1864 U.S. presidential election

On November 8, 1864, in the middle of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln won reelection with 212 electoral votes to 21 for Democrat George B. McClellan, the general Lincoln had removed from command in 1862. Lincoln took about 55 percent of the popular vote. The eleven Confederate states did not take part. Lincoln ran on a National Union ticket meant to draw in pro-war Democrats, with Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, a Southern Unionist Democrat, as his running mate.¹²

Holding a national election during a civil war was itself a test of the republic, and in August Lincoln expected to lose. Casualties were enormous, Grant's army was stalled at Petersburg, and the Democratic platform called the war a failure and urged a negotiated end to the fighting. Then General William T. Sherman captured Atlanta on September 2, and Union victories in the Shenandoah Valley followed. Many states let soldiers vote in the field, and they backed Lincoln heavily. The result was read as a mandate to fight on until the Confederacy surrendered and to end slavery: the House passed the 13th Amendment in January 1865.²