Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 3.

The opposing parties carried on the canvass with great vigor during the autumn. The real practical question at issue was expressed in the two words, Union or Disunion.¹ Although the Opposition did not distinctly avow a willingness to give up the Union, that was a fair inference from the utterance of the resolutions of the Convention. The earlier autumn State elections gave very little indication of what the Presidential vote would be. When the latter was given, Mr. Lincoln's re-election in the Electoral College by an unprecedented majority was secured. General McClellan received the vote of only the two late slave-labor States, Delaware and Kentucky, and the State of New Jersey. The offer of sympathy and protection to the soldiers in the field, by the Chicago Convention, had been answered by the votes of those soldiers in overwhelming numbers against the nominees of that Convention. They gave one hundred and twenty-one thousand votes for Mr. Lincoln, and thirty-five thousand and fifty for General McClellan, or three to one in favor of the former.² They did not regard the war they had so nobly waged, as a “failure,” and they required no “sympathy” or “protection” from any political party.

The result of the Presidential election gave great joy to all the true friends of the Union, at home and abroad. That election was waited for with the greatest anxiety by millions of men. A thousand hopes and fears were excited. Vast interests hung upon the verdict; and for awhile in our country every thing connected with trade and manufactures seemed to be stupefied by suspense. Gold, the delicate barometer of commercial thought, fluttered amazingly, as the hour of decision drew nigh.³ At length, the result was announced. Principle had triumphed over Expediency. The nation had decided by its calmly expressed voice, after years of distressing war, and with the burden upon its shoulders of a public debt amounting to two thousand million dollars, to fight on, and put down the Rebellion at any cost. A load was lifted from the great loyal heart of the Republic. Congratulations came over the sea like sweet perfumes; and out of the mouths of the dusky toilers on the plantations of the South, went up simple, fervid songs of praise to God for this seal of their deliverance, for the election had surely proclaimed “liberty throughout all the land to all the inhabitants thereof.” By it the hopes of the Conspirators were blasted. They well knew the power that slumbered behind that vote, and which would now be awakened in majestic energy. They well knew that all was lost, and that further resistance would be vain and wicked; and had Jefferson Davis and Robert E.