been in confinement since the battle of Gettysburg. They have been kept at Point Lookout; have contracted disease from the unwholesome water there; were transferred to Elmira scantily clothed to face the cold Northern climate; no tea or coffee is allowed them; no variation of their scanty prison fare. No wonder that the mortality has been, and is, frightful; that the sick number fifteen hundred. Sleeping on the ground, under tents, four blankets for five men, many without socks or shoes; when, at last, taken to the hospital they are too far gone to be restored to life. Several of those taken away for exchange died on the cars. Happy they to be at rest! No more cold or hunger pangs to suffer! Only think of it! Never to be warm, never to have a full meal, a cup of coffee, in a land of plenty; to die of lingering torture.

It is useless to appeal to the Secretary of War. It rests with the men of the North to remove this foul stain from our country. The officers in charge of the prison at Elmira are kind and humane, but the condition of things is beyond their power to remedy. A quantity of coarse, warm clothing is immediately required. Socks, under-clothing, blankets and thick knit jackets are wanted for hospital use; and an effort ought at once to be made, such as Mr. Stanton cannot withstand, to have them allowed coffee, tea and sugar. I cannot, will not, believe that my countrymen of the North will permit this state of things to continue.

I know, sir, how nobly you have responded to the calls made upon you in the past, and I implore you to help me now. My voice is too feeble to reach the ears of the thousands who ought to be willing as they are able to give to this holy charity. From every prison in the North, East and West, from Rhode Island to Fort Warren, goes out this wail of suffering humanity — clothing and blankets to keep us warm, food and coffee to save us from perishing! Woe to the people, dwellers in a land of plenty, to whom these calls are made in vain! These men are our brothers. There is not a hamlet in the far West, a village in my own native New England, not a mining town in California, but shelters some gray head, some bleeding, anguished heart, whose hearts go right up to heaven for pity on these prisoners — their own kindred, blood of blood.

Mr.–, I cannot write of these things. Those fifteen hundred pale faces are before me as I saw them pass me at the depot. Those ghastly, pleading faces! I saw them here again — saw the pile of dead — dead from want of nourishing food — a cup of coffee. I saw in a city whose church s[t]eeples tower toward Heaven gentle women, who would have given this nourishment, driven by brutal police and detectives from the mission bequeathed to them by the pitying Son of Mary. Hot tears of shame for my countrymen who permit these outrages upon Humanity and Christianity — tears of pity for these poor sufferers blind my eyes. I cannot write.

Help me, Mr.–, and plead with others also to give of their abundance, as they hope for mercy in that awful hour when we must all give an account of our stewardship. I would plead for all the prisons, though I have only seen the horrors of Elmira.

With great respect, yours,

Mary W. Reonee.

One of the Elmira Star-Gazette’s 20 facts about Elmira’s Civil War prison camp seems especially pertinent to this letter:

6 An observation platform with chairs and binoculars was built outside the prison camp across Water Street west of Hoffman Street. Visitors were charged 10 cents apiece to look at the prisoners. Refreshments were sold to spectators while the Confederate soldiers starved.

At American Memory you can see and read a letter from New York City Mayor C. Godfrey Gunther to Abraham Lincoln in November 1864 about a scheme to relieve some of the suffering at Elmira – the South was to sell 1,000 bales of cotton in New York City; the proceeds were to be used to buy supplies for rebel prisoners of war. Apparently the negotiations had stalled and some of the mayor’s constituents were very concerned as winter approached.

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Mac’s resignation

Posted on November 14, 2014 by SUMPTER
Abraham Lincoln on battlefield at Antietam, Maryland, cropped version that highlights McLellan and Lincoln (by Alexander Gardner, 1862 October 3, printed later; LOC: LC-USZ62-2276 )

resigned (Antietam, 1862)

150 years ago today President Lincoln accepted General McClellan’s Election Day resignation from the army. The Atlas & Argus of Albany New York was a Democratic party newspaper (according to the November 11, 1864 issue of The New-York Times the Argus was still claiming General McClellan won New York State as late as November 10th) that saw the resignation as an example of the General’s honorable character – unlike the President’s.

From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in November 1864:

Gen. McClellan’s Resignation.

The resignation of General McClellan, which was made on the 8th inst., has been accepted. It is said in addition, in quarters accustomed to speak for the President, that Mr. Lincoln intended to remove him, and would have done so, if he had not been thus anticipated by the voluntary act of the General.

If so, Gen. MCCLELLAN, who has before shielded the Administration from disaster, now saves it from dishonor. It may be said that President LINCOLN might have been left to crown his conduct towards the General, and his action during the campaign by this last act of indignity. But though this would have revealed the full malignity of a base nature in its hour of triumph, yet the spectacle would have still further dishonored his country, and we are glad that we are spared it. – Atlas and Argus.

ThadStevensto AL 11-8-1864 (LOC: http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mal&fileName=mal1/380/3804600/malpage.db&recNum=0)

Thaddeus Stevens calls PA for the Pres (Library of Congress, American Memory)

John Hay’s diary entry [1] for Election Day, November 8, 1864 provides a different view of President Lincoln’s character. Early in the rainy day Mr. Lincoln reflected:

“It is a little singular that I, who am not a vindicthe [vindictive?] man, should have always been before the people for election in canvasses marked for their bitterness; always but once; when I came to Congress it was a quiet time. But always besides that the contests ill [in?] which I have been prominent have been marked with great rancor.”

About 7 PM Mr. Lincoln and aides splashed through the rainy night over to the War Department to receive the telegraphed election returns. Secretary of the Navy Welles and and Assistant Secretary Fox were vengefully happy over some of the results. The President remarked:

“You have more of that feeling of personal resentment than I,” said Lincoln. “Perhaps I may have too little of it, but I never thought it paid. A man has not time to spend half his life in quarrels. If any man ceases to attack me, I never remember the past against him. …”

The group had a late meal:

Towards midnight we had supper, provided by Eckert. The President went awkwardly and hospitably to work shoveling out the fried oysters. He was most agreeable and genial all evening in fact.

The Presidential combat (LOC: http://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200001522/)

combat concluded (Library of Congress, Music Division)

  1. [1]Commager, Henry Steele and Erik Bruun, eds. The Civil War Archive. New York: Black Dog and Levanthal Publishers, 2000. Print. pages 749-751. ↩
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Georgia quiet

Posted on November 13, 2014 by SUMPTER

There hadn’t been much news from Georgia in recent days. A Richmond paper tried to guess what that meant.

Majr. Genl. William T. Sherman: U.S. Army (New York : Published by Currier & Ives, [between 1856 and 1907]; LOC: LC-USZ62-7828)

“troubled state”


From the Richmond Daily Dispatch November 12, 1864:

Saturday Morning…november 12, 1864.
The War News. …

Georgia.

There has been no news received from Georgia for several days. Sherman is in a troubled state, judging from his erratic movements, and does not know whether to go backward towards Atlanta, push forward towards Tennessee, or He [be?] still and await Hood’s action, Something will shortly be done, or both armies will be compelled to go into winter quarters.

Atlanta, Ga. Trout House, Masonic Hall, and Federal encampment on Decatur Street (by george N. Barnard, 1864; LOC: LC-DIG-cwpb-03304)

quiet “Atlanta, Ga. Trout House, Masonic Hall, and Federal encampment on Decatur Street” (1864)

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postal delay

Posted on November 12, 2014 by SUMPTER
AL-AJ envelope (1864;Library of Congress)

priority mail?

150 years ago today a Democratic paper finally received soldiers’ votes for president from its correspondent in the field. The editor blamed the delay on devious Republican postmasters. From a Seneca County, New York in November 1864:

Delayed Soldiers’ Votes.

The following letter was received by the editor of this paper on Saturday morning of last week – four days after the election – with a package of thirty-four Democratic soldiers’ votes. Our correspondent complains that he did not receive blanks, envelopes, &c., from home. They were sent to him and the men of his regiment in great quantities and at an early day, and it was only through the criminality of Lincoln Postmasters that they did not reach their destination. We should have received the package four days before, instead of four days after the election. It was sent from Charleston, Western Virginia, on the 29th ult., a place not over 350 miles distant from Seneca Falls. That it did not come through in time is still further evidence of the plot determined upon by a guilty administration, to deprive Democratic soldiers of their franchise, and to carry the election by fraud:

NY Times 11-12-1864

NY Times 11-12-1864

CAMP PIATT, W.Va., Oct. 29th 1864.

FRIEND STOWELL: – I forward herewith the votes of Co. K., 1st N.Y. Veteran Cavalry, for Seneca Co. They are all right. Send to proper parties: Seneca Falls, J.T. Miller – Waterloo, S.R. Welles – and the others as directed.

There has been a great fraud practiced here. Blanks, envelopes, and tickets were furnished to all that would vote for A. Lincoln, but Democrats were not allowed to have any. I received ten from you and twenty-five from Wayne Co. These are all that the Democratic voters in this regiment have had. But by stealing and buying blanks from the Republicans, I have been able to send off 160 votes for McClellan; and other officers about as many more. We also wrote out a number, but more than half of the Democratic vote of the regiment is lost. There is great excitement in the regiment as you may well imagine. You are at liberty to make this statement and give your authority for doing it. I have no fear of A.L. before my eyes. If this game has been played throughout the army, I fear all is lost. We have done our best. I have worked night and day and have done all that I could for “Little Mac,” but you at home must do the business. Co. K. voted McClellan 41, Lincoln 5, six Democrats absent.

Ever Yours, SENECA.

The election tally was still a work in progress. The front page of the November 11, 1864 issue of The New-York Times gave General McClellan a 400 vote majority in Seneca County; as the column on the left shows, by November 12th that advantage had grown to 595 in the county. The final results indicate that Seneca and Erie were the only counties in central and western New York State that went for “Mac”:

PresidentialCounty1864Colorbrewer1

crossing the red sea?

(map courtesy Minnesota Population Center. National Historical Geographic Information System: Version 2.0. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota 2011. NHGIS site)

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“four more years …”

Posted on November 11, 2014 by SUMPTER
The Federal Phoenix (London Punch 12-3-1864 (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38056/38056-h/38056-h.htm#n162)

neither fool nor patriot

By 150 years ago today some word of mouth news had trickled into Richmond – Abe Lincoln was re-elected. Confederates had to prepare for four more years of war.

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch November 11, 1864:

The re-election of Lincoln.

Intelligence, believed to be authentic, was received in this city yesterday of the re-election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency of the United States. A well-known citizen of Fredericksburg, who entered the enemy’s lines below Richmond yesterday under flag of truce, was informed by a Yankee officer that Lincoln’s re-election was, beyond a doubt, a fact accomplished. According to this officer’s statement, the States of New Jersey and Missouri alone had gone for McClellan, Kentucky had not been heard from. The State of Maine gave Lincoln a majority of thirty thousand. New York city went for McClellan by a majority of thirty-eight thousand, which had been overcome by the vote of the whole State. This accords with what the Yankee pickets in front of Petersburg told our men on Wednesday. They said Lincoln had been re- elected, and that we might prepare ourselves for four more years of war. Few of our people will be disappointed by the result of this election, since it is only what we have all expected. Had Lincoln allowed himself to have been beaten, he must have been either a fool or a patriot, neither of which his warmest friend nor bitterest foe has ever suspected him of being.

The political cartoon from the December 3, 1864 edition of London’s Punch (at Project Gutenberg) echoed some of the concerns of Southern rebels and Northern Democrats.

___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________

Veterans arriving - Gettysburg (by Bain News Service, 1913 June 30; LOC: LC-DIG-ggbain-13834)

Veterans arrive for the Gettysburg 50th (June 30, 1913)

Taps is sounded. Sergeant Frank Witchey, famous bugler of the United States Army sounding taps at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Arlington National Cemetary, Armistice Day, Nov. 11 (by Harris & Ewing 1929 November 11; LOC: LC-DIG-hec-35571)

“Taps is sounded. Sergeant Frank Witchey, famous bugler of the United States Army sounding taps at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Arlington National Cemetary, Armistice Day, Nov. 11” (1929)

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“oblations to themselves”

Posted on November 10, 2014 by SUMPTER
NY Times 11-4-1864

collecting (cooked) turkies and other treats for “Our Defenders, City Point” (NY Times 11-4-1864)

Unsurprisingly, a Richmond paper was thankful the South wasn’t like Yankeedom.

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch November 10, 1864:

Thursday morning….November 10, 1864.
Lincoln’s thanksgiving day.

We observe that Lincoln, with commendable gratitude, has issued his proclamation for a day of thanksgiving among the universal Yankee nation. This is an annual custom of that people, heretofore celebrated with devout oblations to themselves of pumpkin pie and roast turkey. We have nothing to say against the custom. It is one becoming a better people, and which even they have great reasons for observing. If any body on the earth has reason to be thankful that the rain falls on the unjust as well as the just, it is the Yankee.

Dixie Doodle (1862; LOC: http://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200002595/)

Southern blend (1862, Library of Congress, Music Division.)

At this time they have special grounds for thanksgiving. The formula of the Pharisee, always adapted to their national self-esteem, has been demonstrated in this war after a fashion which must carry conviction to the most incredulous. It is a formula, more-over, in which even those can join who have not the privilege of being Yankees. “I thank thee that I am not as other men.” The Yankee may say that with a grateful heart, and other men can never be thankful enough that it is literally true. So let us all have a day of thanksgiving, and the national airs of Yankee Doodle and Dixie for once be blended in honor of the same delightful beatitude.

That the Yankee is not as other men, he proved by drawing the sword upon the old customers whose trade had made him rich, and laboring with all his might and main to cut open the goose that laid him the golden egg. What “other men” would have hit upon so ingenious an expedient for improving their condition. In 1860, their nation was free from debt. The interest upon their debt in 1861 is over eighty-one millions of dollars, which is about five millions more than the whole revenue of the United States the year before they went to war. By the 1st of May next, their national debt will amount to $2,500,000,000, and an interest of $113,000,000. This is something to be thankful for, if they mean to pay it.–In 1860, a million or more of Yankees were alive and eating thanksgiving turkey and pumpkin pie who will not be crowding the tables at the thanksgiving of 1864. The Yankee who does not rejoice that these fellows are out of the way, and that he is eating their share as well as his own, must be lost to all the finer feelings of his race.

Group of Union soldiers with Abraham Lincoln holding U.S. flag in foreground; four verses of Rally Round the Flag below image (Harper's Weekly, 1864 Oct. 1, pp. 632-633; LOC: LC-USZ6-1544)

“dispenser of fat contracts and thinner out of crowded populations”

It is much to be thankful for that they have such a President as Lincoln. What other men on the habitable globe would have chosen an ignorant and vulgar backwoods pettifogger for their Chief Magistrate; or, having incurred the loss of the richest portion of their territory, more than a million of men, and two billions of money, in penalty of their folly, would have worked for his re-election with every energy of soul and body? What other men would expect anything else from another four years experiment but a double amount of debt and dead men? What other men would find occasion for thanksgiving in such a past and such a future? But the Yankee knows what he is about. The money of the Government goes into his own pocket; and the fewer to eat, the more to be eaten. So he sends up his praises for Abraham Lincoln, that dispenser of fat contracts and thinner out of crowded populations.

What “other men” would have carried on a war in the spirit and manner in which the pious and exemplary Sons of the Pilgrims have conducted this contest? Thousands of dwelling-houses burned and their once happy and unoffending inmates turned out to face, as best they may, cold and starvation; ten thousand barns and mills, with all their contents, given to the flames; whole cities depopulated; other cities made the target of a storm of bomb-shells, bursting among helpless, shrieking women and children; vast and once lovely regions of country laid black and bare by the fiery besom of desolation! Surely no “other men” but Yankees could perpetrate, in the eves of the world, deeds like these; and no other men, in any age, would thank the God of Christianity for the achievements of devils. Let us rejoice with the Yankee that “he is not as other men.” Better to be the victim than the perpetrator of crimes against God and Humanity.

[one day a young Napoleon showed off his artillery for some ladies who were visiting; the return fire caused needless casualties]

While the pickets are perfectly quiet on both sides, and there is no sign of hostility on either, General Grant habitually fires shotted salutes along his whole thirty-odd miles in extent, whenever Stanton telegraphs a lie to him with regard to victories in the Valley or in Georgia. The city of Petersburg is, in part, commanded by these guns, and the shot from them must necessarily fall in the midst of its population. It must be a miracle, if life, to some extent, be not lost by every one of these shotted salutes. They do no good, they advance no interest, they are not expected to further the operations of the slege in the slightest degree. If the design be to encourage the troops by a loud noise and an imposing demonstration, it would have the same effect to fire the guns without shot as with them. The presumption is, therefore, that they are loaded with shot for the purpose of killing somebody; in other words, of perpetrating a cold-blooded murder, or, it may be, a dozen such, without expecting the slightest advantage from it. The friends of humanity in every part of the world except Christendom must regard such a deed with horror, and its perpetrator as an assassin.

Petersburg, Va. The "Dictator," a closer view (by David Knox, 1864 September; LOC: LC-DIG-cwpb-03851)

The “Dictator” at Petersburg September 1864

In Yankeedom, however, it is looked upon in a far different light. Not one voice has been raised against the inhuman barbarity. Even in their rejoicing, these people are not satisfied without committing murder. There is novelty in the idea of firing a salute with shotted guns, and that is sufficient. Inhuman, barbarous, cold-blooded as it is, it is extolled as the noblest of modern inventions. Grant, of course, expresses no contrition, nor is it to be supposed that he feels any.

What would Scott and Alison, who have condemned Napoleon so severely for this one youthful error, say of Grant, who is already past the maturity of manhood! What will his future biographers say, if they should happen not to be Yankees! for Yankees think it all very pretty. They can make but one apology for him, and that is the best his case admits of. He is known to drink hard, and these salutes may have been the fire-works of a drunken frolic.

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rainy night in D.C.

Posted on November 8, 2014 by SUMPTER
For president Abraham Lincoln -- For vice president Andrew Johnson ( 1864; LOC:LC-DIG-ppmsca-19442)

another campaign ends

On Election Day 1864 President Lincoln spent the evening at the war department reading the telegraphic good news. Here’s a bit more about Washington and Gotham on November 8th. From the Richmond Daily Dispatch November 14, 1864:

Later from the North.

We have received copies of New York and Baltimore papers of the evening of Wednesday, the 9th instant. We give below a summary of their contents:

The election in the United States–Lincoln re-elected by an Immense majority — M’Clellan Carries there [three] States.

There were heavy rains in the Northwest on Tuesday, rendering the working of the telegraph wires in that portion of the United States inoperative and preventing the reception of any full intelligence from Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota.–Without these returns, however, it is certain that Lincoln is elected by a very heavy majority. …

NY Times 11-9-1864

NY Times 11-9-1864

Election scenes in New York.

Though the election of Lincoln was a foregone arrangement, the Yankees made the same fuss over it as if there had been a chance for both sides.–There was the usual turning-out excitement and speeches that would have attended a bond fide election. Around the Herald office, in New York, the scene is thus described:

Large transparencies were fitted up in the cashier’s office of the Herald buildings, and in the windows of the editorial rooms, so arranged as to show the vote of the city by wards, for the Gubernatorial and Presidential candidates, and miscellaneous returns; while another was devoted exclusively to the announcement of the final result in the State and the country.

Amid a raw, drizzling rain, the crowd, coming from every part of the city, gradually increased, until by eight o’clock all the streets were blockaded in every direction, and transit on foot and in vehicles was almost entirely prevented. The rain did not appear to deter the citizens from venturing out; for they gathered by thousands, exposing themselves to the weather with perfect indifference to everything else but the result of the vote. They stood in the streets in solid phalanx, as compactly and regularly arranged as a regiment in the field, swaying and moving as one immense body. The rain poured down upon the upturned and anxious faces unheeded, the crowd, in the excitement of the hour, baring their heads to the storm in order to wave their hats for Little Mac. The scene and the crowd were truly characteristic of New York. –Old Abe found but little favor in it. A youthful tradesman in the literary line, who offered the Express for sale, with the announcement that [ that ] sheet claimed only two States for McClellan, met with little encouragement for his mistaken enterprise. As the heavy majorities for General McClellan were announced, long and loud cheers went up from the crowd below, breaking at times into hoarsely-sung patriotic airs, and returning, in the enthusiasm of the moment, to repeated cheers for Little Mac. …

The result in Washington.

SwetttoLincoln1181864 (LOC: http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mal&fileName=mal1/380/3805100/malpage.db&recNum=0)

Leonard Swett to Lincoln 11-8 10:30 PM; New York – City for Mac, State for the Prest. (Library of Congress, American memory)

A telegram, dated at Washington on the 8th, says:

About dark, a heavy rain commenced, which is still falling, and the streets are flooded, considerably reducing the numbers in search of information. Everything here is very dull and quiet.

The Union League Hall, on Ninth street, was crowded until a late hour this evening with Republicans, and as the dispatches came in the wildest enthusiasm prevailed. As it became evident that the vote was overwhelmingly in favor of Lincoln and Johnson, cheer after cheer rent the air, and audience and speakers were carried away by their feelings of rejoicing and exultation, and gave vent to them in patriotic songs and shouts of triumph. The opinion was generally expressed that Lincoln had made a clean sweep, and that it was doubtful whether McClellan had carried a single State.

long-tall-abraham-lincoln Harper's Weekly 11-26-1864)

Long ABRAHAM LINCOLN a Little Longer.

The Republicans here generally to-night are about the happiest people in existence. The Democratic headquarters in this city were crowded with Democrats this evening eager for election returns. They whiled away the time in listening to the reports of ballot-distributors among the hospitals and troops in the district. The leaders of the meeting evidently anticipated had news, and did very little for the consolation of the doubting — occasionally attempting a feeble speech, but generally hurrying up the messengers after telegrams. None seemed to be at all confident, although each assured the other of good news yet to come, which at a late hour had not arrived. It was expected that the Democratic Association would attempt a public demonstration, and the failure is attributed to the inclement weather.

Another, dated at midnight, says:

The people generally have gone house satisfied that Mr. Lincoln is to be the next President, and almost the only watchers are those who are interested in the result.

A few of Mr. Lincoln’s friends have called to congratulate him and hear what news he has received, but no public congratulatory visit has occurred.–The White House is closed, and nothing unusual is apparent thereabouts.

The Republicans take the result as a matter of course, and the Democrats grin and bear it.

The Abraham Lincoln cartoon was published in the November 26, 1864 edition of Harper’s Weekly at Son of the South

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