Today Nevada is admitted into the Union as the 36th state. Statehood arrives eight days prior to the 1864 presidential elections, and is earlier than originally planned in order to provide a voting edge for President Lincoln and the Republican Party. Hurrying Western territories into statehood is a broader strategy utilized during the war and…
The Union’s squeeze of the Confederacy is felt throughout the South. Charleston, the ideological center of the Confederate States, has now been under siege for some 430 days, with cannon balls raining upon the city almost daily. In Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee remains trapped in the trenches, his forces growing thinner almost by…
The Civil War has raised racial tensions to new heights in the South and in some areas of the North. The number of openly racist Northerners is such that U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is not assured of re-election in the coming 1864 election. Hoping to tip the presidential election away from Lincoln and force the…