"That the aim and object of the Democratic party is to preserve the Federal union, and the rights of the states unimpaired."
It is obvious enough to us now that the election of McClellan upon that platform would have meant the surrender by the United States of every contention on which the war had been prosecuted. It would have been, in effect, the triumph of the Confederacy. In any convention that might have been called to reconstruct the Union under such conditions, the South as the winning party in the war, would of course have dictated its own terms.
For a time there seemed to be a very strong prospect that precisely this would happen. The weariness of the people with the war, the discontent aroused by excessive taxation, and by the continued slaughter of the youth of the land, the despair of bankers and business men over the never ceasing depreciation of the currency,—all these and other influences tended very strongly to invite a favorable response from the people to this appeal of a political party.
It was the opinion of many shrewd observers of that time, and is the opinion to-day of many students of history who have closely considered the facts, that if the election had occurred at the beginning of September, 1864, there would have been a decisive majority of voters in favor of this policy of surrender. But the election did not occur until November, and in the meanwhile the military situation was vastly changed. Sherman had taken Atlanta before November came, the Confederate army under Hood had been put in the way of being crushed in Tennessee, Sheridan had made himself master of the Valley of Virginia, and Grant was steadily extending his lines southward and westward at Petersburg, in a way which even the unmilitary observer must recognize at last as a process foredooming Lee to destruction.
Under the influence of these changed conditions in the field, Mr. Lincoln was reëlected with a popular majority of about 400,000 and an electoral majority of 212 to 21. There was contention at the time that the votes of the soldiers in the field were juggled with and falsified. It is highly improbable that anything of that kind was done or attempted in any considerable measure. It is certain that the election, as it resulted, represented the determination of the North to prosecute the war to its end.
[CHAPTER LV]
Sherman at Atlanta
Sherman occupied Atlanta on the second day of September, 1864, the Confederates retiring without a further struggle to a strong position east of the city.
Sherman almost immediately decided to depopulate the town and make of it a rigidly military stronghold. To that end he ordered all the inhabitants, old and young, sick and well, men, women and children alike, to leave the place. He gave to each the choice of fleeing northward or southward as each might elect, but all must go. All these helpless non-combatants must abandon their homes, surrender whatever they possessed of bread-winning employments and go forth among strangers helpless and forlorn objects of charity.