Cleveland in The American Civil War - Public Sentiments On The War

Public Sentiments On The War

Prior to the Civil War, residents of Cleveland viewed the slaveholding South based on political affiliation. While a majority of Clevelanders tended to side with the abolitionist North, not all of them loathed slavery, nor were all convinced that a civil war would resolve ideological differences between North and South. As the 1860 election year approached and impending clouds of war loomed, Cleveland's newspapers reflected divisions in the city. For example, The Cleveland Herald and Gazette and The Cleveland Leader, both largely Republican papers, argued that Southern injustices had driven John Brown to raid Harpers Ferry in October 1859. The Plain Dealer, a largely Democratic publication, blamed Brown and abolitionist Republicans for the raid.

Republican leader Abraham Lincoln spoke in the city during the 1859 gubernatorial election, and won 58% of the vote in 9 of 11 wards for the Presidency in 1860. As the secession crisis loomed closer, the partisan rhetoric of Cleveland newspapers became more and more heated. The Herald celebrated Lincoln's victory as one of right over wrong, of Unionists over secession-minded southern Democrats, while the Leader dismissed threats of the South's secession. The Plain Dealer, meanwhile, warned that secession was imminent. Lincoln came through Cleveland on his way to Washington, D.C. for his inauguration. When war finally did break out with the Confederate firing on Fort Sumter in April 1861, Cleveland's Democrats and Republicans decided to end their dispute and united to form the National Union party to support Lincoln's war effort. However, this coalition did not go untested.