book: Lincoln Campaign Songster for the Use of Clubs

Abraham Lincoln's 1860 campaign organized hundreds of thousands of supporters in "Wide-Awake" clubs throughout the country. Members marched, held torchlight parades, and, of course, sang vigorous campaign songs. In 1864 the Lincoln campaign returned to this method. Recalling the earlier campaign with a beardless picture of the president, this "Lincoln Campaign Songster" offered clubs a whole new set of songs. Borrowing the tunes from such well-known melodies as "Yankee Doodle Dandy," these songs replaced the words with new lyrics praising Lincoln. At the height of the Civil War, Lincoln's campaign songs presented him as the great defender of the nation, as in one number, titled "Hoist the Flag for Abraham": "Hoist up the flag and rally for the fight,/Determined to defend the imperiled cause of right,/By ballots or by bullets that flag shall ever wave,/And with Abraham as our leader we will yet the nation save." When Lincoln began the 1864 campaign, he was by no means certain of victory. After three years of bloody Civil War, the Union armies' southern advance had stalled and they were suffering heavy casualties. Dramatic Union victories closer to the election, however, secured Lincoln's triumph, helping him gain 55% of the popular vote.