Amy Vach
Catalog Number: 1942.007.01
This presidential campaign ribbon is two inches wide and a little over six inches long. It reads “McCLELLAN/INVINCIBLES OF LA CROSSE” and bears McClellan’s image in the center. If you look closely at the ribbon’s top, you can still see the small holes from when somebody pinned this ribbon on their shirt.
During the Civil War-era presidential election of 1864, Democratic candidate George B. McClellan ran against incumbent Republican President Abraham Lincoln. Before his presidential bid, McClellan served as a major general during the Civil War. He was successful at organizing his troops and maintaining high morale. He gained the nickname “The Young Napoleon” after a series of small, successive victories. However, Lincoln was dissatisfied with McClellan’s hesitant leadership. McClellan repeatedly chose not to pursue tactical advantages and Lincoln officially removed him from his command in November 1862.
The “Invincibles of La Crosse” was a democrat organization founded by Marcus “Brick” Pomeroy, the editor of La Crosse’s Daily Democrat. The Invincibles backed McClellan for president.
Pomeroy was well-known for his abhorrence of Lincoln’s administration and the ongoing Civil War. He regularly published his distaste in his newspaper.
A few days before the presidential election on November 2, 1864 Pomeroy’s Daily Democrat made a final plea to its readers:
“Lincoln’s re-election means four years more of war; four more years of draft; four years more of blood; three thousand millions more of debt; and taxes to eat up the produce of every farm and the rent of every house in the north.
McClellan’s election means a peaceable settlement of our troubles, and a restoration of the Union upon honorable terms, without further effusion of blood or expenditure of money.”
Since this election happened during the Civil War, only the states that had not seceded from the Union participated in the presidential election. Lincoln won 55% of the popular vote, and McClellan only 45%. Lincoln also received over 90% of the total electoral votes, 212 for Lincoln versus 21 for McClellan. The race results were a bit different in the city of La Crosse. 833 La Crosse residents voted in the presidential election of 1864. Of those 833, 439 were for Lincoln, and 394 were for McClellan.
After his loss, McClellan retreated to Europe. In 1868, he returned to the United States, and in the late 1870s, he served as the governor of New Jersey for one term.
This ribbon has been in the artifact collection of the La Crosse County Historical Society for over 80 years. Lifelong La Crosse resident Thaddeus Brindley donated it in 1942. As luck would have it, Thaddeus’s brother, Benjamin Brindley, found this campaign ribbon in a secondhand store while living in San Francisco. This silk, cream-colored ribbon was on display in the store’s window as part of a collection of political campaign ribbons and badges. Benjamin purchased the ribbon and sent it back home to his brother Thaddeus to donate to the La Crosse County Historical Society’s artifact collection.
This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on October 9, 2020.
This object can be viewed in our online collections database by clicking here.
