1864

Mrs. North and
Her Attorney. Punch, Volume 47, September 24, 1864, p. 127

Faced with horrendous Union losses during the waning days of summer in 1864, Lincoln was disconsolate about the inability of Grant's campaign in Virginia to bring the War to an end. At its convention in Baltimore, the Republican Party (temporarily calling itself the National Union Party) had re-nominated Lincoln as its candidate, adopting a platform calling for "unremitting war" to complete victory over the South, along with a Constitutional amendment forever abolishing slavery. The opposition had split between War Democrats, who reluctantly backed the Administration, and Peace Democrats; the latter chose as their candidate George McClellan, former commander of the Army of the Potomac, who vowed to negotiate a peace settlement if elected. Initial polls showed support for Lincoln lagging badly as the casualty lists grew longer.

Though not sanguine about his chances, Lincoln felt he must remain steadfast in pursuing his joint goals of "Union and emancipation." On August 23, he circulated a personal memorandum among his cabinet members, which read in part: "This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to co-operate with the President-elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration, as he will have secured his election on such grounds that he can not possibly save it afterwards." But the South was equally desperate: manpower and resources were nearly exhausted; war-weariness and frustration led former "fire-eaters," as well as moderates, to press for a negotiated end to the carnage. Confederate leaders grasped the slim hope that, if they could only hold out until the November election, Lincoln might well lose. His successor would almost certainly be more amenable to recognizing Southern independence, and signing a treaty acknowledging the existence of two separate nations.

The impending election sets the stage for this cartoon, which presents Lincoln as the small-town lawyer he had once been, decades earlier in Illinois, at the outset of his public career. His client, Mrs. North, is personified as sorrowing young widow in deep mourning, perhaps for a soldier husband killed during Grant's summer campaign against Lee. Subdued stripes appear around the full skirt of her black mourning dress, with black stars on its sleeves. She stands, eyes modestly lowered beneath her veil, in a closed position suggesting a painful determination, as if she has finally reached a long-deferred decision: her counsel's course of action has proven fruitless; if her attorney cannot bring about a satisfactory resolution of her case, she must discharge him and seek another.

In contrast to the realism shown in Tenniel's sympathetic representation of the young widow, Lincoln appears to be much more a caricature. Dressed in a shabby old coat with the cuffs turned up, his bony frame hunched over his writing desk, he chews on his pencil in perplexity, staring at the pile of documents that symbolize "the case." Although obviously reluctant to give up short of a successful verdict, he seems devoid of new strategies for victory.