64 e lusive v ictories
Republican leaders could gather information about the public mood.
Long before public opinion polls off ered politicians accurate feedback,
parties had developed elaborate mechanisms for reporting popular atti-
tudes down to the grassroots level. Th at parties took pains to track
opinion refl ected a concern for their self-interest: to lose touch with the
people was an invitation to electoral defeat. Lincoln realized that he
could not aff ord to get out of step with the center of northern public
opinion, all the more because he faced pressures from radicals and con-
servatives claiming to speak for the citizenry. So the president attended
to communication from party offi cials at all levels and editorials from
infl uential newspapers, especially those known to speak for particular
Republican factions. (Th e press in the mid-nineteenth century was
usually associated with a political party and often subsidized by it
through government printing contracts.) When popular discour-
agement surged in the wake of defeat or heavy casualties, word quickly
reached the White House. Likewise, the administration heard promptly
of signifi cant attacks on its policies by opposition fi gures.
The party and its press also became instruments through which
Lincoln and his fellow Republican leaders could shape public views of
the war and foster popular support. In an early and important step,
Republicans sought to incorporate pro-war Democrats into a mass
political organization that would back administration priorities,
mirroring the appointment of Democrats as generals. Republicans
reached out to draw opposition party leaders who supported the war
into an umbrella political coalition, usually called the Union Party. Th e
move helped mask Republican weaknesses in the Border States and gave
political cover to War Democrats unwilling to take the extreme step of
switching parties. Yet the Union Party remained Republican at its core,
notwithstanding the visible role it awarded to some Democrats
(including the unfortunate nomination of Andrew Johnson for vice
president in 1864).
Th e administration’s war policies were aided more directly by Repub-
lican control over state governments. Republican governors actively
recruited troops, though they struggled as the casualty fi gures cooled
the patriotic ardor of 1861. Two Republican governors, Richard Yates
in Illinois and Oliver P. Morton in Indiana, effectively eliminated
partisan competition by dissolving their legislatures once Democrats