In the summer of 1864, Abraham Lincoln may have been the most hated President in American history.

The Union army under U.S. Grant had suffered horrendous casualties as it advanced towards Richmond. Meanwhile, in July, Confederate general Jubal Early came very close to turning the tables and capturing Washington D.C. Financial speculators concluded the Union could not win the war, and the resulting panic destabilized the markets. In August, radical members of Lincoln’s own Republican party published a massive criticism in the New York Tribune called the Wade-Davis Manifesto that accused Lincoln of “grave executive usurpation.” The New York World concluded, “The fact … begins to shine out clear that Abraham Lincoln is lost; that he will never be President again…. The obscene ape of Illinois is about to be deposed from the Washington purple, and the White House will echo to his little jokes no more.” Though he was nominated for re-election, Lincoln had already concluded he wouldn’t win a second term. As September began, the Democrats nominated Lincoln’s former head of the Union Army, George McClellan, on a platform that screamed, “The War is a Failure, Peace Now!”

And then, on September 3, 1864, a piece of paper was delivered to the White House. It was a telegram from Union General William T. Sherman, sent from Georgia. It was a message of just six words.

“Atlanta is ours and fairly won.”

It is impossible to adequately express the power that these words had on the political situation. Lincoln’s friend, A. K. McClure, claimed, “There was no time between January of 1864 and September of the same year when McClellan would not have defeated Lincoln for President.”  With the fall of Atlanta, there was a sudden expectation that Lincoln would win the war, and perhaps a second term.   Senator Zachary Chandler called it “the most extraordinary change in publick opinion here that ever was known within a week.”

September 5, 1864 was declared a national day of celebration. Also on September 5, the State of Louisiana abolished slavery. Throughout September and into October, the Union won numerous battles in the Shenandoah Valley, and elsewhere. And Grant renewed his assault upon Richmond, and completely besieged it. By November the end of the war was in sight.

Just two months after the fall of Atlanta, on November 8, 1864, Abraham Lincoln – the “ape,” the “usurper” – would win re-election by an electoral vote of 212-21.