Ohio History Journal

ARNOLD SHANKMAN

 

 

Soldier Votes and Clement L.

Vallandigham in the 1863 Ohio

Gubernatorial Election

 

 

 

 

The Ohio gubernatorial election of 1863 was a hotly contested election with over-

tones extending to the national level. The nation was engaged in a bitter civil war

which showed no signs of terminating, and many citizens of the Buckeye State were

rapidly tiring of the conflict. A large number of Ohio Democrats were dissatisfied

with the Lincoln administration's handling of the war, and after the President issued

the Emancipation Proclamation they began to fear that the Federal Government

was more interested in freeing the slaves than in restoring the old Union. Further-

more, the peace Democrats, who were derisively nicknamed Copperheads,¹ believed

that continuation of the fighting would cost Ohio millions of dollars, would cause the

deaths of even more Ohio soldiers, and would promote the immigration of Negroes

who would compete with whites for jobs. The most radical of the peace men called

for an armistice and proposed that a convention of all the states devise a political

solution to the war. Others, agreeing that further fighting was useless, protested

against the suppression of anti-war newspapers and denial of the writ of habeas

corpus to men imprisoned for criticizing the government.²

The most eloquent spokesman of the peace Democracy was Clement Laird Val-

landigham of Dayton. A fiery orator and a skilled lawyer, he was the Third District's

 

 

1. Shortly after the start of the Civil War the Springfield (Ohio) Republic published a letter

from a man who noted that the rattlesnake was the emblem of the Palmetto State. He declared

that evil as this snake was, he thought it better than the copperhead snake which struck without

giving any warning. Eventually "Copperhead" became a term used to designate northerners

opposed to the continuation of the war. Peace Democrats, nevertheless, did not consider the

epithet to be degrading, and some made copperhead badges out of copper pennies which then

featured the likeness of the Goddess of Liberty. Cincinnati Gazette, n.d. quoted in Philadelphia

Evening Bulletin, February 28, 1863; Wood Gray, The Hidden Civil War: The Story of the

Copperheads (New York, 1942), 140-141.

2. Frank L. Klement, The Copperheads in the Middle West (Chicago, 1960), 17-19, 29,

115-118; George Porter, Ohio Politics During the Civil War Period (New York, 1911), 103,

107-108, 145-146; Eugene H. Roseboom, The Civil War Era, 1850-1873 (Carl Wittke, ed., The

History of the State of Ohio, IV, Columbus, 1944), 409-410.

 

Mr. Shankman is a National Endowment for the Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard

University.

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representative in Congress until March 1863. Even before the outbreak of hostilities, in November 1860, he had gained notoriety when he told a public assembly in New York City that   If any one or more of the States of this Union should at any time secede for reasons of the sufficiency and justice of which, .. . they alone may judge, much as I should deplore it, I never would as a Representative in the Congress of the United States vote one dollar of money whereby one drop of American blood should be shed in a civil war.3   One month later at a meeting of Ohio delegates to Congress, who were assembled to discuss the question of secession, he supposedly stated that "no armed force     3. Quoted in James L. Vallandigham, A Life of Clement L. Vallandigham (Baltimore, 1872), 141-142.

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90                                                            OHIO HISTORY

 

should march through his District to aid in putting down Southern rebellion."⁴

Because Vallandigham refused to moderate his views after the firing on Fort

Sumter, many Republicans and some war Democrats considered him to be a traitor.

In 1862, when the pro-war Ohio General Assembly reapportioned the state's con-

gressional districts, Vallandigham discovered that his district had been gerryman-

dered so that he could not win reelection to Congress. The legislature's plan worked,

for Vallandigham was defeated in the October elections. This setback only tempo-

rarily discouraged the Dayton lawyer. In January 1863 he announced his candidacy

for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. War Democrats shuddered at the

thought of Vallandigham as governor, and they rallied behind Hugh J. Jewett, the

Democracy's gubernatorial candidate in 1861. Vallandigham's nomination, how-

ever, was assurred after he was arrested on May 5 for disloyalty. After a military

trial having dubious jurisdiction, he was exiled to the Confederacy. Banishment to

Dixie made Vallandigham look like a martyr for truth and liberty to most peace

Democrats. When the party's nominating convention met in Columbus the next

month on June 11, Vallandigham's popularity was at an all time high. George Hoyt

of the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that Democratic sentiment in the state capital

was "all [for] Vallandigham, Vallandigham, nothing but Vallandigham." Not sur-

prisingly, the exiled Copperhead leader was nominated for governor on the first

ballot.⁵

One week later, on June 17, 1863, the Unionists held their party convention in

Columbus. Unwilling to nominate incumbent Governor David Tod for a second

term because of his unpopularity with the troops, the delegates turned instead to

William Henry Smith's choice, John Brough, as their standard bearer. Brough, a

war Democrat who supported President Lincoln, had been a state auditor and news-

paper editor but was at the time a railroad executive. He insisted that the most

important issue before the voters was the support of "the Government in the great

work of suppressing this most wicked rebellion...."6

In the spirited campaign that followed, both parties held scores of meetings in

every corner of the state and brought in nationally known speakers to address the

electorate. Until the middle of September it appeared as though the home vote

would be very close, and political observers predicted that soldier ballots would

decide the election. To win soldier votes the Democrats tried to persuade men in

blue that Vallandigham was their friend. This could be done by looking at the rec-

ord. In Congress Vallandigham had endorsed resolutions of condolence to the

orphans and widows of Union soldiers. He had voted in favor of all bills to help

disabled Yanks and was among the first who sought to amend the Volunteer Army

 

 

 

4. Dayton Journal, December 22, 1860. This paper wondered whether "chivalrous" Vallan-

digham meant "to make such an ass of himself as to say he will resist to the death the organiza-

tion of a volunteer force in his district." It added that the troops would not have to march over

his dead body, for they would travel instead by train. Therefore, he would have "to throw

himself upon the iron rails, and allow a dozen cars to pass over his mangled corse [sic]." See

also Congressional Globe, 37 Cong., 3 Sess., 1408-10.

5. Frank L. Klement, The Limits of Dissent: Clement L. Vallandigham and the Civil War

(Lexington, 1970), Chapter 11; Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 12, 1863.

6. During the war years the Ohio Republican party campaigned under the Unionist party

banner. William Henry Smith was editor of the Cincinnati Gazette. The Governors of Ohio

(Columbus, 1969), 85; Cleveland Morning Leader, June 30, 1863.

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bill so that Jewish rabbis could serve the troops on a basis of equality with Christian chaplains. Though Democrats probably would have to concede that Vallandigham had often tried to amend military bills in such a way as to embarrass Lincoln, they would be able to note that he had voted for some Army appropriation bills. As might be expected, they would try not to mention that Vallandigham had refused to endorse resolutions praising Major Robert Anderson for his stand against the Confederates at Fort Sumter or that he had refused to thank the officers and soldiers who fought at First Bull Run for their services to the country, nor would they note that their candidate had favored the Fugitive Slave Law and slavery on constitu- tional grounds.7   7. Frank L. Klement, "Clement Vallandigham," in Robert Wheeler, ed., For the Union: Ohio Leaders in the Civil War (Columbus, 1968), 12; Congressional Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., 280, 453; 37 Cong., 1 Sess., 427, 448; 37 Cong., 2 Sess., 157; Sefton Temkin, "Isaac Mayer Wise and the Civil War," American Jewish Archives, XV '1963), 140-141; Cincinnati Enquirer, Sep- tember 16, 1863; The Crisis (Columbus), September 16, 1863; Vallandigham, Life of Clement L. Vallandigham, 71. See also Congressional Globe, 37 Cong., 1 Sess., 97-98, quoted in Cin- cinnati Enquirer, September 16, 1863.

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92                                                              OHIO HISTORY

 

Soldiers in favor of the war, however, might not be influenced by such reports; they

had their own firsthand memories of Vallandigham. They remembered that when he

had visited the Second Ohio Regiment in the summer of 1861, he had been greeted

with cries, "There is that d - - d traitor in camp," and "He is no better than a Rebel."

According to one account, a group of Ohio volunteers approached the congressman

and told him that his presence in their camp was not desired and that he should

return to Washington. Vallandigham angrily retorted, "Do you think that I am to

be intimidated by a pack of blackguards. . . ? I shall come to this camp as often

as I please,--every day if I choose,--and I give you notice that I will have

you taken care of." As he departed the camp, he had been pelted with "onions and

old boots" and was obliged to pass a bullet-riddled effigy of himself bearing the

inscription "Vallandigham the Traitor." Moreover, Union soldiers would remember

that it was the testimony of two Ohio Yanks who had attended the fateful rally in

Mount Vernon on May 1, 1863, that had led to his arrest four days later.⁸

News that Vallandigham had been arrested for his anti-war speeches excited many

of the men in blue. Tully McCrea, an Ohio officer from Christiansburg, happily

wrote, "Served him right and I only wish that some more of the same sort could

be treated in the same way." One enlisted man claimed that he knew "of nothing

which . . .has cheered the hearts of these Western soldiers so much as the arrest and

sentence of Vallandigham. There are upwards of fifty Ohio regiments in this army,

and the severest trial which they have been obliged to undergo was the treason of

Vallandigham in their own State."⁹ Another declared that if "Vallandigham had

been turned over to the soldiers for punishment, he would have received just desserts.

He would have been on his way to glory by this time. God is just and will take him

in his [sic] own good time." Apparently these men cared little about the question-

able aspects of Vallandigham's trial, and agreed with an unidentified Ohio officer

who argued that treason flourishing in the Middle West "must be stopped and put

down now. . .and military tribunals are the only ones that can do it."10

Naturally these soldiers were disgusted when they learned that Vallandigham

was the Democratic gubernatorial nominee. One Illinois officer reflected the senti-

ments of most of his Ohio friends when he wrote:

 

Vallandigham nominated for Governor of Ohio! Shame! Shame! upon the professed

Union men who permitted such a convention in their midst . . .I can only adequately

express my feeling in big sounding "cuss" words.ll

 

 

8. Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 11, 1861; Charles Carleton Coffin, The Boys of '61; or, Four

Years of Fighting... (Boston, 1883), 9-11; Vallandigham, Life of Clement L. Vallandigham,

168-169. The two men were Captains John Means and Harrison Hill. Arnold Shankman, ed.,

"Vallandigham's Arrest and the 1863 Dayton Riot--Two Letters," Ohio History, LXXIX

(Spring 1970), 120-121.

9. Tully McCrea, Dear Belle, edited by Catherine Crary (Middletown, Connecticut, 1965),

198-199; Boston Journal, n.d., quoted in The Liberator (Boston), June 12, 1863.

10. B. S. DeForest, Random Sketches and Wandering Thoughts (Albany, 1866), 205-206;

Mildred Throne, ed., "An Iowa Doctor in Blue; The Letters of Seneca B. Thrall, 1862-1864,"

Iowa Journal of History, LVIII (April 1960), 149, 157; Leverett Bradley, A Soldier Boy's Let-

ters, edited by Susan Bradley (Boston, 1905), 25; unidentified Ohio army officer letter quoted

in Pittsburgh Gazette, May 30, 1863.

11. June 16, 1863, Diary entry in Paul Angle, ed., Three Years in the Army of the Cumber-

land: Letters and Diary of Major James Connolly (Bloomington, 1959), 88-89.

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Soldier Votes                                                                93

 

Equally indignant that "the Prince of traitors" had received the Democratic nomina-

tion was Lieutenant Tully McCrea, who announced that he would vote against Val-

landigham. He wished that he possessed a hundred more "votes to dispose of in the

same manner" and added, "If it had not been for him and others like him, I think

that the war would have ended long ago."¹²

Although Rutherford B. Hayes did not "like arbitrary or military arrests of civil-

ians in States where the law is regularly administered by the Courts," he considered

the Democrats' selection of Vallandigham a "pretty bold move":

 

Rather rash if it is considered that forty to sixty thousand soldiers will probably vote. I

estimate that about as many will vote for Vallandigham as there are deserters in the

course of a year's service--from one to five per cent. A foolish (or worse) business,

our Democratic friends are getting into.13

 

Hayes' letter was quite mild compared to one Lucius Wood, an Ohio volunteer

from the Western Reserve, sent to his father, a minister. Wood dismissed Vallandig-

ham as an "old arch instigator of treason" and predicted that "he shall fall as the

angels whose hearts were full of treachery fell from the holy gates of Paradise." To

him, Vallandigham's nomination meant that Ohioans had lost their sense of honor.

Therefore he urged his father "to leave no stone unturned, for the contest will be

a hot one":

 

In the name of my brethren in the field I appeal to you to leave the plough in the field,

leave your trade & business until the needful work is accomplished... we, the soldiers,

look to you in the central and northern portion of the State to cast the votes largely in

favor of the cause of humanity and justice.¹⁴

 

For the Unionists, news of John Brough's nomination delighted such officers as

James Garfield, who had strongly opposed another term for Governor Tod, and

he sent a letter of congratulations to William Dennison, the chairman of the Unionist

convention.¹⁵ Others were less satisfied with Brough, whom one soldier described

as a "fat English bloat." Another noted that "there are many that don't like the

Administration and are not suited with the nomination of Mr. Brough"; he acknowl-

edged that he was one "among that number." Nonetheless he would "eagerly cash

in" his vote for Brough and under no circumstances would he cast a ballot for the

Copperhead Vallandigham¹⁶

Several factors in addition to the national patriotism it symbolized commended

the Unionist party to the soldiers. First, Unionists had recognized three delegates

 

 

 

12. May 16, 1863, letter, McCrea, Dear Belle, 199.

13. Hayes to S. Birchard, June 14, 1863, in Charles R. Williams, ed., Diary and Letters of

Rutherford Hayes (Columbus, 1922), II, 413.

14. Lucius Wood to parents and sister, September 17, 1863. Lucius and Julius Wood Papers,

Western Reserve Historical Society.

15. Garfield to [John Q.] Smith, May 30, 1863, and Garfield to wife, June 21, 1863, in

Frederick D. Williams, ed., The Wild Life of the Army: Civil War Letters of James A. Garfield

(Lansing, 1964), 284; Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 25, 1863.

16. Thomas Galwey, The Valiant Hours, edited by Colonel Wilbur Nye (Harrisburg, 1961),

149-150; Lucius Wood to parents and sister, October 11, 1863, Wood Papers.

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94                                                            OHIO HISTORY

 

to their nominating convention who represented--or claimed to represent--the

Army of the Cumberland. At the Democratic convention there had been no dele-

gates from the Buckeye troops. Second, the Unionist candidate for lieutenant gov-

ernor was Colonel Charles Anderson, brother of the hero of Fort Sumter and a dis-

tinguished soldier who had escaped from a Texas jail at the start of the war. Finally,

Vallandigham's anti-war speeches in Congress hardly enhanced his popularity with

Yanks determined to defeat the Confederates on the battlefield. In fact, when the

Democracy of Champaign County nominated Lieutenant William Hamilton of the

Sixty-Sixth O.V.I. for a county office, he insisted that he would not run on the same

ticket as Vallandigham. To do so, he claimed, would be to descend "a little lower

in the scale of degradation than I had expected to reach." He promised to vote for

Brough at the coming election. Nor would George Pugh, Vallandigham's running

mate appeal to the soldiers since he had been the candidate's defense lawyer at the

court martial and had been making speeches violently opposing General Burnside's

Order No. 38 under which the arrest had been made.¹⁷

Despite these handicaps Democrats attempted to win soldier votes. Unionists

made this task difficult because they were constantly reminding the men in blue that

in congressional debates on military appropriations in 1862 Vallandigham had op-

posed a hundred dollar bounty and a pay increase for them. Moreover, they said,

Vallandigham believed that their courageous services to their country were in vain.

To counter these charges the Democrats explained that their candidate had opposed

the pay increase only because he wanted the soldiers to be paid in gold rather than

in depreciated greenbacks and that he had even introduced legislation in Congress

to give them a larger salary and bounty. Congress, however, had not seen fit to enact

his proposal into law. Vallandigham's supporters also denounced the Republicans

in Congress who were giving away public lands to "those who remained at home"

instead of reserving the 160 acres promised to each man who enlisted in 1861. Val-

landigham, they claimed, had voted against the land give away but the Republicans

were still charging him with "being the soldiers' enemy!"¹⁸ In a further effort to dem-

onstrate that the veterans would not fare well under the Republicans, it was noted

by the Democrats at the end of the campaign that when in Congress, Abraham

Lincoln had voted against giving soldiers fighting in the Mexican War tracts of land

of 160 acres.¹⁹

Not only did Democrat journals attempt to portray Vallandigham as the friend

of the soldier, but they also tried to prove that Brough, the president of the Indian-

apolis, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland Railway, was the enemy of the fighting man. They

noted that even George B. Wright, ex-Governor William Dennison's quartermaster

general, had accused Brough of refusing to transport sick and wounded soliders on

his railroad for half-fare. At Vallandigham rallies one could often see banners pro-

claiming, "No half-fare arrangements for soldiers on this Railroad.--By order of

 

 

 

 

17. Cleveland Herald, September 28, 1863; Roseboom, Civil War Era, 415; Porter, Ohio

Politics, 170-174.

18. The Crisis (Columbus), September 16, 1863; Cincinnati Enquirer, September 10, 16, 1863;

William Young, "Soldier Voting in Ohio During the Civil War" (unpublished M.A. thesis, The

Ohio State University, 1948), 40.

19. Marietta Republican, October 1, 1863.

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Soldier Votes                                                              95

 

John Brough, Receiver."²⁰

Democratic strategy concentrated on exploiting possible soldier discontent. Why,

their orators asked, must the fighting men suffer the privations of war and separation

from their loved ones just to fight a war for the abolitionists? Was emancipation

worth the fighting, killing, and dying? Lurid stories were told about underfed Union

forces standing guard at lavish Negro picnics. The following arguments summarized

the basic Democratic position:

 

You desire when you return to civil life to be secure in person and property. Then stand

by the Constitution and laws which guarantee that security. Vote the Democratic ticket,

and when you return to your homes, you will have the satisfaction of remembering that

in this contest you took the right side.21

 

In his "Democratic Address to Soldiers," General William S. Rosecrans pro-

claimed that political tracts could be distributed to the Army unless such literature

was "licentious, lying, or traitorous" and might endanger the morality or vigor of

the soldiers. Treasonable pamphlets, he declared, should not be allowed to circulate.

Apparently the "Address" was interpreted by some as being a justification for the

suppression of Democratic publications. One private in Rosecrans' army wrote

his brother:

 

There are about one-half the troops in this department who would vote the Democratic

ticket if they could only get a Democratic paper occasionally. But that pleasure is denied

them, for what reason I cannot say, unless it is for political interest. It seems strange to

me they won't let us read what we choose... they cried out that the soldiers did not want

to read them [Democratic newspapers]. Now, if this were so, they would have no cause

to stop their circulation. Let them go on and impose upon the soldiers while they can,

is evidently their determination.²²

 

In many regiments Democratic orators were as unwelcome as Vallandigham political

literature. According to the Cincinnati Commercial, a Brough organ, Democrats

had been prohibited from visiting Ohio troops south of Nashville. Those sent to

make sure that the Army of the Cumberland would have ample Democratic ballots

were stopped since the Army did not want Vallandigham "'missionaries' to reach

Ohio regiments anywhere."²³

Unionists, on the other hand, had no trouble deluging the Yanks with propa-

ganda. One provocative leaflet entitled "The Peace Democracy, Alias the Copper-

heads" denounced Vallandigham for his "excessive vanity and audacity, his fanatic

passions and morbid prejudices, [and] his destitution of patriotism." It also stated

that the Democratic candidate had "no intellectuality, moral worth. . .or social stand-

 

 

20. Cincinnati Enquirer, August 18, 26, 1863; Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 2, September 3,

1863; Richard Abbott, Ohio's Civil War Governors (Columbus, 1962), 39.

21. Young, "Soldier Voting," 27. The August 5, 1863 issue of The Crisis (Columbus) fea-

tured a letter from a soldier in a local hospital who could not afford to subscribe to that paper

because he had not been paid. He estimated that half of the soldier patients in the hospital

then were "Vallandigham men" and that in one month two-thirds would support Vallandigham

if they had access to The Crisis.

22. Young, "Soldier Voting," 24; Marietta Republican, August 27, 1863.

23. Young, "Soldier Voting," 46.

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96                                                            OHIO HISTORY

 

ing." Other propaganda claimed that Vallandigham had only proposed to raise the

pay of soldiers in gold rather than greenbacks because he knew that the precious

metal was unavailable in sufficient quantities to make such payments; moreover,

when he was in exile in Dixie, they declared, he had refused to request adequate

rations for Union prisoners-of-war. With great satisfaction Chaplain Randall Ross

of the Fifteenth Ohio Volunteers wrote to the Ohio State Journal (Columbus) on

October 3, 1863, that those soldiers who received Copperhead political propaganda

in his regiment tore it into strips, stamped the scraps of paper into the dust, and

yelled, "damn all such papers.... If we were home, we'd clear them out."²⁴

Ross may have overstated the soldiers' hostility to Democratic literature, and he

certainly neglected to mention that Unionist tracts were often ineffective as political

propaganda. Thomas Galwey, a volunteer from northern Ohio, noted on September

11, 1863, that just as he and his comrades were stretched out to rest, a "handsome

barouche drawn by two horses drove up." At first he thought that the men inside

were peddlers:

 

But we soon found that they had been sent out to teach us how to vote at the coming

election for Governor of Ohio. Their credentials were beyond dispute, and they had

passes from Secretary Stanton admitting them to all parts of the Army. They had a great

number of copies of a pamphlet, professing to give the "record" of Clement Vallan-

digham, the Democratic candidate for Governor of Ohio. The pamphlet also exhibited

the patriotic struggle of the Republican candidate, a Mr. Brough, who was a sort of rail-

road king at the time in Ohio. He was an enormously fat specimen of [a] selfish English

glutton. But to the enthusiastic Yankees of the Western Reserve, he was the beau ideal

of a patriotic Union man. We took their pamphlets and slept on them, for we stuffed

them in our knapsacks.²⁵

 

On the whole, however, soldier letters and diaries indicate that the Unionist

campaign was much more effective than the Democratic effort to win their votes.

One Buckeye Yank wrote his cousin:

 

Father writes to me and tells me not to vote for Vallandingham [sic].... do you think

the soldiers will vote for a man that they hate worse than they do the rebels?... for we

know that just such men as Vallandingham [sic] is keeping up this war and by keeping

up this war and by keeping it up is causing all this misery. It makes me feel bad for a

friend to tell me not to vote for a worse than rebel.²⁶

 

Another volunteer, who feared that Vallandigham might win a majority of the civil-

ian vote, rejoiced that most of his comrades were opposed to the Copperhead leader.

"Once in a while I see a soldier who says he will vote for him," he stated, "but they

are few in number." A third soldier wrote a friend: "There are quite a number here

anxious to give that exile Vallandigham a kick and Brough a vote." Many equated

supporting the Democratic candidate with expressing sympathy for the South, and

after Morgan's Raid into Ohio, one Yank, who was stationed at a "frontier" outpost

 

 

24. Ibid., 20, 42; Cleveland Morning Leader, October 9, 12, 1863.

25. Galwey, Valiant Hours, 141.

26. Eugene H. Roseboom, "Southern Ohio and the Union in 1863," Mississippi Valley His-

torical Review, XXXIX (1952), 34.

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Soldier Votes                                                          97

 

claimed that "Morgan certainly deserves something from the admirers of Vallandig-

ham for stumping his state for him during his absence."²⁷

A few soldier correspondents expressed hostility not only to Vallandigham but

also to anyone who expressed willingness to vote Democratic in the election. One,

for example, urged his parents to "torment" their Copperhead neighbors "all you can

until we get home." Another Ohio Yank, writing from Mississippi a week after

the surrender of Vicksburg, expressed his desire to kill all voters back home in Shelby

County "who were going to vote for Old Val." A Brough partisan wrote to his

cousin, a Vallandigham Democrat: "They say that all bad men will go to Hell, but

I think there will be a special part of it fitted out for just such men as you are."²⁸

Occasionally Unionist soldiers made known their opposition to Vallandigham

at Democratic rallies. At one political demonstration in Franklin County at which

Congressman Samuel "Sunset" Cox and a Colonel Groom spoke to 1000 civilians,

about sixty furloughed Yanks approached the speaker's stand armed with sticks,

clubs, and revolvers. In an effort to avoid a confrontation the soldiers were invited

to listen to the speeches and to join in the picnic that was planned for them after

the rally. Since the soldiers were unimpressed with the offer, the orators left the

speaker's platform as "it became evident that men, women, and children would be

massacred if the speeches proceeded." The rally was adjourned until later in the

afternoon. Meanwhile one Democrat went to nearby Camp Chase and another to

Columbus to summon help. Fifty men came from Columbus, but they "were very

loth [sic] to do their duty." While Cox was addressing the assemblage, one Buckeye

volunteer drew his gun as if to shoot the speaker. Before violence errupted three

"omnibusses [sic]" of Columbus Democrats arrived at the site of the gathering.

Some of these men were armed and they "drove the assailants back." The congress-

man "appealed to" the Yanks to honor and uphold the Constitution, which guar-

anteed peaceable assemblages. The New York Tribune denounced "some excitable

invalid soldiers" who destroyed a Vallandigham banner at another Democratic rally

in Franklin County and noted that the episode had "given immense satisfaction to

the Copperheads." That "silly act," the Tribune argued, had "given a show of rea-

son to the cry of persecution, and the Vallandighammers are making the most of it."²9

Intoxicated Democrats returning to their homes from a Vallandigham meeting

were once stopped by guards from Camp Chase, who made the civilians take an

oath of loyalty in which they promised not to vote for Vallandigham or Pugh. One

man refused, stating that he would rather die than to take such an oath; he changed

his mind, however, when one of the Yanks asked for a rope to hang him.³⁰

Who then did support Vallandigham? Seneca Thrall, an Iowa volunteer who had

been born in Ohio, spoke about the men he thought belonged to the Vallandigham

faction. According to him, Irish Catholics and especially the party leaders who

 

 

27. Lucius Wood to parents and sister, October 11, 1863, Wood Papers; John A. Kummer

to Colonel Lewis P. Buckley, quoted in Summit County Beacon (Akron), August 20, 1863;

Nannie Tilley, ed., Federals on the Frontier: The Diary of Benjamin Mclntyre (Austin, 1967),

203.

28. Julius Wood to parents and sister, October 11, 1863, Wood Papers; John Stipp to author,

March 27, 1969, concerning Stipp's grandfather; Ohio State Journal (Columbus), October 3,

1863.

29. Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 31, 1863; New York Tribune, August 6, 1863.

30. Young, "Soldier Voting," 38-39, 41.

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98                                                            OHIO HISTORY

 

would vote for the Dayton Copperhead were the men who expected "large crumbs

from the public treasury" if a slave power ruled the country. He therefore con-

sidered them to be traitors:

 

Vallandigham and others of that stripe are so much to be execrated, as was even Aaron

Burr, and deserve the traitor's death, by hanging by the neck until they are dead--dead

--dead.... Such is the feeling of 29 out of 30 men in the army.... Vallandigham in

Ohio and Tuttle in Iowa, have no more prospect of being elected than I have....31

 

Rare indeed was the soldier who publicly acknowledged that he would support Val-

landigham. To make such an admission was to invite one's colleagues to torment

him. One Yank from Youngstown informed his father that it was useless to con-

tinue sending him Democratic campaign progaganda. He complained:

 

I stand nearly alone here, the defender of the patriot exile, Clement L. Vallandigham.

There is a perfect furor of excitement against him, and others, who pretended to be good

Democrats at Potomac Creek have yielded to the damnable pressure.³²

 

Democratic newspapers, however, refused to admit that the situation was as dis-

mal as the above soldiers indicated. With great avidity they printed and reprinted

every pro-Vallandigham letter from Ohio Yanks they could find. The Columbus

Enquirer of August 23, 1863, reprinted a letter from the Circleville Democrat which

stated that the number of soldiers favoring Vallandigham was increasing. This, the

writer said was "owing to the zeal of ultra Abolitionists...." The men in blue

resented hearing their sergeants call "all who do not go in for the nigger. . .a Copper-

head, a Butternut, and all the other beautiful names by which Democrats are desig-

nated ...." Another letter from the Circleville Democrat which was published on

August 15, 1863, and reprinted in the Enquirer was from a volunteer who was not

certain that he would vote. If he did decide to cast a ballot, he stated, it would be

for Vallandigham, for "the very best soldiers we have got will vote for Vallandig-

ham." Though he considered himself to be "a Democrat and a good Union man,"

he would "never give up for the Republicans to rule the Democrats." He concluded

by asking that two hundred Vallandigham voting tickets be sent him, claiming, "I am

acquainted with that many Democratic voters."³³

According to a soldier letter printed in the Cincinnati Enquirer, the officers and

men of one regiment were afraid to make their political views known if they favored

Vallandigham since enlisted men had been denied a furlough granted to them pre-

viously, and the field officers were warned that they would be charged with disloyalty

if they supported Vallandigham. Peace newspapers became so skeptical about the

possibility of soldiers being able to vote Democratic in large numbers that they be-

came disenchanted with the soldier voting law. A number of Copperhead organs

announced that if Vallandigham won a majority of the civilian votes, they would

consider him to be the lawful governor of Ohio and would not count the soldier

votes.³⁴

 

 

31. Throne, "Letters of Seneca Thrall," 169.

32. Quoted in Roseboom, "Southern Ohio and the Union," 34.

33. Cincinnati Enquirer, August 18, 23, September 23, 1863.

34. Ibid., October 9, 1863; Porter, Ohio Politics, 182.

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Soldier Votes                                                         99

 

Noting that the soldier voting laws of Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and New Hamp-

shire had been ruled unconstitutional, peace journals wondered whether the Ohio law

was valid. "A soldier vote law is no more constitutional here," declared the Cin-

cinnati Enquirer, "than it is in the other States...." Such sentiments were not likely

to influence soldiers to vote for Vallandigham, but Democrats were still afraid that

soldier ballots might cost Vallandigham the election. Late in the campaign when it

was becoming apparent that soldier votes would most likely be Brough votes, Val-

landigham encouraged his friends to concentrate on winning votes on the home front.

He would be satisfied, he claimed, if he received a substantial majority of the non-

military votes, for then he would have "a fair prospect of carrying the election

straight out all over."³⁵

Some Unionists feared that Ohio Yanks would not be able to vote on election day

because of military engagements or other difficulties, but they should not have wor-

ried. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton needed no reminder as to the importance of the

election. He arranged for Ohioans working as clerks in the War Department "to go

home on leave with free railroad passes." There is also good reason to believe that

he permitted many Ohio soldiers to have fifteen to twenty day furloughs so that they

might return home and urge their friends to vote for Brough. Lucius Wood reported

that the Yanks in his camp were "all going home to vote;. . . [they number] about

seven hundred and a more highly pleased set of fellows you have never seen." Re-

ports of hordes of soldiers returning to Ohio from distant camps to "help beat Val-

landigham" caused the Wilmington Journal (North Carolina) to comment that is was

no longer "very confident of Vallandigham's election."³⁶

When the votes were counted, it was evident that most of the Ohio Yanks who

participated in the October elections voted for Brough. The New York Tribune, a

Unionist paper, had predicted that because of his opposition to the war Vallandigham

would not win one-tenth of the soldier vote; actually he barely received half that

number. (See Table on Election Returns on p. 102.) His supporters were chagrined

that he had done so poorly, and they attributed his failure to obtain more votes to

coercion at the polls and the inability of Ohio troops to obtain Democratic news-

papers.37

There was much truth to the charge of electoral irregularities. Captain John

Means denied charges that he had interfered with the rights of his men to vote as they

pleased, but he admitted that no Democrat voting tickets [ballots] had been sent to

his camp. Had any arrived, he stated, "I would have thrown them into the fire; that

I never would be caught peddling tickets for a traitor, that I expected every man to

vote for whom he pleased, but that I considered Vallandigham as great a traitor as

Jeff Davis, but not as honest, and the soldier who voted for him was but little better."

He sent a list of those Yanks who still dared to vote against Brough to the Summit

County Beacon (Akron) so that all residents of the Akron area would know who

 

 

35. Vallandigham to Manton Marble, October 4, 1863, Marble Papers, Library of Congress;

Cincinnati Enquirer, February 6, July 19, 1863; Josiah Benton, Voting in the Field (Boston,

1915), 73-75.

36. Harold Hyman and Benjamin Thomas, Stanton: The Life and Times of Lincoln's Sec-

retary of War (New York, 1962), 292, 294; Thomas Thoburn, My Experiences During the

Civil War, edited by Lyle Thoburn (Cleveland, 1963), 40, 42; Lucius Wood to parents and

sister, October 11, 1863, Wood Papers; Wilmington Journal, (North Carolina), October 6, 1863.

37. New York Tribune, August 29, 1863; Cincinnati Enquirer, October 14, 17, 1863.

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100                                                             OHIO HISTORY

 

they were. In several camps newspaper reporters peered over the shoulders of

soldiers as they voted, noting whether they could properly sign their names and for

whom they cast their ballots. In one instance reported to the Crisis, Democratic

voters were sent away from their barracks on election day so they would be unable

to cast ballots. Since only twenty-four of the Yanks left behind were willing to vote

Unionist, authorities let the Negro cook vote for Brough.³⁸

A number of soldiers found it to be dangerous to make known their support of the

Democratic gubernatorial candidate. The Highland News (Hillsboro) reported on

November 12, 1863, that it had received an interesting soldier letter which it printed.

The author claimed that in his company at Camp Dennison there were two Vallandig-

ham supporters. One was whipped for "hallowing" Vallandigham before the election;

afterwards he deserted. The other soldier became "ashamed" and voted for Brough.

Two Ohio Yanks who voted for Vallandigham in camps in Kentucky allegedly were

arrested and placed under guard. Another, Captain B. F. Sells, of the 122nd O.V.I.,

Company D was jailed for campaigning for the Democrats. He had supposedly urged

the troops to vote for Vallandigham and had circulated copies of the Columbus Crisis,

the Coshocton Democrat, the Guernsey Jeffersonian, and Vallandigham's Record.³⁹

Thomas Galwey of the Eighth Ohio Infantry noted:

 

Not more than one-third of my regiment who voted were qualified, being under age,

residents of other states, or unnaturalized foreigners. But so biased had we simple men

become, by the misrepresentations of the so-called loyal and patriotic "Union" man who

had been sent out at public expense to canvass the soldiers to vote for the bloated English-

man [Brough], that we excused any irregularity in the mode of conducting the election

as being a military necessity.

 

Galwey was elected a judge for the election although he was not yet "twenty-one

years of age as the law requires." The soldiers claimed that "a man who is old enough

to fight for his country and to risk his life for it is better qualified to vote than are

the stay-at-home patriots." Before casting ballots, the men unanimously resolved

to vote "each and every one of us" for Brough. Thomas Taylor wrote from Poca-

hontas, Tennessee, that many soldiers in Company F of the Forty-Seventh Ohio

Infantry were minors and unable to vote. He cryptically added that he had knowingly

counted Brough ballots from scores of soldiers who were ineligible to vote. He

warned his wife, "You need not say anything concerning this to anyone."⁴⁰

Lieutenant John C. Gray reported one instance of soldiers reacting negatively to

the pro-Brough pressure:

 

The Ohio troops in this division are now voting, many of them for Vallandigham; sev-

eral, they say, vote for him because their captains do not and they wish to spite their

 

 

38. Means to editor, dated December 4, 1863, in Summit County Beacon (Akron), Decem-

ber 17, 1863. John Means was one of the men who took notes on Vallandigham's Mount Vernon

speech which led to the ex-congressman's arrest. The Crisis (Columbus), December 23, 1863;

Young, "Soldier Voting," 47.

39. Roseboom, "Southern Ohio and the Union," 34 fn. 11; Cincinnati Enquirer, October 17,

1863; Montrose Democrat (Pennsylvania), December 10, 1863; Young, "Soldier Voting," 47;

specifications against Sells, quoted in Pittsburgh Post, November 18, 1863.

40. Galwey, Valiant Hours, 149-150; Taylor to wife, October 13, 1863, Taylor Papers (micro-

film at Emory University).

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Soldier Votes                                                            101

 

captains. So much for the advantages, military and political, of introducing voting into

the army.⁴1

 

Despite the great efforts made by the Unionists and others to enable soldiers to

vote, less than thirty percent of the Ohio troops actually cast ballots. Of the Yanks

who exercised the franchise, 41,467 voted for Brough and only 2,298 for Vallandig-

ham. Thus, the military vote was an overwhelming triumph for Brough and a vote of

confidence for the Lincoln administration. The Utica Herald (New York) observed:

"As for the [Ohio] soldier's vote, it won't do to mention that. Bullets are disagree-

able, but soldiers' ballots are worse than their bullets." This paper alleged that more

than half of the men in the army were Democrats, and it concluded, "It is sad to

be slain in the house of one's friends."⁴²

News of Brough's victory aroused enthusiastic response from the troops. Accord-

ing to one story told at the time, a soldier in Tennessee reported that when General

Rosecrans received telegraphic reports of the election, he sent them around to all of

the camps. "You should have heard the cheering," he wrote to a friend, for "the

Ohio bands played on [n]early all night, and there was rejoicing generally." Another

story claimed that the noise of the celebrating by the Ohioans at Fort Wood, Tennes-

see was so loud that it attracted the attention of rebel pickets stationed at a nearby

Confederate camp. One asked what the commotion was all about and when told

that Vallandigham had been defeated, he advised a comrade to send word of the

result of the election to General Braxton Bragg.⁴³

Ohio officers shared in the jubilation of their men. From Chattanooga, General

James Garfield noted that from the "hour, but not till that hour [that we knew Brough

had won], the army felt safe from the enemy behind it." Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes

gave a similar report and equated the Unionist victory with "a triumph of arms in an

important battle." To him it showed "persistent determination, willingness to pay

taxes, to wait, to be patient."44

In the Army of the Cumberland festivities were beclouded by the bloody setback

experienced on September 19-20, 1863. To an Ohio citizen leaving for home on

October 14, 1863, General Rosecrans gave this message: "Tell them that this army

would have given a stronger vote for Brough, had not Vallandigham's friends over

yonder killed two or three thousand Ohio voters the other day at Chickamauga."⁴⁵

Even though the Democratic party leaders in 1864 tried to give the impression of

having moderated their stand on the war with the selection of General George B.

 

 

 

41. Worthington Ford, ed., The War Letters of John Gray and John Ropes (Boston, 1927),

229.

42. Porter, Ohio Politics, 183; Joseph Smith, History of the Republican Party in Ohio (Chi-

cago, 1898), I, 162; see table showing the vote for governor by counties, p. 102; quoted in

Albany Atlas and Argus (New York), October 16, 1863.

43. Charlie M. D. to Mollie Post, October 19, 1863, Philip S. Post Papers, Knox College;

Frazar Kirkland, The Pictorial Book of Anecdotes and Incidents of the War of the Rebellion

... (Toledo, 1873), 70.

44. Burke A. Hinsdale, ed., The Works of James Garfield (Boston, 1882), I, 17; Williams,

Diary and Letters of Hayes, II, 440; see also J. W. Chamberlain, "Scenes in Libby Prison,"

Sketches of War History by the Ohio Commandery of the Loyal Legion (Cincinnati, 1888),

II, 356.

45. Quoted in Hinsdale, Works of Garfield, I, 480.

• 14
 

102                                                       OHIO HISTORY   McClellan as presidential nominee, the selection of the Ohio peace Democrat George A. Pendleton for vice president as well as the peace plank in the platform, which was the work of Vallandigham, resulted in a "confusion of tongues." The ensuing defeat, though decisive, however, failed to still Vallandigham and the other peace Democrats.46

46. Roseboom, Civil War Era, 432-434.

• 15
 

Soldier Votes                                                        103

• 16
 

104                                                 OHIO HISTORY

LEGEND: 1. Underline indicates Democratic majority vote in county. 2. Asterisk indicates county where home vote was Democratic but soldier vote made a Union majority. DOCUMENTATION: Figures corrected from Joseph Smith, History of the Republican Party in Ohio (Chicago, 1898), I, 161-162. OBSERVATIONS: 1. Seventeen counties voted Democratic in the total count. Fifteen other counties gave a majority to Vallandigham in the home vote, but the large pro-Brough soldier vote put these counties in the Union column. 2. If the soldier votes cast for Brough and Vallandigham were reversed, the total number of counties carried by the Democrats then would have increased from 17 to 41, and the Union party would have carried only 46 counties instead of 71. Noble County's vote would have resulted in a tie. Nevertheless, Brough would still have won the election with a total vote of 249,592 to 225,841 for Vallandigham, a difference of only 23,751 votes. This narrowed margin indicates that emphasis on the soldier vote was important but not decisive.

• 17