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PostPosted: Sun Apr 28, 2013 1:44 pm 
Politically it was the darkest days for Lincoln. In the months leading up to the Democratic Convention of August ’64 the spirit to continue fighting seemed to flee from the North. There were defeats on the Shenandoah, a dash by the Confederates against Washington, the failure of the first assault against Petersburg, and hideous losses.

At the Democratic Convention a motion was passed: “this Convention does explicitly declare… four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war”. Even more galling, General McClellan’s political ambition was laid bare for all to see. He accepted the presidential nomination of a party that whose platform was to negotiate peace. It was known the Confederates would settle for nothing less than recognition as a separate nation. Suing for peace meant dividing the United States. During the campaign McClellan repudiated peace negotiations. But, we will never know whether that position was just a strategy to lure voters or an expression of his conscience. On election day McClellan resigned his commission.

How dark were those days? On August 12 Lincoln’s election manager, Thurlow Weed, told him the election was hopeless. On August 22 the chairman of the Republican Committee advised Lincoln that he should make overtures for peace. A new movement arose among Republicans to force Grant to run for president to save the day.

Lincoln was horrified at the thought of Grant entering politics. Not for a second because he cared about losing his job, but because Grant was essential to the war effort. Lincoln wrote to Eaton to bring this possibility up with Grant as tactfully as possible. This is Eaton’s account of what happened when he raised this option to Grant’s attention:

“We had been talking very quietly, but Grant’s reply came in an instant and with a violence for which I was not prepared. He brought his clenched fists down hard on the strap arms of his camp chair and said ‘They can’t do it! They can’t compel me to do it!’”

On September 2 Sherman telegraphed “Atlanta is ours and fairly won”. Every eye in the North could look at a map and see an important city in the heart of Georgia belonged to the Union. Farragut won a naval victory. Sheridan won repeated victories in the Shenandoah. In November Lincoln won a landslide election victory: 212 out of 233 votes in the electoral college.

General Grant, the great soldier and patriot, did his duty. In the victorious grand review of the armies in Washington on May 23 and 24, 1865 all the rest of the faithful soldiers who did their duty paraded before the president and the people. McClellan was nowhere to be seen.


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 30, 2013 7:42 am 
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Grant was a poor president but a great man and general.

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Gen. Drex Ringbloom,
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 30, 2013 3:18 pm 
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A very important historical fact. Thanks for posting it.

Lt. General Elkin
XVIth Corp Commander
AotT

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I have come to you from the West, where we have always seen the backs of our enemies. . . . Let us look before us, and not behind

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