Mrs. North and Her Attorney

This cartoon, satirizing President Lincoln’s initial failed efforts to defeat the Confederacy and win the war, suggested that the interests of the North would be better off in someone else’s hands. This message was essentially the platform of the Democratic Party’s candidates, General George B. McClellan and his running mate, George H. Pendleton, in the 1864 presidential contest. Lincoln had serious doubts of his own about his chances for reelection. However, Union victories at Mobile Bay, Atlanta, and Cedar Creek in the late summer and early fall of that year buoyed morale and helped propel Lincoln to a second term in the White House.