Video: 'The American Presidential Election of 1864'
(Wednesday, August 31, 1864; during the American Civil War) — Major General George B. McClellan of New Jersey, who served as Commanding General of the U.S. Army during the American Civil War from November 1861 to March 1862, was nominated president of the United States today at the 1864 Democratic National Convention meeting at the Amphitheater in Chicago.
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McClellan defeated Thomas H. Seymour 174-38 on the first ballot. After a revised first ballot, McClellan, a War Democrat, was declared the unanimous choice.
Anti-war Rep. George H. Pendleton of Ohio was nominated for vice president 125.5-27 after first ballot shifts over former Treasury Secretary James Guthrie of Kentucky.
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McClellan, age 37 at the time of the convention, and Pendleton, age 39, are the youngest major party presidential ticket ever nominated in the United States.
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McClellan was still on active duty at the time of his nomination but had been without a field command since he was removed from command by President Abraham Lincoln in November 1862 after his failure to pursue Lee’s army following the tactically inconclusive but strategic Union victory at the Battle of Antietam outside Sharpsburg, Maryland.
The McClellan-Pendleton ticket would challenge the GOP’s “National Union” ticket of President Lincoln of Illinois and Andrew Johnson of Tennessee (nominated in June 1864) in the 1864 general election.
