An issue in the close presidential election of 1864 may have been the candidate George McClellan picked as his vice-president, as least for those in uniform. George H. Pendleton was a "Copperhead" and one who opposed the war and a plank of the Democratic party was known as the "failure plank" that "offered a cessation of hostilities and a convention of States, with a view to peace on the basis of reunion". This plank was seen "as insulting to the soldiers" and many then voted for Lincoln even thou McClellan was very popular with the troops.
(Source: "An Inmate of this Famous Hotel: Civil War letters of Captain Timothy W. Kelly" by Elaine Kelly Pease-a relative of Cap. Kelly. In The Civil War Historian May/June 2006).
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