So
unpromising was the outlook for the Republicans during these summer
months that many leaders, and even the President himself, felt that
their only chance of winning in November lay in the occurrence before
that time of some military success great enough to convince the people
that it was not yet time to despair of the war.
It was especially hard for the Republicans to make head against their
natural enemies, because they were so severely handicapped by the bad
feeling and division among themselves. Mr. Wade, Henry Winter Davis,
Thaddeus Stevens, and a host more, could not do otherwise than accept
the party nominee; yet with what zeal could they work for the candidate
when they felt that they, the leaders of the party, had been something
worse than ignored in the selection of him? And what was their influence
worth, when all who could be reached by it knew well their extreme
hostility and distrust towards Mr. Lincoln? Stevens grudgingly admitted
that Lincoln would not be quite so bad a choice as McClellan, yet let no
chance go by to assail the opinions, measures, and policy of the
Republican President. In this he was imitated by others, and their
reluctant adhesion in the mere matter of voting the party ticket was
much more than offset by this vehemence in condemning the man in whose
behalf they felt it necessary to go to the polls. In a word the
situation was, that the common soldiers of the party were to go into the
fight under officers who did not expect, and scarcely desired, to win.
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