Absentee Voting Began With US Troops During the Civil War

America's most recent presidential elections may seem like the most contentious in history, coming at a time when the country appears more divided than ever before. However, we tend to forget that the United States held a critical presidential election in the middle of the actual Civil War. The election of 1864 pitted President Abraham Lincoln against one of his former generals, George McClellan, and it was one no one thought Lincoln would win - including Honest Abe himself. 

It's easy to look back and see Lincoln's reelection as a foregone conclusion, but with the way the Civil War had progressed during his administration, the outcome wasn't as clear back then. He struggled to find an aggressive General when the fighting began and failed to bring an early end to the war. It turned out that Lincoln's own troops did believe in their Commander-in-Chief. When the states allowed those soldiers to vote from the battlefield, it may not have turned the tide of the election in the President's favor, but it did set a precedent for future American troops at war.

When the Civil War began in 1861, the Army was headed by Winfield Scott, one of the United States' most esteemed military commanders. It was Scott who developed the Anaconda Plan, the Union Army's strategy at slowly squeezing the Confederate States into submission. Lincoln accepted this plan but then surprisingly stopped taking the 75-year-old General's advice. 

Scott recommended Henry Halleck to lead the Union forces, but Lincoln chose Irvin McDowell. Scott believed the Union Army needed time to train as a professional fighting force, while Lincoln decided to make an immediate attack on Richmond, the rebel capital. When McDowell was soundly defeated at the first Battle of Bull Run, Lincoln chose Gen. George McClellan to lead the Union and began meeting with him without Scott. Incensed, Scott resigned and recommended Halleck to take his place. The President chose McClellan to serve as both Commanding General of the U.S. Army and Commander of the Army of the Potomac. 

Simply put, Lincoln made mistakes early in the war, and ignoring the advice of a seasoned commander like Winfield Scott was probably the most obvious one. To be fair, McClellan looked good on paper. He was Commander of the Department of Ohio, a former observer of the Crimean War, experienced the use of railroads, and ordered the first conclusive Union victory at Philippi (in what is today West Virginia). He also had his own grand plans for defeating the rebels – both of which Scott rejected as "unfeasible."

Scott was the subject of criticism and derision for his patience in the press, while McClellan was being celebrated for what seemed like a quick victory. But he turned out to be just as slow as Scott, without any of Scott's success. Lincoln began to grow impatient, while McClellan grew insubordinate. The General was eventually removed as Commanding General of the Army and replaced by a board of officers who would direct strategy. Reduced to just command of the Army of the Potomac, he was painfully slow and cautious. When McClellan finally moved, launching the 1862 Peninsula Campaign in Virginia, he was soundly beaten. 

The blunders didn't stop there. That same year, McClellan barely secured a victory at Antietam, despite having the rebels' entire plan of attack and his dawdling made that battle the bloodiest single day in American history. When the general failed to pursue the Confederates after his victory, Lincoln fired him as Commander. 

The Union's battlefield woes continued, but this time, there was no insubordinate general blaming his defeats on Washington. McClellan was replaced and transferred, where he languished without a command until October 1863. That's when he entered the presidential race as a Democrat. He supported the war and restoration of the Union but not the abolition of slavery.

Meanwhile, many of the President's wartime policies were unpopular with Americans. There were calls to end the war through negotiations with the Confederates, men were being conscripted into the Union Army under Lincoln's 1863 draft laws (that sparked riots in New York and elsewhere), and some simply didn't believe in ending slavery. All this made McClellan the immediate front-runner for the election of 1864. Even Lincoln himself lamented his coming loss, writing, "This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected." 

As election day approached, however, the President and Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, wondered how men fighting for the Union would be able to exercise their rights as citizens of that Union. They weren't alone. By the time the votes were ready to be counted, 19 states had passed laws outlining how their fighting men would be able to vote while they were away. When those votes were counted, Lincoln received an incredible 78% of the military vote. Lincoln carried 22 of 25 states, with 212 electoral votes to McClellan's 21. Even the recently captured states of Louisiana and Tennessee voted for Lincoln. 

Only an estimated 150,000 soldiers voted in the election of 1864, but from that moment on, absentee voting systems were in place for voters who couldn't return home to cast a ballot. It would lead to a series of laws passed over the next 150 years that would secure voting rights for American service members deployed overseas during all of America's overseas conflicts.