Although the current controversy calls into question the integrity of mail-in voting, ballot fraud in the United States is nothing new. It was 160 years ago, in the 1864 presidential election, when absentee voting was allowed for the first time, as large numbers of Union soldiers were on the battlefield and away from home.
Many soldiers were granted furloughs to return to their home states to vote, but others were not. Mail-in voting was introduced as a solution to allow soldiers to vote absentee. Others voted at the camp and then officials mailed their ballots. Democrats fought this effort vigorously in court, knowing that most Union soldiers would vote for Lincoln. Voting by mail was controversial as the program was rolled out, and fraud was suspected.
In fact, Orville Wood, a county official in upstate New York, uncovered one of the most elaborate election conspiracies in American history. Wood traveled from upstate New York to Baltimore to ensure the county’s troopers’ votes were counted properly and to monitor mail-in voting. While visiting Fort McHenry, one of America’s most sacred sites and home of the Star-Spangled Banner, Wood was “suspected.”
He observed soldiers playing “checkers” with ballots. In order to gain access to the process and the trust of the supervisors involved in the conspiracy, Wood implied that he was a McClellan supporter and a Democrat. Supervisor Mr. Ferry then welcomed Wood to the team. “McClellan received 400 votes to Lincoln’s 11 votes. [Wood] When Mr. Ferry said that union votes were fine when they came into that office, they were fine when they went out, and they were doing more here than he thought. , expressed surprise at the low number of votes for Lincoln. ”
Wood was complicit in the scheme, personally altering thousands of ballots to vote for McClellan. Wood then provided evidence to authorities, exposing the entire operation. Shockingly, Ferry fully confessed to his own illegal activities. General Abner Doubleday convened a military commission to correct the process, and the commission’s surprising findings were made public just before the election.
Full details of this and other Civil War election interference cases are revealed in my upcoming book. Unvanquished: The untold story of Lincoln’s special forces, the search for Mosby’s Rangers, and the shadow war that shaped American special operations.. This book reveals the drama of the irregular guerrilla warfare that changed the course of the Civil War, including the story of blazers scout, elements of lincoln’s Sspecial Foak tasked with hunting Mosby and his Confederate Rangers from 1863 to the end of the war at Appomattox. A previously untold story led to the creation of America’s modern special operations in World War II. The book also tells the story of the Confederate Secret Intelligence Service..
Voter fraud and vote tampering in the 1864 presidential election was not limited to mail-in voting fraud. John Singleton Mosby and other Confederate irregulars attempted to seize ballot boxes to interfere with the election, but most were unsuccessful. In the end, 7 out of 10 Union soldiers would vote for Lincoln and to continue the war.
Another example of irregular forces participating in voter fraud is that Harry Gilmore’s Raiders, a Confederate partisan organization and scouting force that wore Union blue uniforms and posed as Blazers scouts, suddenly turned into real Northerners. It happened when I was supposed to meet four military scouts. Wearing the same blue overcoats as them, Gilmore persuaded the group as they headed to camp to vote in the presidential election that they were members of the Union cavalry. Gilmore smiled and made small talk. He asked, “Do you think you would vote for Lincoln?” Lincoln’s commandos responded in the affirmative and showed the Confederate irregulars “tickets” to cast their ballots. Gilmore gestured, and with a silent signal, the scouts pointed pistols at his face. The Blazer Scout surrendered without firing a shot. Gilmore received a ticket and casually rode into a Union camp containing thousands of soldiers. “We took their papers and tickets to Sheridan’s camp and voted for Lincoln there! This gave us every means of getting information. Of course, after voting for Lincoln, no one opposed I could not do it.”
So not only did Gilmore’s Confederate raiding party vote for Lincoln in perhaps the most consequential election in history, so did an irregular Union scout posing as a Confederate called Scout Jesse. The war and election galvanized the beliefs of many who had been fighting the Confederacy for years. Arch Rowland wrote fondly of his fellow scout years later: And I would say we’re both staunch Republicans. I voted for Abe Lincoln in Martinsburg in ’64 when I was 19 years old, and I have never strayed from that path since. ”
Patrick K. O’Donnell is a bestselling and critically acclaimed military historian and expert on elite forces. He is the author of 13 of his books, including the most recent best-selling book on the Civil War. Unvanquished: Lincoln’s Special Forces, Mosby’s Ranger Search, and the Untold Story of Shadahw The war that created American special operations, Located in front of Barnes and Noble Stores nationwide. His other bestsellers include: essential things, unknownand Immortals of Washington. Mr. O’Donnell served as a combat historian for a Marine rifle platoon during the Battle of Fallujah and is a frequent lecturer on espionage, special operations and counterinsurgency. He has provided historical consulting for the award-winning DreamWorks miniseries Band of Brothers, as well as documentaries produced by the BBC, History His Channel, and Discovery. PatrickKODonnell.com @Combatant
