Collage of historical images and cartoons of the American Civil War

Visual Culture of the American Civil WarA Special Feature of Picturing US History

The Chicago Platform and Candidate.

A two-faced, hypocritical George McClellan, the 1864 Democratic presidential candidate, is pictured in this pro-Republican cartoon as trying to appease contending constituencies in his party. On the left side of the print, he faces Union army veterans who would be outraged by the party's campaign platform to negotiate with the Confederacy (its rotting planks held up by the Devil, Jefferson Davis, and prominent Peace Democrats Fernando Wood and Clement Vallandigham)—a platform that McClellan rejected. And on the right side, he addresses the "Copperheads" who supported the platform, represented by a simianlike, brutish Irish figure (harking back to the New York draft riots of the year before).A two-faced, hypocritical George McClellan, the 1864 Democratic presidential candidate, is pictured in this pro-Republican cartoon as trying to appease contending constituencies in his party. On the left side of the print, he faces Union army veterans who would be outraged by the party's campaign platform to negotiate with the Confederacy (its rotting planks held up by the Devil, Jefferson Davis, and prominent Peace Democrats Fernando Wood and Clement Vallandigham)—a platform that McClellan rejected. And on the right side, he addresses the "Copperheads" who supported the platform, represented by a simianlike, brutish Irish figure (harking back to the New York draft riots of the year before).

Physical Dimensions: 11 x 15.7 in.

Creator: Louis Maurer

Source: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Publisher: New York: Currier & Ives

Date: 1864