Before the Republican Wide Awakes There Were the Know Nothing Wide Awakes

The author incorrectly identified the Wide Awakes as being the Know Nothing’s paramilitary group at the polls in 1855. (“The Know Nothings also had their own paramilitary organization called the Wide Awakes to intimidate immigrants on election day.4”) This is false. Not only were the Wide Awakes founded by members of the Hartford Connecticut Republican Party, and in their constitutions stipulate that they were formed to help elect Republicans, but they were not even formed until 1860, during the Connecticut gubernatorial race.

Wide Awakes were Republican abolitionists that helped Lincoln get elected. Once the Civil War started, a high percentage of the the group’s members joined the Union Army, and the Wide Awake clubs dissolved.

I have no desire to embarrass Mr. Tucker. Most people interested in the Civil War associate them with the Republican Party and the election of Abraham Lincoln as president. Even as a boy, I recall the contemporary illustration of the Wide Awakes on the march for Lincoln which appears at the top of this article.

What many people don’t seem to be aware of is that the Know Nothings had their own fighting units also called Wide Awakes and they had them at least half-a-decade before the Republicans. I don’t know if the Republicans adopted the name because some of them had been active Know Nothings just a few years earlier, or if they thought that the name would attract Know Nothing voters. Maybe they just thought it was a cool name or they liked the hat style.

Below are some examples of pre-Republican references to the Know Nothing Wide Awakes.

The first article deals with the Angel Gabriel Riots. Gabriel was a preacher who would lead his followers into Irish neighborhoods and incite violence against the immigrants. In this article his followers wear “Wide Awake” hats.