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Candidate 1 is Abraham Lincoln as many people saw him in the summer of 1864. More radical members of his own party thought that he was not prosecuting the war vigorously enough. The summer of 1864 was one of the darkest seasons of Lincoln's presidency. During a three-month span that summer, Union casualties totaled 110,000, double the number during any comparable period of the war. Lincoln was heavily criticized by newspaper editors, members of Congress, and others for his insistence that the Confederacy must end slavery as a condition of peace. Some of his other policies were equally unpopular. In August, Lincoln gloomily predicted to a friend that he was "going to be beaten, and unless some great change takes place, badly beaten."
Lincoln's opponent in the 1864 presidential race was Peace Democrat George McClellan. The Democratic Party platform, adopted at the party's convention at the end of August, demanded an immediate end to the war. Southerners rejoiced. The Charleston Mercury exulted that a Democratic victory in November-just two months away at that point-"must lead to peace and our independence. . . if. . . we hold our own and prevent military success by our foes."

Southern hopes for McClellan's election were quickly dashed. On September 2, just a few days after the Democratic convention, Union troops captured Atlanta. The political picture changed overnight. Headlines blazoned the news across the North. Dissidents within the Republican party abandoned plans to nominate an alternate Republican candidate and threw their political clout into the effort to defeat McClellan. When the election was held only two month later, Lincoln won with 212 electoral votes, beating McClellan by more than 500,000 popular votes. His support was especially strong among Union soldiers.