August 23, 1864: The Day Abraham Lincoln Received the Civil Warfare

Abraham Lincoln started the morning of August 23, 1864 by despairing of re-election:

“This morning, as for some days previous, it appears exceedingly possible that this Administration is not going to be re-elected. Then will probably be my obligation to so co-operate with the President elect (George McClellan, working on the Peace Platform), as to save lots of the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he could have secured his election on such floor that he can’t probably put it aside afterwards.”

The Union was shedding as many as 15,000 males killed, crippled, and lifeless from illness per week. Males as much as the age of 45 had been being conscripted to fill the gaping holes. Many abandoned or surrendered on the first alternative. Officers who had turned Lee again at Gettysburg final yr had been killed or discharged with wounds. Incompetents and drunkards took their locations. Grant’s military was struggling staggering defeats at battles it could have received in earlier years.

Robert E. Lee’s Accomplice military was not solely holding quick in Virginia, however had lately raided the outskirts of Washington, taking Mr. Lincoln beneath fireplace. On August twenty third unhealthy information poured in from all fronts. Lincoln’s mates warned him he wouldn’t be re-elected. George McClellan, a pre-war protege of Jefferson Davis, could be the following president.

In the course of the course of the day, Mr. Lincoln made a sequence of selections that swung the steadiness again in his favor and enabled him to prevail in November’s election, thus seeing the struggle by way of to Union victory.

That is the story of that day.