“Jeff” Davis had a large and threatening nightmare in November, 1864, and what he saw in his troubled dreams was the long and lanky figure of Abraham Lincoln, who had just been endorsed by the people of the United States for another term in the White House at Washington. The cartoon reproduced here is from the issue of “Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper” of December 3rd, 1864, it being entitled “Jeff Davis’ November Nightmare.”
Davis had been told that McClellan, “the War is a failure” candidate for the Presidency, would have no difficulty whatever in defeating Lincoln; that negotiations with the Confederate officials for the cessation of hostilities would be entered into as soon as McClellan was seated in the Chief Executive’s chair; that the Confederacy would, in all probability, be recognized as an independent government by the Washington Administration; that the “sacred institution” of slavery would continue to do business at the old stand; that the Confederacy would be one of the great nations of the world, and have all the “State Rights” and other things it wanted, with absolutely no interference whatever upon the part of the North.
Therefore, Lincoln’s re-election was a rough, rude shock to Davis, who had not prepared himself for such an event. Six months from the date of that nightmare-dream he was a prisoner in the hands of the Union forces, and the Confederacy was a thing of the past.
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