“Tuesday, November 8, 1864. I stood post from 9 to 10 and from 2 to 3, last night. At 11 a.m. we were relieved, and got to camp at noon. Each Company had a poll opened to vote for President. Our Company gave Lincoln six majority and the Regiment gave him 65 majority. Day was fine.”

– Sergeant Henry Keiser of Lykens, Pennsylvania in his Civil War diary, noting the presidential election held in the camp of the 95th Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.

In the months before the 1864 election, Pennsylvania’s legislature made changes to state law that made it possible for soldiers serving with the US Army to vote in their camps near the front lines or by mail.

President Abraham Lincoln defeated General George B. McClellan in the election – ensuring Lincoln’s policy of emancipation and his efforts to destroy the Confederacy were to be continued in a new, four year term.

(Illustration: Pennsylvania soldiers voting in the 1864 election – Harper’s Weekly)

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