Richard Carwardine

You're going to lose Indiana.

You're going to lose Pennsylvania.

These are key states.

And if you lose those three states, then inevitably you're going to lose the election overall.

The Confederates, looking at this, were quite sure that the weariness of the war in the North would lead to the election of a new president who would be willing to sue for peace.

In other words… There would be a dishonorable peace that would not see the end of slavery.

When you look at the makeup of the federal armies, you'll see that there are significant numbers of immigrant troops, of troops that have been recruited indeed from Europe, certainly Irish and German troops who understand that they have come to a country that offers something different.

And if you allow the Confederacy to succeed, you are ending what Lincoln called the last best hope of Earth.

But it's what they understand to be the last best hope of Earth, too.

I can quote you a letter from a black soldier serving in the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry.

He describes McClellan and the Democrats, and I quote, as ever the chief instruments in giving aid and assistance to the common enemy of the country, inaugurators of this bloody conflict on the rightful domains of freedom.

There's only one state in 1861, when the war starts, that has actually granted soldiers the right of voting in the field, of absentee voting.

When you've got a million men in arms in the Union Army by the high point of the war, this is a huge proportion of the voting public that you're disfranchising unless you make special arrangements for them.

As the war went on, pressure was building to give soldiers the right to vote.

Those pressures come overwhelmingly from the Republicans.

Lincoln and the Republicans become aware of just what kind of loyalty they have within the federal forces.

He wrote to his generals saying it would please me if you would allow the soldiers to return for the fall elections.

What had to happen was, of course, legal change, statutory change.

You allow the soldiers in the camps to submit a ballot into ballot boxes that were taken to the camps by state election commissioners.

And then on polling day, the soldiers deposit their tickets under the supervision of the commanding officer and the commissioners.