All summer Lincoln had feared that Northern voters, staggered by the heavy casualties incurred during Grant’s Overland Campaign, were ready to elect a “Peace Democrat” who would let the South go. But now, the end in sight, voters re-elected Lincoln by an impressive 55 percent popular majority and gave only 40 of 183 House seats to the Democrats. Half of the states in the Union did not elect a single Democrat. The administration took a big gamble in passing out ballots to war-weary Union soldiers at the front. But it paid off: Overwhelmingly, they voted to reelect their commander in chief.
