Lincoln Lincoln wins reelection

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November 8, 1864 - OTD President Abraham Lincoln is reelected as President. But it was hardly a cakewalk. 1864 had been a rough year. Throughout many days in May, a thousand or more Union soldiers were admitted daily to Washington military hospitals as they were evacuated from the Virginia battlefields. In the coming months, there seemed to be a stalemate at Petersburg. The Republican National Committee met on August 22 and determined that Lincoln was a doomed candidate for a second term. The following day, Lincoln asked his cabinet members to sign the back of an envelope which became known as the Blind Memorandum. It stated " This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he can not possibly save it afterwards."
Fortunately for Mr. Lincoln, a streak of good fortune was just around the corner. On Sept. 3, 1864, Lincoln received word word from General Sherman of his capture of Atlanta. Sherman telegraphed, "Atlanta is ours, and fairly won." Followed by General Philip Sheridan defeating Confederate forces in the Shenandoah Valley in October 1864. These monumental victories restored optimism in Lincoln and at the ballot box. Lincoln went on to win 212 electoral votes compared to McClellan's 21. Given this political mandate, he was able to prosecute the war to completion and to begin to heal the rifts that had torn the nation apart in recent years.

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But on August 23 Fort Morgan in Mobile Bay surrendered. That news took a few days to be confirmed from New Orleans, but that released the navy from further operations at Mobile, for the time being.
By the 24th it was clear that the Confederates could not knock Warren's force off the Weldon Railroad, which was a major step in enforcing the siege at Petersburg.
So before Sherman rotated his forces to the right and made it to the Macon railroad, both of his flanks were protected. It was his turn to succeed or get whipped. He didn't catch Hood's army, so he failed in that assignment. But he did get the city of Atlanta, and restore his own railroad connection. I think he was supposed to defeat Hood's army while the Democrats were still in convention in Chicago. He missed by only a few days.
By September 19, 1864, it was Sheridan's turn. Grant visited Sheridan to instill some confidence in his subordinate, and found that Sheridan had an adequate plan of attack.
 
Although of lesser importance, Price's raid into Missouri, which had been intended to embarrass the Republican war effort and encourage the votes of "Peace Democrats," had been turned back from St. Louis and Jefferson City, decisively defeated at Westport and Mine Creek and pushed out of Missouri by the end of October.
 
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