16

The Gubernatorial Campaign of 1863

THE OHIO GUBERNATORIAL campaign of 1863 was clothed in irony and contrasts. A popular reaction had put Vallandigham at the head of the Democratic ticket despite the opposition of most party leaders, whereas the nomination of John Brough was carefully contrived by Republican wire-pullers, who bowed to expediency and ignored the grass-roots sentiment in their party. It pitted a candidate in exile, unable to contribute much to the contest, against an able stump-speaker and a hearty campaigner. It matched a well-read if intransigent theorist against a very practical man capable of changing his mind or trimming his sails. In a sense it was a contest between the old and the new, for Vallandigham still envisioned the re-creation of a federal union while Brough accepted the changes which the war had brought to his country. The former looked backwards and dreamt while the latter looked forward and readjusted. Vallandigham’s supporters saw him as a symbol of states’ rights, civil liberties, and peace; Brough’s devotees saw him as a symbol of patriotism, fidelity, and the new nation. Both sides were dead-sure they were right, their opponents wrong and self-deluded. It was a campaign in which there was no middle ground, and emotional loyalties colored the thinking of both Democrats and Republicans. And never in American history was a Democratic gubernatorial candidate more scorned, more misrepresented and misquoted, more vilified than Vallandigham.

Although Republican vilification preceded C.L.V.’s nomination at the Democratic State Convention of June 11, the campaign of abuse reached a new level in the days that followed. “It is a burning disgrace upon the country to allow such a man to run for constable,” wrote one Republican businessman when he heard of Vallandigham’s nomination, “let alone for governor of the great State of Ohio.”¹ “Shame! Shame! upon the professed Union men,” wrote another Ohio patriot, “who permitted such a convention in their midst, desecrating by its unhallowed breath the fair escutcheon of a noble state (and at a time too when thousands of her sons are writing the story of her glory in their blood). I can only express my feelings in big resounding ‘cuss’ words . . . .”² Inability to spell correctly did not prevent one soldier from denouncing Vallandigham as “a Treble tounged, Hidra headed, Cloven footed, Heaven forsaken, Hell begotten, Pucilanimous curse.”³

Despite Republican indignation and malice, Vallandigham’s candidacy won considerable support in many circles during the remaining days of June. The heavy losses suffered by General Joseph Hooker at Chancellorsville the previous month helped to convince many that the Confederacy could not be defeated and that the continued sacrifice of life and treasure was most foolish. The countryside wanted peace and the exile-candidate took on the appearance of a prophet. Then, too, the reaction to the Emancipation Proclamation had not been fully erased nor the army yet fully abolitionized. “I think it advisable for us folks in the service to whip the rebels as soon as possible,” wrote a soldier of Democratic antecedents, “and then come home and take the miserable, cowardly abolitionists in hand and learn them a little sense.” The dissatisfied soldier added, “It’s a poor reward for the men in the field to think that they are expending their time, treasures, blood, and everything to purchase a country for a pack of fanatics and madmen that don’t appreciate it.”⁴

Moreover, General Burnside’s arbitrary practices helped to transform the politician Vallandigham into a symbol. “The great Democratic party love the Union,” wrote a young Dayton lawyer who worshipped at Vallandigham’s feet, “but they are determined that the rebellion might succeed a thousand times before they will surrender their constitutional privileges of writing, speaking, [and] voting . . . subject only to the restraints which duly enacted laws impose.”⁵ In other words, if all civil rights were lost, the Union was not worth saving.

Democrats who glorified civil rights depicted Vallandigham’s nomination as a rebuke to the Lincoln administration. Those who viewed the exile as their champion interpreted the summary treatment accorded him as “persecution for opinion’s sake.”⁶ One of his apostles composed a ten-stanza poem entitled “Vallandigham: the Bastiled Hero,” and the rather crude verses made the rounds of the Democratic newspapers. The first stanza read:

They bore him to a gloomy cell,

And barred him from the light,

Because he dared to tell

The people what was right.

The concluding stanza suggested that the election of Vallandigham to the governorship might break the chains of persecution:

Lift up thy head, O martyred brave,

Thy chains shall broken be,

Thy people come their friend to save—

Look up, thou shall be free.⁷

Had the election taken place in late June of 1863, it is likely that Vallandigham would have won the governor’s chair. But the election was not scheduled until October 13, and the Republicans, aided by Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, succeeded in checking the Democratic tide. Time became a Republican ally, and Lincoln’s supporters seized upon the opportunity to discredit and destroy Vallandigham.

After the exile reached Canada and issued his “Address to the Democracy of Ohio” of July 15, Republicans lit into the document and its author with a vengeance. Isaac Jackson Allen of the Ohio State Journal characterized the partisan document as “a pronunciamento,” quite like the pronouncements emanating from the mouths of Mexican factionalists. For good measure he defined it as “a weak, bombastic, and maudlin” product of “a most violent and malignant passion.”⁸ Edwin Cowles of the Cleveland Leader depicted the address as rank treason and its author as a black-hearted traitor. He thought Vallandigham’s friends in Dixie’s capital city would be delighted with the document. Confederates, Cowles contended, might agree with those sections of the address which referred to Lincoln’s “unconstitutional and despotic acts.” Cowles also criticized Vallandigham for misunderstanding the mind of the South, and argued that the rebels scorned compromise and desired independence. Evidently Cowles was right. Vallandigham had learned nothing from his twenty-four-day sojourn in Dixie. There was little sentiment for peace and reunion in the Confederacy—Lincoln’s emancipation policy had effectively quashed the Union movement. “We are sure we have conversed with many more Southerners than he [Vallandigham] ever did,” wrote one Richmond editor, “and we never heard the first one yet speak of reunion.”⁹

Vallandigham’s arrival in Canada coincided with the New York anti-draft riots of July 13-16. Imaginative Republicans saw a link between the two. Some Republican editors even made the wild charge that Vallandigham had connived with Confederate agents to bring about the riots. Lacking any evidence to give substance to the charges, one Republican editor devised a forged letter which gave a semblance of respectability to the rumor that the exile had helped to plan the riots. It was a dishonest and dastardly tactic, but highly effective. Bigots are likely to practice the axiom that the end justifies the means.

This lie was matched by others as preposterous and as fantastic. Some Republicans claimed that Lee’s invasion of the North, ending on the battlefield of Gettysburg, had been suggested and encouraged by Vallandigham when he was an exile in Dixie. They circulated the same kind of reports about General John H. Morgan’s raid into Indiana and Ohio, July 8-26, even claiming that the exile had helped to plan the daring expedition. More than that, Republican propagandists contended that Morgan’s excursion was intended to serve as a signal for an uprising by Vallandigham’s supporters and ultimately lead to the creation of a “Northwest Confederacy.” Republican-concocted reports that General Morgan instructed those whom he captured and paroled to vote for Vallandigham and against Brough also received considerable circulation in the partisan press. The lie linking Vallandigham to the Morgan raid had still another variation which held that the Knights of the Golden Circle, at Vallandigham’s insistence, had invited the rebel raider to come into Indiana and Ohio to give help to the promoters of a “Northwest Confederacy.”¹⁰ Those who invented and circulated the tales linking Vallandigham to the Morgan raid contributed to a myth which grew popular in the postwar years.¹¹

Certainly Morgan’s horse-stealing expedition into Indiana and Ohio hurt Vallandigham’s election campaign. It brought the war closer home to the residents of Ohio and made some lethargic citizens realize that the rebels were their enemies, not their friends. The same was true of Lee’s invasion of Pennsylvania. It too awakened patriotism and bestirred some to whom the war was half dream and half reality. In later years, Vallandigham always felt that these two military events affected his election adversely, especially since they gave Republicans an opportunity to intensify their propaganda campaign against him. He was right in more ways than one. Morgan’s defeat and the Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg pushed back the Copperhead movement, nullified the crusade for peace and compromise, and brought some respectability to the Lincoln administration.

Vallandigham, of course, expressed indignation at the stories linking him to Lee’s invasion and Morgan’s raid. He termed the tales “ridiculous” and claimed they were “desperate” measures of desperate men. He pointed out how ironic it was that General Morgan was captured within six miles of New Lisbon, his birthplace, and reminded his friends of a statement he had made six months earlier in Newark, New Jersey. “If they invade us,” he had said, “we will write for them precisely the same history they have written for us for two years, & give them ‘Bull Runs’ upon our own soil.”¹²

In the months that followed, Republicans in Ohio marshaled all their forces to defeat Vallandigham and the Democrats in the October 13 election. To them, Vallandigham symbolized treason, and they rallied to save the honor of Ohio. Since campaign money was plentiful, Republicans flooded the state with dozens of tracts and propaganda pamphlets. They distributed 100,000 copies of Brough’s “patriotic” speech of July 4, 1863, and reprinted and circulated thousands of copies of Judge Leavitt’s decision to deny Vallandigham a writ of habeas corpus, which gave a semblance of legality to Burnside’s treatment of the Dayton Democrat. They reprinted Lincoln’s able and effective reply to the Committee of Nineteen. A speech which John Sherman had given in Delaware, Ohio, and in which he had manhandled Vallandigham, proved an effective campaign document. They also prepared three pamphlets especially for the ’63 campaign. One of the three, entitled The Echo from the Army, contained anti-Vallandigham statements extracted from generals’ speeches and soldiers’ letters. Some of the quotations were genuine, others fabricated. A sixteen-page pamphlet entitled The Peace Democracy, alias the Copperheads developed the theme that Vallandigham was a traitor and that his congressional record proved he was a friend of the rebels. It also contained the interesting allegation that the exile’s gubernatorial nomination had actually been “arranged” by the rebels. The third pamphlet, far and away the most effective and most popular, bore the title A Short Catechism for the People. It too helped to convince the unwary that Vallandigham deserved the treatment he had received at Burnside’s hands. The so-called catechism opened with the question, “Who is the noted disloyal candidate of the peace party in Ohio?” The answer: “C. L. Vallandigham.”¹³

The Republicans disseminated their campaign propaganda through postmasters and the Union Leagues. Since every postmaster was a Republican—often the Republican editor in the village or the city, too—he had a vested interest in Vallandigham’s defeat. Postmasters furnished the Republican State Central Committee with the names of residents or carefully passed out the bundles of pamphlets put in their charge. The Union Leagues had proved themselves an effective propaganda agency in the April 1863 election, and Republicans used the reading rooms maintained by these allied organizations to distribute partisan pamphlets and convert unwary citizens to their cause. Serving as the strong right arm of the Republican party, the Leagues made a major contribution to the political campaign in the fall of 1863.¹⁴

Republicans also used the churches to influence public opinion against Vallandigham. Since some church leaders regarded the exile as a traitor and believed it their duty to support the government, they convinced synods, conferences, and sessions to adopt anti-Vallandigham resolutions or statements. The Ohio Congregational Conference, for example, took a strong stand on the issues relevant to the gubernatorial campaign of 1863. The conference adopted resolutions defending the Lincoln administration, championing “the righteousness of the war,” and condemning “the factious spirit” of the Democratic critics of war policy. It bemoaned the disunity and “insubordination” which undermined the war effort and played into the hands of the Confederates.¹⁵ Backed by the resolutions of their conference, Congregationalist clergymen used their pulpits to preach patriotism, call Copperheads aides of Satan, and compare Vallandigham to Cain or Judas.

The Methodist Episcopal Church took just as strong a stand in behalf of patriotism, the Lincoln administration, and Brough’s candidacy. The Western Christian Advocate, the influential Methodist weekly, gave open support to Brough and ignored the Christian dictum to love one’s enemies. Charles Kingsley, the paper’s strong-minded editor, had denounced Vallandigham in harsh language long before he became an exile and the Democratic nominee for governor. During the election contest of 1863 he distilled the issues into a simple formula: truth and patriotism vs. heresy and treason. The Reverend Granville Moody, one of Ohio’s best known Methodist revivalists, preached the same doctrine in all corners of the state. Moody accused Vallandigham of “poisoning” the minds of the people, “almost equaling the audacity of Satan himself.” Although occasional Democrats viewed Moody’s sermons as political tirades, most Ohio Methodists accepted the point of view promoted by him and the Western Christian Advocate.¹⁶

Most Ohio Mennonites also lined up on the side of Brough and patriotism. The Religious Telescope, published in the exile’s home town as the organ of the Church of the United Brethren, took an anti-Vallandigham position quite like that of the Western Christian Advocate. The Telescope’s editor endorsed the Lincoln administration, gave strong support to emancipation, pleaded for full support of the war, and encouraged its subscribers to vote for Brough.

Although the Presbyterian Church in Ohio drafted no statement concerning the war for its communicants, most of its clergymen used the pulpit to endorse the war, condemn Copperheadism, and criticize Vallandigham and other apostles of peace. Several Presbyterian ministers who had befriended Vallandigham earlier and who had joined the peace crusade found themselves shunned by their colleagues and could find no pulpits from which to preach dissenting doctrine. The pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Dayton openly supported the Union Leagues, the Republican party, and Brough’s candidacy. Even the church of which Vallandigham had once been a pew-paying member turned its back on him and declared that the issue was really patriotism vs. treason.

Although almost all Irish-Catholics and German-Catholics belonged to the Democratic party and sympathized with Vallandigham, several prominent Catholic churchmen tried to dissuade their flocks from voting for him and taking part in the Copperhead movement. Archbishop John B. Purcell of Cincinnati, for instance, encouraged his Catholic subjects to join the Union Leagues, vote the Union ticket, and reject “the false prophets” who taught “insubordination” and preached the gospel of Copperheadism. The Catholic Telegraph, edited by Archbishop Purcell’s brother, the Reverend Edward Purcell, waged a constant war against slavery, the peace crusade, and Vallandigham. Although most Irish-Americans and German-Catholics opposed emancipation and feared its consequences, the Purcell brothers viewed slavery as “a monstrous crime.” “It corrupts heart and soul,” wrote the resolute editor of the Catholic Telegraph, “and we have no respect for the Christianity of any person who, now that the evil is dying out, would wish to see it restored.”¹⁷ The efforts of the Purcells in behalf of Brough received the enthusiastic support of Purcell’s coadjutor, Bishop Sylvester H. Rosecrans. Perhaps the fact that the bishop’s brother, Major General William S. Rosecrans, sought honor on the nation’s battlefields, accentuated the enthusiasm for the Union cause which characterized the archbishop’s office.¹⁸

Even Rabbi Isaac M. Wise of Cincinnati found outside pressures irresistible. This nationally known Jewish leader started out by advocating Vallandigham’s election and endorsing his crusade for peace and compromise. Before long, however, the trustees of his temple and prominent businessmen of his congregation convinced him that none of the Ten Commandments justified his pro-Vallandigham views. Silenced by self-styled patriots, Rabbi Wise retired to the sidelines to sit out the campaign as a spectator. His defection, Archbishop Purcell’s preachments, and the pro-Brough stand taken by prominent Ohio Protestants convinced some of Vallandigham’s followers that “organized religion” was directing all its resources to keep the exile from obtaining the governor’s chair.

Although the clergy, the pamphleteers, and the Union Leagues gained some converts for Brough’s candidacy, the most effective work in the political vineyards was done by the Republican orators and editors. “Honest Johnny” Brough carried more than his share of the load. He was a superb stump-speaker possessing a booming voice and a wry humor mixed with spontaneous sincerity. His effectiveness as a speaker brought smiles to the faces of the Republican strategists who had insisted that Brough could serve their cause better than David Tod. He always made a patriotic appeal, relighting fires that had flickered and died in many breasts. Ohio had a glorious history, Brough said again and again, and proud Ohioans would never let “a convicted traitor” occupy the State House. It was the duty of men to support the war and be loyal to their country. “For I tell you,” Brough once shouted, “there is a mighty mass of men in this State whose nerves are strung like steel, [and] who would never permit this dishonor to be consummated in their native State.”¹⁹

Brough had capable support from Colonel Charles Anderson, candidate for lieutenant-governor on the Union party ticket. The fact that Major Robert Anderson of Fort Sumter fame was a brother made Charles a bit of a celebrity. Furthermore, Charles Anderson was a most effective speaker and a hard-working campaigner. Since Anderson, like Vallandigham, claimed Dayton as his home and since he had won honors on several battlefields, it was easy for the efficacious colonel to talk about patriotism and propriety.

All prominent Ohio politicos took to the hustings. David Tod, still distressed because Republican wire-pullers had denied him honors he thought due him, kept his promise to work hard to elect Brough and the rest of the ticket. General Schenck, excused from field service to campaign against Vallandigham, added his voice to the chorus. He could crow that he had retired Vallandigham from Congress, and he too waved the banner inscribed “Patriotism” at every rally. “Bluff Ben” Wade, still incensed because Vallandigham had once called him a liar on the floor of the House of Representatives, left his desk in the Senate to define treason, indict Vallandigham, and advocate Brough’s election. Even Salmon P. Chase, secretary of the treasury, left his busy office in the nation’s capital to convince Ohioans that Brough was an honorable man and Vallandigham a renegade. No prominent Ohioan, however, made a greater impression upon his audiences than United States Senator John Sherman. Several of Sherman’s speeches evolved into pamphlets which were widely distributed and often quoted. Dayton Republicans invited him to give a major address in the exile’s home town. Sherman removed his gloves and treated Vallandigham roughly. Every vote for the candidate-in-exile, he said, would be an insult to the soldiers—those who had died for the holy cause and those still willing to offer the supreme sacrifice. Vallandigham was “a convicted traitor”; he deserved no martyr’s halo. He was guilty of the same offense as Confederate General John H. Morgan, although in a different sort of way. Vallandigham’s record in Congress, Sherman added, proved him to be sympathetic to the South. He was really a hypocrite, prattling about civil rights while trying to destroy the very government designed to protect and preserve them.²⁰

Other notables joined the parade. General Thomas Meagher, who had gained fame as the commander of the “Irish Brigade” of the Army of the Potomac, hurried to Ohio to woo the Irish-Americans so reluctant to desert Vallandigham.²¹ General Franz Sigel visited the state to instruct German-Americans to vote for Brough rather than Vallandigham. Governors Richard Yates of Illinois and Oliver P. Morton of Indiana each accepted several speaking engagements in Ohio to urge citizens to vindicate their state’s honor. Even Zachariah Chandler of Michigan came down to recite a patriotic piece. And there were others, criss-crossing the state and singing the same tune. All in all, it was a rare array of oratorical talent which invaded Ohio for a single purpose—to keep Vallandigham out of the governor’s mansion.²²

Ohio’s Republican editors also made a major contribution to the effort to discredit Vallandigham. They published the addresses of Republican speakers, extracts from anti-Vallandigham pamphlets, and the patriotic resolutions adopted at local rallies. They wrote lengthy editorials advocating Vallandigham’s defeat, circulated rumors and lies which damaged his candidacy, coined new epithets for the exile, and tried to create a schism in Democratic ranks.

Editor Isaac Jackson Allen of the Ohio State Journal took the lead in trying to convince influential Democrats that they had “an unwanted candidate” on their hands. He chided them for supporting a traitor who could not possibly win the election. He urged them to repudiate their candidate-in-exile, follow their consciences, and offer a more worthy nominee. Allen publicly supposed that the exile would refuse to withdraw no matter what pleas were made, whether in the name of party unity or party welfare. The “unwanted candidate,” Allen wrote, would rather be “a live jackass than a dead lion.”²³

Failing to convince Vallandigham to withdraw from the contest or to effect a noticeable schism in the Democratic party, Republican editors then made a concerted effort to develop the notion that the words “Vallandigham” and “Treason” were synonymous. They organized rallies at which the exile was hung in effigy, and gave state-wide circulation to the chant:

Hurrah for Brough and Abraham

And a rope to hang Vallandigham.

They encouraged readers to recite anti-Vallandigham verses, sing anti-Vallandigham songs, and believe anti-Vallandigham propaganda. Cloaking themselves in patriotism, some editors even justified efforts to disrupt Democratic rallies, intimidate Vallandigham’s supporters, and wreck Democratic newspaper offices.

Republican zealots examined Vallandigham’s personal life and his public career to find items they might use for political effect. They found surprisingly little. Oh yes, he had held a brigadiership in the Ohio militia before the war. He could best be characterized, the editor of the Dayton Journal wrote, as “Invincible in peace, invisible in war.”²⁴

Republican editors also made good use of the fact that Vallandigham’s mother had received “support money” of $100 annually from a Presbyterian Church fund for “needy widows . . . of deceased ministers” during the 1850s and 1860s after the death of her husband, a fact disclosed by the Republican treasurer of the fund. The report that Vallandigham’s mother was “a needy widow” made the rounds of the Republican press. The exile must be a “wretched son” if he failed to support a mother who was in need. “Ingratitude,” one Republican editor wrote, “is one of the meanest acts that a person can commit, and the name of one guilty of such a thing, should be branded with infamy. He is unfit to occupy any position of importance, much less that of Governor of this great State.”²⁵ Republicans located a Biblical verse they believed relevant to the issue: “He who provideth not for his own household is worse than an infidel.” Editor William F. Foster of the Wellesville Union concocted a verse which received state-wide circulation:

Vallandigham, he will not vote

A dollar for our army;

But if they make him Governor

He will support his mammy.²⁶

Since they found so little of a personal nature to use against the Democratic candidate, Republican editors resorted to the old game of misrepresenting and fabricating. It was common practice to quote out of context and misrepresent what Vallandigham had earlier said. They again claimed that his four-section scheme of early 1861 was a proposition to divide the nation into four separate confederacies instead of a clumsy device to save the Union. They revived Vallandigham’s oft-denied contention that Northern troops going southward to fight the rebels would have to pass over his dead body. They misrepresented Vallandigham’s hopes for peace and compromise as a “peace-at-any-price” proposition.

Vallandigham and his supporters resented the misrepresentation as a disgraceful and unethical practice. “The disunion [Republican] newspapers of Ohio,” complained one of the exile’s friends, “are filling their columns with garbled and mutilated extracts from the speeches of Vallandigham in order to deceive the people.”²⁷

In addition to repeating the charges that Vallandigham was indelibly linked to the New York anti-draft riots, Morgan’s raid, and Lee’s invasion of Pennsylvania, Republicans concocted and circulated other lies. One concerned the Knights of the Golden Circle, a mythical subversive society supposedly widespread in the upper Midwest. This serpentine society, Republican editors reported, worked day and night to bring about Vallandigham’s election. The dark-lantern organization was said to be involved in a number of sordid and “deep and desperate schemes.” The rumor-mongering editor of the Cincinnati Commercial claimed that one of the schemes involved “importing” 50,000 Kentuckians to vote for Vallandigham. Joseph Medill of the Chicago Tribune, who had once advised an aspiring politician to “Go in boldly, strike straight from the shoulder—hit below the belt as well as above, and kick like thunder,”²⁸ embroidered upon the Golden Circle tale. He wrote that it was “reliably reported” that 10,000 Illinois members of the Knights of the Golden Circle intended to invade Ohio the week before the election in order to vote for their idol and fellow-member, Clement L. Vallandigham.²⁹

Other reports also linked the Knights of the Golden Circle to Morgan’s and Lee’s movements. A scoundrel stepped forward to testify that he was in Richmond when Vallandigham was there to call on Jefferson Davis and that the exile was closeted with the president of the Confederacy, begging for invasions of the North.³⁰ Although Vallandigham actually had bypassed Richmond, this story became popular with Republican newspaper editors, and it too became a postwar legend.³¹

Some of the falsehoods took the shape of forgeries. Perhaps the most widely circulated of the forgeries was the so-called Vallandigham-Inshall letter, supposedly written by Vallandigham while he was an exile in Dixie. Allegedly it came into the hands of Northern editors after its recipient, a colonel of the Eighth Alabama Regiment, was captured by Union troops. In the letter Vallandigham called himself “a friend of the South,” and expressed sympathy with her in her struggle for “freedom.” He detested “the hated and tyrannical government of the North” and “prayed and hoped” that the Confederacy would achieve her goals—his “heart bled for Dixie.” The letter made the rounds of the countryside despite Democratic insistence that it was an out-and-out forgery. Some Republican newspapers, such as the Cincinnati Gazette, published the Vallandigham-Inshall letter on election eve, so that denials could not be made before the voters marched off to the polls.³²

Vallandigham’s supporters did not stand by idly while Republicans told their lies, circulated rumors, and generated nationalism. They attacked Brough with a vengeance, giving tit for tat. They called him a “renegade,” “fool,” and “nigger-lover.” Samuel S. Cox, who rather reluctantly supported the Democratic ticket, characterized Brough as “a flailing Falstaff” and a “fat Knight of the corps d’Afrique.”³³ Democrats ridiculed his roly-poly appearance, putting their scorn in words:

If flesh is grass as people say,

Then Johnny Brough’s a load of hay.³⁴

Vallandigham’s supporters liked to depict Brough as an Othello in the hands of cunning Iago—he would discover too late that he had been deceived. They repeatedly referred to the Republican party or the Union party as the “Abolition party” or to Republicans as “Black Republicans.” When Republicans called Vallandigham “a branded traitor,” Democrats replied that Brough was “a brandied patriot.” When Republicans shouted “Copperheads!” Democrats retorted “Blowsnakes!” When Republicans chanted “Hurrah for Brough and Abraham, And a rope to hang Vallandigham,” Democrats responded:

May every Buckeye—smooth or rough,

Denounce the renegade Jack Brough;

May every woman, child and man,

Pray Heaven to bless Vallandigham.³⁵

Besides practicing name-calling, Democrats developed half a dozen arguments in Vallandigham’s behalf. They insisted that the country wanted peace and that the exile symbolized the peace movement. Samuel Medary and William M. Corry, an out-and-out antiwar man, appealed to the war-weary and the faint at heart. Democrats also linked Vallandigham’s name with civil rights; many still considered him a martyr for freedom of speech and civil liberties. George Pugh and George L. Converse contended that civil rights could be salvaged by rebuking “the military despotism in Washington” and giving Vallandigham “a flood of votes.” “Every vote cast for Vallandigham is a vote for Liberty,” wrote one Democratic editor, “and every vote cast for Brough is a vote for Despotism.”³⁶ The latent spirit of sectionalism so widespread in the upper Midwest was a rallying point. Democrats resented New England’s efforts to impose her moral, cultural, and political views upon their section. They decried New England’s ascendancy in business and politics, her wish to hold the West in bondage. They ranted against the tariffs, against high railroad rates, and against the excise tax on whiskey. They pointed out that both Brough and Tod were railroad presidents and “tools” of “the monopolists, speculators, and army contractors.”³⁷

Democratic spokesmen seemed to regard emancipation as one of the chief issues; at least they made a strong appeal to Negrophobia. Anti-Negro banners and slogans predominated at most Democratic rallies, the legend “Protect us from Negro Equality” being the most popular. God’s laws regarding race and climate, some Democrats contended, could not be “repealed” by the “nigger-worshipping Republican party.” Democrats still blamed abolitionism for the war and for stifling the peace movement. “If Abolition were dead and buried beyond resurrection,” wrote one Democratic dreamer, “in less than thirty days hereafter, we could have a Union which all the fanatics in Christendom could not disrupt.”³⁸ “The ‘irrepressible conflict’ between white and black laborers,” wrote another of Vallandigham’s defenders, “will be realized in all its vigor upon Ohio soil if the policy of Lincoln and Brough is carried.”³⁹ Democrats circulated a pamphlet entitled The Results of Emancipation⁴⁰ among Irish- and German-Americans who feared the influx of cheap, competitive labor. One Democratic racist wrote:

Let every vote count in favor of the white man, and against the Abolition hordes, who would place negro children in your schools, negro jurors in your jury boxes, and negro votes in your ballot boxes! . . . Down with the flag of Abolition; mount the flag of the WHITE MAN upon the citadel.⁴¹

In the absence of Vallandigham, George Pugh served as the color-bearer of the Democratic party. He followed a punishing speaking schedule, crossing the state time and again. At times his voice gave out or he suffered from fatigue. His theme did not vary. Vallandigham was a martyr for free speech, and the rights of citizens were disappearing. Emancipation was both a crime and a disgrace. Republicans had brought on the war. The nation could be restored only by peace and compromise. A Democratic victory at the polls on October 13 would recall Vallandigham from Canada—the Lincoln administration would not dare defy the wishes of the people of Ohio.

Pugh received invaluable help from Samuel Cox, Allen G. Thurman, George Pendleton, and George Converse, all Democratic congressmen. Even old Samuel Medary, whose pen wrote such vituperative editorials for the Crisis, took to the stump to polish his rusty voice and to fulminate against John Brough and Abraham Lincoln. The venerable William Allen came out of political retirement to speak out for “Vallandigham and Liberty.” George W. Morgan, who had resigned his general’s commission because of a dispute with Major General William T. Sherman, returned to Ohio to throw himself into the election with a vengeance. Unexpected help came from the brother of the Union (Republican) party candidate for lieutenant-governor. Resentment replaced brotherly love as William A. Anderson praised Vallandigham’s courage, endorsed his views, and labeled his brother “a political apostate.” Even the unpredictable William M. Corry campaigned for Vallandigham. Since Corry had called for “peace with separation,” publicly proclaimed secession “a sound principle,” and advocated recognition of the Confederacy, his support embarrassed most Democrats and probably did more harm than good.⁴²

Some prominent Democrats, however, sat out the campaign and refused to raise a finger to help Vallandigham’s candidacy. Hugh Jewett, who had lost the nomination to the exile, sulked on the sidelines. So did Rufus P. Ranney and Henry B. Payne, each previously a Democratic gubernatorial candidate. Some lesser lights also stayed at home, accepting the Republican definition of treason and rejecting Vallandigham’s contention that peace and reunion were reasonable goals.

From his Canadian base, the Democratic candidate did his best to instill the hope of victory into a dispirited party. He wrote letters to be read at political rallies or published in the party press. He tried to assure Ohio Democrats that abolition was a curse to the country and that liberty was endangered. Continued war might mean the loss of all civil rights! He wrote personal letters to his friends, urging them to carry on the good fight or complaining about the lack of party unity.⁴³

Occasionally Ohio Democrats visited Vallandigham in Canada to discuss party strategy or report on election trends. Samuel Medary of the Crisis wrote that he found “the gallant exile” in excellent health and in “remarkably good spirits. . . . Buoyed up by his love of country—pledged to constitutional liberty and the personal freedom of his fellow citizens,” Medary wrote, “he enjoys a confidence in the future which no tyrant can feel, no sycophant appreciate.”⁴⁴ In mid-September George Pugh took a hurried trip to Windsor to visit the candidate and get a few days’ leave from speech-making. He too found Vallandigham optimistic and hopeful. The crowds at Democratic rallies were large and enthusiastic, leading Pugh and Vallandigham to substitute dreams for reality.

One of the more memorable rallies took place in the exile’s home town on September 7. Thousands gathered for the affair, knowing that they were the cynosure of Ohio eyes. Every township in Montgomery County had a good-sized delegation, and even the threat of rain failed to dampen the enthusiasm of those who repeated again and again:

We want our rights;

We must be free—

Vallandigham and Liberty.

Some delegations had journeyed to Dayton singing songs from the Vallandigham Songbook, published especially for the campaign of 1863. Each delegation found its prescribed area, and joined the four-mile-long procession, with Mayor Gillespie as chief marshal. Several brass bands provided music for the marchers and spirited horses pulled the many wagons decorated as floats. The first wagon, drawn by half a dozen horses, carried a huge banner with the words “Vallandigham, Pugh, and Peace.” The second float carried thirty-four young ladies dressed in white —one representing each of the states. On each side of the wagon was a large sign which said: “Fathers and Brothers, protect us from Despotism and Negro Equality.” The third wagon, filled with young ladies wearing white dresses, blue sashes, and fancy red rosettes, bore a banner with the slogan “The Union as it was, the Constitution as it is.” One wagon carried a wooden cage, with some handcuffed men inside; its banner spelled out LINCOLN’S BASTILE” in large capital letters.

There were hundreds of other wagons and signs. Some of the banners read: “Peace,” “Equal and Exact Justice for All Men,” “Vallandigham, the People’s Friend and Tyrant’s Foe,” “Vote for Val and Liberty,” “Vallandigham, Martyr to Freedom of Speech,” “Vallandigham, Our Friend and Hero,” and “Down with Tyranny.” In all, two hundred wagons and buggies, and 2,314 people took part in the procession.

After reaching the fairgrounds, the crowd gathered around the half dozen speakers’ stands to hear Lincoln and Brough denounced and Vallandigham and Pugh praised. Vallandigham had written a long letter, intended to be read at the rally, but it failed to arrive on time. Sponsors of the rally, nevertheless, pronounced the affair highly successful and claimed that 35,000 people had attended—an estimate which Republicans termed “a gross exaggeration.”⁴⁵

Another of the more interesting Democratic rallies took place in New Lisbon, Vallandigham’s boyhood town. Columbiana County Democrats collected “an immense throng” to pay their respects to the exile and to participate in the rally. There were old and bewhiskered men who had cheered for Thomas Jefferson six decades earlier, and there were young yeomen, dressed in butternut-dyed jeans, full of hope and insolence. There were wrinkled-faced women, some in butternut shawls, and there were dimpled young girls, exhilarated by the excitement of the hour.

The procession, held under a clear sky, was most impressive. Two dozen bands participated, mixing noise and music. There were hundreds of wagons and carriages, many decorated with bunting, hickory branches, and banners bearing slogans or mottoes. The procession began under a huge banner, eighteen feet long, strung across the street and bearing the slogan “Resistance to Tyrants is Obedience to God.” The long procession, set in motion at ten o’clock in the morning, wound its way down the streets of New Lisbon and past the old Vallandigham homestead. A plain white muslin sheet, bearing the words “VALLANDIGHAM’S BIRTHPLACE,” hung over the gateway, and nearby on a grassy knoll stood the gray and aged mother of the exile. As bands, footmen, horsemen, carriages, and wagons passed by, many stopped to give three cheers for Vallandigham. “What must have been her feelings,” wrote a sympathetic newspaperman, “when that great procession of freemen, as they passed, set forth hearty huzzahs in honor of her exiled and persecuted son!” Three hours later, the procession reached the outlying picnic grove, and after lunch the participants gathered around the speakers’ stand to applaud an array of orators who praised their candidate and damned his political enemies.⁴⁶

As political rallies nurtured enthusiasm and dogmatism, the excitement became so intense in many communities that partisans severed social and business relations. Many arguments developed over the wearing of Vallandigham badges, Butternut emblems, and Union League pins. Soldiers home on leave took special pleasure in insulting Vallandighamers and defying Democrats. The exile’s home town witnessed several tragic incidents. Once some young Democrats tested the temper of soldiers lounging in the public square by hurrahing for Vallandigham. Several soldiers chased the impolitic Copperheads and assaulted them. One of the Vallandighamers pulled a gun and fatally wounded a soldier. Another incident occurred two weeks later, proving that political tempers prevented Daytonians from learning their lesson. Frederick Brown, a moulder by trade and a Democrat by choice, entered the Montgomery House, a popular eating place. As he came in the door he gave a “Hurrah” for Vallandigham. An army lieutenant home on leave challenged the entrant, demanding, “What right have you to hurrah for a damned traitor?” Brown answered, “Vallandigham is no more a traitor than you are.” The irate lieutenant rushed at Brown, seized him by the throat, pushed him toward the door, and felled him with a right smash. Brown, raising himself on his left elbow, pulled a pistol out of his right pocket and fired twice at his attacker. The lieutenant quickly drew his own pistol and shot his fellow-townsman dead.⁴⁷

Even the feminine sex argued over badges, emblems, and Vallandigham. Young women pulled each other’s hair, tore dresses, or scratched faces. Once a rather plump young lady, wearing a Butternut emblem, was sitting on a log listening to a speaker praise Vallandigham and condemn Brough and Lincoln. A tall and gaunt young lady wearing a Brough badge quietly approached the stout girl and snatched her Butternut emblem. The angry young lady eyed her tormentor, lunged at her, and swung a closed fist in an awkward fashion, striking the Brough girl under the chin and knocking her fiat on her back. Eyes snapping fire, freckles aflame, and arms akimbo, like a bantam rooster spreading his wings, she crowed, “I can whip any damn Brough girl on the grounds.”⁴⁸

In mid-September of 1863 the tide began to turn against the exile. Effective campaigning by Brough and his advocates helped. So did war prosperity, which visited Ohio in that year. The Union victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg cast long shadows, giving the lie to Democratic contentions that the war was a failure. The Union Leagues and the churches functioned effectively, convincing the wavering to vote for Brough and the dear old flag. Fear that Vallandigham’s election might bring war to Ohio—a threat which Brough constantly reiterated—led the faint at heart to rationalize that it was best to vote for the Union party candidates. Republicans recognized that they would win, but they continued to work hard to make the victory margin “as overwhelming as possible.”⁴⁹

Vallandigham, meanwhile, busied himself as best he could. He continued to write letters to be read at Democratic rallies. He hoped his friends could convince Brough that he should withdraw from the canvass so the Ohio Democracy could present a “one and indivisible front” against abolition and despotism. “He [Brough] knows I was nominated first and by the regular Democratic convention as a ‘life-long’ Democrat,” wrote the exile, “and he has no right to ‘bolt.’”⁵⁰ C.L.V. continued to spend much time receiving visitors, even finding it necessary to lock his doors occasionally in order to get some time to rest or relax.⁵¹

Once the exile seriously considered returning to Ohio, even selecting a rally in Lima as the site of his “re-appearance.” But the more conservative Democrats in Ohio feared that rioting and bloodshed might follow his re-arrest and affect the election adversely. Vallandigham bowed to the wishes of his friends. Still, however, he deluded himself as to his chances to win the election. “My friends everywhere are extremely confidant [sic] of carrying the State, & by a considerable majority,” he wrote just nine days before election. “By ‘carrying the State,’ we mean the home vote; although there is a fair prospect of carrying the election straight over all. . . . Our strength is in the country, and we will beat them—my friends all say—badly”.⁵² Vallandigham was evidently deceived by his friends, too many of whom were sycophants and blind partisans.

The eyes of the nation turned toward Ohio on election day. Residents of Canada and of the Confederacy also expressed an interest in the returns. Every Ohio Republican working at a desk in the nation’s capital took time out to return home to vote for Brough, holding it a duty to help defeat Vallandigham.⁵³ President Lincoln repeatedly expressed his concern about the Ohio election. Republicans everywhere regarded Brough’s election as “an absolute necessity.”

Election day, October 13, dawned bright and clear. A radiant sun clothed the countryside in beauty as rural residents walked or drove to the polling places. In the cities, too, voters turned out in record numbers, some who had not voted for years trudging to the polls. In Cincinnati, the venerable Archbishop Richard Purcell voted for the first time in twenty-five years. He let everybody know that he was voting “an open Union ticket.” In the nation’s capital President Lincoln paced to and fro, despite assurances that all was well. “The President says he feels nervous,” wrote a member of Lincoln’s cabinet.⁵⁴ On the high seas, aboard the blockade-runner the Lady Davis, a Confederate sailor wrote a brief entry: “October 13, Tuesday—Sea quite smooth. Ohio election comes off today; hope C. L. Vallandigham will be elected.”⁵⁵

But October 13 proved to be an unlucky day for Vallandigham, who went down to defeat by 100,000 votes. Brough received 61,752 more “home” votes than Vallandigham, and the “soldier vote” (collected in the field) added nearly 40,000 more to that majority. All in all, it was an astounding victory for Brough, a devastating defeat for Vallandigham.⁵⁶

The Republicans celebrated the election returns, crowing lustily. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton sent a congratulatory telegram to the victorious candidate: “Your election is a glorious victory, worthy of the rejoicing which will greet it.”⁵⁷ Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase sent a more original note: “Count every ballot a bullet fairly aimed at the heart of the rebellion.”⁵⁸

Lincoln, more “anxious” about the Brough-Vallandigham election than he had been about his own in 1860,⁵⁹ stayed up very late to read the progress reports from Ohio. It was after midnight when Governor David Tod telegraphed to Lincoln: “God be praised. Our majority on the home vote cannot be less than 30,000. Advise Sec’y Stanton.”⁶⁰ Lincoln, jubilant, supposedly wired back: “Glory to God in the highest; Ohio has saved the Union.”⁶¹

Ohio Republican editors gloried in Vallandigham’s decided defeat. “The dark and evil cloud that hung over us,” wrote the ecstatic editor of the Ohio State Journal, “has been dispersed and the sunshine of coming peace, honor, and prosperity is rising upon our horizon. . . .”⁶² The editor of the Cleveland Leader, more vindictive, wrote, “The allies of Jeff Davis are overthrown, dispersed, and driven sneaking to their hiding places,” their poisonous fangs plucked out.⁶³ “To have been a Tory in the Revolution,” wrote the clairvoyant editor of the Cincinnati Gazette, “will seem a light thing in the years that come, besides having been a Vallandigham leader in the Great Rebellion.”⁶⁴ Perhaps the editor who put words from Milton’s “Paradise Lost” into Vallandigham’s mouth showed the least charity of all:

Me miserable!

Which way shall I fly? Which way I fly is Hell.

My self is Hell. And in the lower deeps, a lower deep,

Still opening wide, threatens to devour me,

To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heaven.⁶⁵

Dayton Republicans sponsored “a gigantic Union jollification.” The transparencies and banners bore legends intended to rub salt into Democratic wounds. One transparency depicted a coffin with a sign saying “Copperhead remains—please forward to Winsor” [sic]. A second bore a picture of a dejected Vallandigham, surrounded by a cordon of battered copperhead snakes. Another banner read, “Ohio Stands by her Soldiers!” There were others, some clever, some crude. After the cheers and speeches ended, the celebrants lit an enormous bonfire.⁶⁶ While the bonfire licked at the skies and victorious Republicans yelled themselves hoarse, all was very, very quiet at 323 First Street. A dim and flickering light burned in Mrs. Vallandigham’s window. Perhaps it reflected the gloom in her heart.

Every other large city in Ohio sponsored its own victory celebration. Sometimes the celebrants destroyed Democratic property or went out of their way to insult Vallandighamers. “The Abolish,” wrote a dejected Democrat living in Springfield, Ohio, “had an illumination here last night. Such a time! I never want to see the like again. The negroes and whites together visited the houses of prominent Democrats, hissed, groaned, and throwed stones thro the windows. They broke all the large windows in Dr. Wallace’s Drug Store, and many others. . . . Their conduct would have shamed devils out of hell. This is a terrible place, Cox. I am sick at heart, and will not punish my ‘flesh and spirit’ by publishing another campaign [paper]. The labor seems all lost.”⁶⁷

While Republicans celebrated their victory, Democrats offered a variety of excuses, none convincing, for their defeat. Some, such as Samuel Medary of the Crisis and Dr. John McElwee of the Hamilton True Telegraph, closed their eyes to the facts and blamed the defeat upon forthright frauds—“imported voters,” “ballot-stuffing,” “floods of greenbacks,” “arbitrary power,” and outright intimidation.⁶⁸ Most Democrats recognized that Republicans had abolitionized the army, transforming soldiers into anti-Vallandigham men. Only one regiment (the Fifty-seventh Ohio, from Auglaize County) cast a majority of its votes for the exile.

Some Democrats, seeking a scapegoat, held Vallandigham responsible for their party’s defeat. He had “foisted” his “peculiar views” upon the party, contrary to the wishes of the majority of Ohio Democrats and in opposition to the wishes of the people.⁶⁹ In a sense these dissenting Democrats were right. The country did not want peace in October of 1863. “The nation is for war,” a Canadian observer concluded after studying the election returns, “and he who represents it must be warlike. His [Vallandigham’s] decided expressions of a desire for peace at any price, were utterly repugnant to the American mind.”⁷⁰ Thomas O. Lowe, one of Vallandigham’s most devoted disciples, also interpreted the election returns as a repudiation of “the peace policy.” “The people have voted in favor of the war and the way it is at present conducted,” young Lowe wrote, “and it has to go on of course. The case went to the jury and they have rendered their verdict, and I am not disposed to move for a new trial.”⁷¹ The editor of the Dayton Empire seemed to hold a like view when he wrote, “The people of Ohio, by their votes, have decided for war, taxation, conscription, and despotism.”⁷²

Vallandigham seemed to accept his defeat in good grace; he did not blame it upon frauds nor did he exhibit any bitterness. He showed enough good sense to write a post-election letter addressed to the “Democrats of Ohio.” He thanked all for their efforts in his behalf, for their votes, and for their sympathy. He asked his fellow-Democrats not to be discouraged by the election returns, but to retain their faith in the time-tested Democratic principles. “Our defeat will soon be forgotten,” he wrote, “but the glory of having rescued free discussion and a free ballot will be remembered for ages—even though we should lose them at last.” Then, with his usual self-righteousness, he added, “The highest political boast, some years hence, of any man, will be ‘I was a soldier in the Grand Army of Constitutional Liberty in 1863.’”⁷³ Evidently, the exile still refused to believe that his views were anathema to most Ohioans and that the majority views of 1863 would be written into history as the true views.⁷⁴ Intransigent as ever, he still believed that time and future historical events would vindicate him, polishing his halo and praising him for courage, foresight, and perseverance. “As to the future,” he wrote to his dejected wife, “posterity will vote for me, and there will be neither chance nor motive for violence and fraud.”⁷⁵ He continued to exhibit the single-mindedness which characterizes the self-deluded martyr. “I am myself just as firm & perservering,” he wrote to a friend in Philadelphia, “as I was six years ago in the case of Vallandigham vs. Campbell; and I mean to win again in the end.”⁷⁶

Vallandigham could well have found some solace in several aspects of the election. He had received more votes than any other defeated gubernatorial candidate in Ohio history. More than that, aside from Brough, he had received more votes than any other victorious candidate. In defeat, he won more votes than Salmon P. Chase had in victory in 1857. “Vallandigham defeated,” wrote one Democratic editor, “had more friends in the State than Chase when he was elected.”⁷⁷ Vallandigham could also have found some solace in the fact that Democratic party discipline was magnificent even in defeat. Despite all the propaganda and pressure, most Irish-Americans and German-Catholics voted for Vallandigham and so did the much-abused Butternuts of the backwoods.⁷⁸ The fact that the Ohio vote reflected a national trend—Republicans swept Pennsylvania as well as every Midwestern state which held an October or November election in 1863—may have offered some consolation, too.

The Republican trend of 1863 enabled Vallandigham to claim that his peace views did not contribute to his defeat.⁷⁹ He therefore continued to rationalize that he really represented basic principles and he sought courage by worshipping in the Democratic chapel which Thomas Jefferson had erected.

Once, when some sympathetic students from the University of Michigan came to call, he felt compelled to give them a lengthy speech. He talked of morality and virtue. He asked them to study hard and to take advantage of their opportunities—to taste the sweets of knowledge. Although he referred infrequently to politics, he did say that a statesman must be guided by principles rather than expediency, as a mariner is guided by a compass. “It is easy to be a politician or a demagogue,” the exile told the attentive students; “it is easy to sail with the wind or float with the current.”⁸⁰ In part, the speech was a justification of his own inflexibility and self-righteousness—of his conviction that he was right and the country wrong.

¹ A. Pierce to his wife, 12 June 1863, published in McArthur (O.) Register (n.d.), clipping in the John Sherman Papers, Library of Congress.

² James A. Connolly to his wife, 12 June 1863, published in Paul Angle, ed., Three Years in the Army of the Cumberland: The Letters and Diary of Major James A. Connolly (Bloomington, Ind., 1959), pp. 88-89.

³ Clemens L. Clendenen to “Dear Sister,” 16 September 1863, Clendenen Family Papers, Huntington Library.

⁴ Henry Coffinberry to “Dear Folks,” 29 May 1863, Marcia D. Coffinberry Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland

⁵ Thomas O. Lowe to his brother William, 14 June 1863, Thomas O. Lowe Papers, Dayton and Montgomery County Public Library.

⁶ John Law to Samuel S. Cox, 18 June 1863, Samuel S. Cox Papers (microfilm), Hayes Memorial Library, Fremont, Ohio.

⁷ Hamilton True Telegraph, 18 June 1863.

⁸ 20 July 1863.

⁹ Richmond Daily Dispatch (n.d.), quoted in Toronto Daily Globe, 17 August 1863.

¹⁰ Dayton Daily Journal, 15, 16 July 1863; Cleveland Leader, 30 July 1863; Buckeye State (New Lisbon), 13 August 1863; Bucyrus Weekly Journal, 14 August 1863; Daily Ohio State Journal, 20 July 1863; Buffalo Morning Express, 18 July 1863.

¹¹ The myth is perpetuated in such popular works as James D. Horan, Confederate Agent: A Discovery in History (New York, 1954), and debunked in Frank L. Klement, “Carrington and the Golden Circle Legend in Indiana during the Civil War,” Indiana Magazine of History 61 (March 1965): 31-52.

¹² Vallandigham to Manton Marble, 2 August 1863, Manton Marble Papers, Library of Congress.

¹³ A Short Catechism for the People (Columbus, 1863) and The Peace Democracy, alias the Copperheads (Columbus, 1863) were prepared and circulated by the Republican State Central Committee of Ohio. The document entitled Echo from the Army: What Our Soldiers Say about the Copperheads (New York, 1863) was published and distributed by the Loyal Publication Society, a propaganda arm of the Union League.

¹⁴ Canvass Books of Cuyahoga County, Western Reserve Historical Society; Buckeye State (New Lisbon), 2 April 1863; Harvey Reid to “Dear Sarah,” 18 September 1863, Harvey Reid Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Guy Gibson, “Lincoln’s League: The Union League Movement during the Civil War” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois, 1957), views the League as a patriotic organization. Clement M. Silvestro, “None But Patriots: Union Leagues in Civil War and Reconstruction” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1959), recognized that the Leagues were a Republican propaganda agency.

¹⁵ Daily Ohio State Journal, 20 June 1863.

¹⁶ Western Christian Advocate (Cincinnati), 29 April 1863; Cincinnati Gazette, 7 August 1863. The role of Methodism in the 1863 gubernatorial contest is treated in Bruce C. Flack, “The Attitude of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Ohio toward the Civil War, 1861-1865” (master’s thesis, Ohio State University, 1962).

¹⁷ N.d., quoted in Bucyrus Weekly Journal, 14 August, 18 September 1863.

¹⁸ Archbishop Purcell’s contributions to the war effort are discussed in Anthony Deye, “Archbishop John Baptist Purcell and the Civil War” (Ph.D. dissertation, Notre Dame University, 1944).

¹⁹ Quoted in the Dayton Daily Journal, 6 July 1863; Ohio Daily Statesman (Columbus), 9 September 1863.

²⁰ Dayton Daily Journal, 27 August 1863. John Sherman’s Delaware, Ohio, speech appeared as a pamphlet entitled Valandigham’s [sic] Record Reviewed: A Political Traitor Unmasked (Dayton, 1863). It came off the press of the Dayton Daily Journal.

²¹ Thomas Francis Meagher to John Jay Janney, 8 September 1863, John Jay Janney Papers, Indiana University Library, Bloomington.

²² Cleveland Leader, 16, 25 September 1863; Dayton Daily Journal, 27 August, 14 September, 1, 2 October 1863.

²³ 20 July, 19 August 1863.

²⁴ Dayton Daily Journal, 14, 21 August 1863.

²⁵ Wellesville Union, 10, 24 September 1863.

²⁶ Ibid.

²⁷ Dayton Daily Empire, 22, 31 August 1863. Examples of misrepresentation can be found in the Dayton Daily Journal, 9 September 1863, and the Cleveland Leader, 17 August 1863.

²⁸ Joseph Medill to Lincoln, 10 September 1859, Robert Todd Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress.

²⁹ Daily Ohio State Journal, 18 July, 31 August 1863; Cleveland Leader, 17 September 1863; Cincinnati Daily Commercial (n.d.), quoted in Daily Ohio State Journal, 27 August 1863; Chicago Tribune, 1 October 1863; Bucyrus Weekly Journal, 4 September 1863.

³⁰ Detroit Free Press, 14 September 1863. They gave the name of the informant as Henry Reinish.

³¹ The manufacture of lies was a common political practice. John Sherman’s secretary, who later became a noted Ohio newspaperman, wrote to a friend, “. . . when I get home [from Washington], I will get up some stories to tell about your opponent whoever he is. I don’t know him, and it is not necessary that I should in order to tell a few big lies about him.” (James B. McCullogh to William Henry Smith, 31 May 1864, William Henry Smith Papers, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus.)

³² Cincinnati Gazette, 12 October 1863; Daily Ohio State Journal, 10 October 1863.

³³ Quoted in Dayton Daily Empire, 24 September 1863.

³⁴ William W. Armstrong, “Personal Recollections,” in Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, 20 March 1886.

³⁵ Mount Vernon Democratic Banner, 11 July 1863; Hancock (O.) Courier (n.d.), quoted in Dayton Daily Empire, 25 August 1863.

³⁶ Crisis (Columbus), 9, 23 September 1863.

³⁷ James M. Robbins to Samuel S. Cox, 19 August 1863, Cox Papers.

³⁸ Dayton Daily Empire, 21 August 1863.

³⁹ Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, 7 September 1863.

⁴⁰ This booklet was published in New York in 1863, by Samuel F. B. Morse’s propaganda agency, the Society for the Diffusion of Political Knowledge.

⁴¹ Dayton Daily Empire, 21 August, 12 October 1863.

⁴² Crisis, 16 September 1863; Circleville Democrat, 1 September 1863; Ohio Daily Statesman, 27 August 1863; William A. Anderson, quoted in Mount Vernon Democratic Banner, 5 September 1863.

⁴³ Vallandigham to Thomas Dunlap and others, 31 July 1863, published in Mount Vernon Democratic Banner, 15 August 1863; Vallandigham to Alexander S. Boys, 1 September 1863, Alexander S. Boys Papers, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus; Vallandigham to Samuel L. M. Barlow, 8 August 1863, Samuel L. M. Barlow Papers, Huntington Library.

⁴⁴ 19 August 1863.

⁴⁵ Dayton Daily Journal, 18 September 1863; Dayton Daily Empire, 18, 19 September 1863.

⁴⁶ Ohio Patriot (New Lisbon), 25 September 1863; Wellesville Patriot (n.d.), quoted in Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio: An Encyclopedia of the State, 2 vols. (Norwalk, O., 1898), 1: 438.

⁴⁷ Dayton Daily Empire, 3, 18 September 1863. Harold L. Naragon, “The Ohio Gubernatorial Campaign of 1863” (Master’s thesis, Ohio State University, 1934) contains the statement (p. 42) that the campaign was “comparatively free from violence.”

⁴⁸ Related in Armstrong, “Personal Recollections,” in Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, 20 March 1886. The controversy over badges and emblems is discussed, in part, in Carl M. Becker, “ ‘Disloyalty’ and the Dayton Public Schools,” Civil War History 11 (March 1965): 58-68.

⁴⁹ Whitelaw Reid, report to Cincinnati Gazette, 12 October 1863, in William Henry Smith Papers, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus.

⁵⁰ Vallandigham to Alexander S. Boys, 1 September 1863, Boys Papers.

⁵¹ Crisis, 30 September 1863; Cleveland Plain Dealer, 29 September 1863.

⁵² Vallandigham to Manton Marble, 4 October 1863, Marble Papers.

⁵³ Whitelaw Reid’s report to Cincinnati Gazette, 12 October 1863, in William Henry Smith Papers.

⁵⁴ Entry of 13 October 1863, Howard K. Beale, ed., Diary of Gideon Welles, 3 vols. (New York, 1960), 1: 469-70.

⁵⁵ Entry of 13 October 1863, in T. J. Gordon, “Private Notebook,” published in Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, 26 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1894-1922), ser. 1, 9: 278.

⁵⁶ Brough received 247,216 “home” votes to C.L.V.’s 185,464. He carried fifty-four counties to Vallandigham’s thirty-one. Brough carried Montgomery County (Val’s home county) by a 5,092 to 5,052 margin and Dayton by 1,920 votes to 1,747.

⁵⁷ Quoted in Dayton Daily Journal, 17 October 1863.

⁵⁸ Quoted in Indianapolis Daily State Sentinel, 16 October 1863.

⁵⁹ Entries of 13, 14 October 1863, Beale, Diary of Gideon Welles, 1: 370.

⁶⁰ 14 October 1863, Robert Todd Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress.

⁶¹ This telegram seems to be nonexistent and some of the foremost Lincoln scholars doubt that he sent Tod such a message. It is repeated, nevertheless, in many Ohio histories.

⁶² Isaac Jackson Allen, 19 October 1863.

⁶³ 16 October 1863.

⁶⁴ 14 October 1863.

⁶⁵ Quoted in Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, 16 October 1863.

⁶⁶ Dayton Daily Journal, 17 October 1863.

⁶⁷ C. M. Gould to Samuel S. Cox, 15 October 1863, Cox Papers.

⁶⁸ Crisis, 14, 21 October 1863; Hamilton True Telegraph, 16, 22, 23 October 1863; Ohio Daily Statesman, 21 October 1863; Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, 15 October 1863; Dayton Daily Empire, 26 January 1864.

⁶⁹ J. N. Baldwin to Manton Marble, 14 October 1863, Marble Papers; C. M. Gould to Samuel S. Cox, 15 October 1863, Cox Papers; Ohio Daily Statesman, 30 October 1863.

⁷⁰ Toronto Daily Globe, 17 October 1863.

⁷¹ Thomas O. Lowe to his brother William, 26 October 1863, Lowe Papers.

⁷² Dayton Daily Empire, 14 October 1863.

⁷³ 14 October 1863, published in Ohio Daily Statesman, 20 October 1863.

⁷⁴ C.L.V. to Samuel S. Cox, 28 October 1863, Marble Papers.

⁷⁵ 14 October 1863, published in part in Vallandigham, Vallandigham, pp. 335-36.

⁷⁶ Vallandigham to Hon. H. M. Philips, 24 October 1863, Simon Gratz Papers, Historical Society of Philadelphia.

⁷⁷ Dayton Daily Empire, 14 October 1863.

⁷⁸ Armstrong, “Personal Recollections,” published in Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, 20 March 1886. In Columbus, the Ninth Ward, in which Irish-Catholics who attended St. Patrick’s Church predominated, Vallandigham received 240 votes, Brough but 91. The Sixth Ward, peopled largely by German-Americans who attended Holy Cross Catholic Church, gave Vallandigham 435 votes, Brough only 77. Also see Francis P. Weisenberger, Columbus during the Civil War (Columbus, 1963), p. 26.

⁷⁹ Vallandigham to H. M. Philips, 24 October 1863, Gratz Papers.

⁸⁰ Quoted in Detroit Free Press, 15 November 1863.