David Alan Johnson

'I'm going to be beaten ... and unless some great change takes place, badly beaten.' In August 1864, Abraham Lincoln made this prediction about the ootcome of the upcoming presidential election. He was thoroughly convinced that he had no chance of being re-elected. Lincoln realized that this election would be decided on the battlefield, and the war was not going well for the Union. The fighting had been going on for well over three years, and still there was no end in sight. It looked as though the Democrats would win the election, and that the Confederacy would have a new president, former general George B. McClellan, to deal with after November. With Lincoln out of the White House, the South hoped that the new president would be willing to grant the Confederacy its independence.