Tag Archives: George B. McClellan

Election Day 1864 — Lincoln or McClellan? How the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers Voted

The platforms of the Union and Democratic parties, U.S. Presidential Election of 1864 (courtesy of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; click to enlarge).

Even in the midst of a devastating civil war, Americans across the United States managed to come together to fulfill their civic responsibilities by voting on Election Day. Fathers and sons flocked to city and small town polling places while soldiers on active duty filled out ballot forms wherever they were stationed during the early to mid-1860s.

With respect to the Presidential Election of 1864, which was held in multiple states across America on November 8, 1864, that voting took place for members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry at their encampment near Newtown, Virginia, according to a letter that was subsequently penned by 47th Pennsylvanian Henry D. Wharton to his hometown newspaper in Sunbury, Pennsylvania on November 14:

“The election passed off quietly and without any military interference, not the influence of officers used in controlling any man’s vote. In the regiments from the old Keystone, the companies were formed by the first Sergeant, when he stated to the men the object for which they were called to ‘fail to,’ and then they proceeded to the election of officers to hold the election – the boys having the whole control, none of the officers interfering in the least.”

Were the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers pro-Lincoln or pro-McClellan?

Excerpt from Henry Wharton’s letter to his hometown newspaper, November 14, 1864 (The Sunbury American, November 14, 1864, public domain; click to enlarge).

Wharton reported that, after the votes from members of the regiment were counted, President Abraham Lincoln was the favored choice of most of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers. Lincoln had garnered one hundred and ninety-four votes to General George B. McClellan’s one hundred and twenty-one (a margin of seventy-three votes). Those votes, by individual company, were tallied as follows:

  • Company A: President Lincoln (ten); General McClellan (one)
  • Company B: President Lincoln (twenty-six); General McClellan (two)
  • Company C: President Lincoln (twenty-nine); General McClellan (thirteen)
  • Company D: President Lincoln (thirty-one); General McClellan (eleven)
  • Company E: President Lincoln (twenty-four); General McClellan (three)
  • Company F: President Lincoln (eighteen); General McClellan (sixteen)
  • Company G: President Lincoln (nine); General McClellan (thirteen)
  • Company H: President Lincoln (ten); General McClellan (twenty-four)
  • Company I: President Lincoln (nineteen); General McClellan (sixteen)
  • Company K: President Lincoln (eighteen); General McClellan (twenty)

But Wharton’s figures for the men from Company K were incorrect, according to historian Lewis Schmidt, who noted in his book, A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers, that “Fifteen of the members [of Company K] voted for the Lincoln electors and seven for the McClellan electors” when they “voted on the battlefield of Cedar Creek, November 8, 1864.” The members of Company K who cast votes that day were: “David H. Fetherolf, Mathias Miller, John Keiser, Phaon Guth, James D. Weil, Daniel Strauss, Paul Strauss, George Sherer, Lewis G. Seip, Henry Hantz, Charles W. Abbott, George Kase, Charles Stoudt, William Schlicher, William F. Knerr, E. F. Benner, George Delp, Tilghman Boger, William H. Barber, William D. Schick, Frank Beisel, and David Semmel.”

Apathy or Attrition?

One of the first things that researchers notice when looking at those figures for the 1864 election is that the number of votes tendered by 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers that November day was lower than it should have been — shockingly so when considering that each company of the regiment had been staffed by roughly one hundred men when the 47th Pennsylvania left Camp Curtin and headed for Washington, D.C. three years earlier. The turnout of 47th Pennsylvanians was not a sign of voter apathy, however, but of a simple, ugly truth. The regiment had just recently lost the equivalent of nearly two full companies of men in combat. According to Wharton, “The battle at Cedar Creek thinned our ranks by which we lost many votes – this number and those away in hospitals would have increased the Union majority to three hundred.”

* Note: When Henry Wharton wrote the phrase “Union majority,” he was referring to the National Union Party, which had been established during the 1860s by prominent Republicans as a way to bring members of their party together with “War Democrats” and potential voters from border states to vote for President Lincoln and others who supported the Republican platform for eradicating chattel slavery and ending the nation’s secession crisis and civil war.

What Happened After That Election in 1864?

President Abraham Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 (W.E. Winner, painter, J. Serz, engraver, circa 1864; public domain, U.S. Library of Congress).

Successful in his bid for re-election, both in terms of the electoral college and popular vote, President Abraham Lincoln went on to deliver one of his most inspiring addresses to the nation, urging his fellow Americans “to bind up the nation’s wounds” and “do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” He then continued to shepherd his nation through one of its darkest times until the war was finally over.

Food for Thought

If Henry Wharton and his fellow soldiers could make it to the polls on Election Day after all they endured in battle, so can you. Please vote. Your voice does matter.

 

Sources:

  1. “Political Party Timeline: 1836-1864,” in American Experience: Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided. Boston, Massachusetts: GBH Education for WGBH-TV (PBS), 2001.
  2. Schmidt, Lewis G. A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1986.
  3. “The People’s Candidate: Lincoln’s Presidential Elections,” in “Illinois History & Lincoln Collections.” Urbana, Illinois: Main Library, University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, retrieved online November 3, 2025.
  4. Transcript of Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address (delivered Saturday March 4, 1865), in “UShistory.org.” Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Independence Hall Association, retrieved online March 4, 2020 and November 3, 2025.
  5. Wharton, Henry D. “Letter from the Sunbury Guards, Near Newtown, VA, November 14, 1864.” Sunbury, Pennsylvania: The Sunbury American, November 26, 1864.

One Special September Day: Four 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers Shake Hands with President Abraham Lincoln in 1861 (part two)

White House, Washington, D.C., 1861 (Matthew Brady, U.S. Library of Congress, public domain).

“There is another chapter to the story of how four young soldiers from Allentown, members of the Forty-Seventh Regiment, managed to see President Lincoln in 1861 after they had made two ineffectual efforts to see the great man. The young soldiers were Allen Wolf, William H. Smith, Jacob Worman, and George Hepler. They were members of Captain Mickley’s Company G and the pass which they had expired at 5 p.m. of that day.”

—The Allentown Democrat, April 5, 1911

 

Their mission to shake the hand of President Abraham Lincoln accomplished, Private George Heppler, Drummer William N. Smith, Private Allen David Wolf, and Private Jacob Peter Worman, of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, had a second mission to accomplish in late September of 1861 — to make it back to their regiment’s encampment, safely and quickly — because the pass that they had received from one of their superior officers was about to expire.

But their new mission would prove to be even more difficult than had their successful White House meeting with President Lincoln. According to The Allentown Democrat:

“It was growing late in the afternoon when the young soldiers left the White House and they made tracks for the camp. What followed can best be told in Mr. Wolf’s own words:

‘When we got to the point where our regiment had been encamped in the morning we saw nothing but strange faces. We asked for Company G, and were directed to a point. When we came there we found that during our absence the Forty-seventh had been ordered to move and a Wisconsin regiment was encamped there. We decided to return to the city [Washington, D.C.] and in due time fell into the hands of the patrol. We showed our pass and were sent to the headquarters of General McClellan. The general met us personally. We told him of our predicament and he told us that our regiment was now encamped in a different location. He directed us to cross the chain bridge. The general also informed us that a wagon train would go that way and that we should follow it. We did as he instructed us to do. What a march that was, however! It was raining all night and we were drenched to the skin by the time we reached our regiment. But we felt amply repaid. We had seen the greatest man in the country and had spoken to General McClellan.’”

Chain Bridge across the Potomac above Georgetown looking toward Virginia, 1861 (The Illustrated London News, public domain).

The inability of the four 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers to locate their regiment’s camp is more easily understood when reading a letter penned on 29 September by Company C Musician Henry Wharton, in which he informed readers of the Sunbury American that the 47th Pennsylvania had changed camps three times in three days:

“On Friday last we left Camp Kalorama, and the same night encamped about one mile from the Chain Bridge on the opposite side of the Potomac from Washington. The next morning, Saturday, we were ordered to this Camp [Camp Advance near Fort Ethan Allen, Virginia], one and a half miles from the one we occupied the night previous. I should have mentioned that we halted on a high hill (on our march here) at the Chain Bridge, called Camp Lyon, but were immediately ordered on this side of the river. On the route from Kalorama we were for two hours exposed to the hardest rain I ever experienced. Whew, it was a whopper; but the fellows stood it well – not a murmur – and they waited in their wet clothes until nine o’clock at night for their supper. Our Camp adjoins that of the N.Y. 79th (Highlanders.)….

“We had not been in this Camp more than six hours before our boys were supplied with twenty rounds of ball and cartridge, and ordered to march and meet the enemy; they were out all night and got back to Camp at nine o’clock this morning, without having a fight. They are now in their tents taking a snooze preparatory to another march this morning…. I don’t know how long the boys will be gone, but the orders are to cook two days’ rations and take it with them in their haversacks….”

Despite that confusion, all four of the adventurous 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers eventually did manage to reconnect with their regiment at its encampment in Virginia. They then went on to follow President Lincoln’s directive to them: “Be good and above all obey your commander.”

Private Allen David Wolf, who was ultimately promoted up through the ranks to become Corporal Wolf, and Drummer William N. Smith both survived their initial three-year terms of enlistment and were both honorably discharged from the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry’s encampment near Berryville, Virginia on September 18, 1864.

Private George Heppler, who was also ultimately promoted to the rank of corporal, and Private Worman, who was promoted to the rank of sergeant, served far longer — until the 47th was mustered out for the final time on Christmas Day in 1865.

All four witnessed both the worst and best of humanity and were forever changed by all that they had seen and heard as they fought to save their nation from disunion.

 

Sources:

  1. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, vol. 1. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.
  2. “Gleanings by the Way.” Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Allentown Democrat, April 4, 1911.
  3. “Gleanings By the Way.” Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Allentown Democrat, April 5, 1911.
  4. Wharton, Henry D. “Letters from the Sunbury Guards.” Sunbury, Pennsylvania: The Sunbury American, September 1861.