In 1868, Union army commander Ulysses S. Grant defeated the Democrat Horatio Seymour in the presidential race.
In his Journal for Nov. 17, 1868, Sec. of the Navy Gideon Welles reflected on the election of U.S. Grant as president. He criticized the selection of Horatio Seymour as the Democratic nominee and seems to think that Winfield Scott Hancock would have been a better choice. Hancock had been an outstanding army general who gained fame at Gettysburg.
You can find the Welles Journal here.
The journal entry refers to “Chase.” This is Salmon Chase, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. New York Democrats had pushed Chase forward as a possible Democratic presidential candidate. Chase’s support of black civil rights doomed his candidacy. Pendleton was Chase’s opposite. An old Copperhead, Pendleton opposed any new grant of rights to the freedpeople.
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