Bullets, Ballots, and Rhetoric: Confederate States Policy for the United States Presidential Contest
Aspirations to "whoop" the North notwithstanding, Confederates set their hopes for independence not on the belief that they could defeat the North but on the hope that their armies could stave off defeat long enough for the North to weary of war. The South's single biggest opportunity to effect political change in the North was the presidential contest of 1864. If Lincoln's support foundered and the North elected a president with a more flexible vision of peace on the continent, the South might realize its dream of independence. In Bullets, Ballots, and Rhetoric, Larry Nelson vividly brings to
