I would rather be defeated with the soldier vote behind me than to be...

[David Lockmiller]

(03-14-2020 04:03 PM)AussieMick Wrote:  The quickest way to end the war would have been for Lincoln to lose the election. What soldier wouldn't have been tempted by thoughts of home and peace?

P.S. Missing Laurie too.

The following is from "A Reporter for Lincoln" at pages 70-72:

Lincoln’s deepest concern in August of 1864 was not civilian and official opposition, however strong and bitter it might be. He was more concerned with the army’s view of things.

“Henry,” he said in one of their long night talks in this dreary period, “I would rather be defeated with the soldier vote behind me than to be elected without it.”

“You will have it, Mr. Lincoln. You will have it,” was his repeated insistence. “They’ll vote as they shoot,” and his close association with the soldiers only intensified this faith.

What he [Henry Wing] had become convinced of was that the veterans were set on finishing their job, and not at all concerned with politics. Their pride as soldiers was stirred. There was not one of them but realized that Lee was in their grip. They never would let him loose now. They might love McClellan – most of them did; but he had not taught them to fight; it was Grant had done that. Grant had led them on, but never back. And who had given them Grant? Why, Lincoln. And who was backing Grant, even at the risk of his defeat in the approaching election? Lincoln. They would vote as they shot.

Mr. Lincoln, listening and carefully balancing what the boy was reporting from the army with what he was hearing from other quarters, met his confident assurances by saying grimly one night: “All right, Henry; but if they turn their backs to the fire and get burned they will have to sit on the blister.”

They did not turn their backs to the fire that November. At the primitive polls set up for them in the camps – a tent; a table under a tree; the end of an ambulance – three quarters of the soldiers in the Army of the Potomac dropped votes for Abraham Lincoln into ballot boxes improvised from cartridge or cracker cases, and in one case at least from an old pork barrel.

P.S. I miss Laurie also.