In the summer of 1864, Abraham Lincoln made a gloomy prediction about the upcoming presidential election. The American Civil War had dragged on for over three years with no end in sight. Things had not gone well for the Union, and the public blames the president for the stalemate against the Confederacy and for the appalling numbers killed and wounded. Lincoln was thoroughly convinced that without a favorable change in the trajectory of the war he would have no chance of winning a second term against former Union general George B. McClellan, whom he had previously dismissed as commander of the Army of the Potomac. In this vivid, engrossing account of a critical year in American history, the author examines the events of 1864, when the course of American history might have taken a radically different direction. It's no exaggeration to say that if McClellan had won the election, everything would have been different- McClellan and the Democrats planned to end the war immediately, grant the South its independence, and let the Confederacy keep its slaves. What were the crucial factors that in the end swung public sentiment in favor of Lincoln? The author focuses on the battlefield campaigns of generals and a tactical error that would change the whole course of the war as he brings to life this important series of episodes in our nation's history.

Chronicles the battles of the Civil War, how they influenced the future of the generals who fought in them, and how they impacted the election of 1864.