NEW TOPIC CHOSEN BY THE SPEAKER, SEE NEXT EVENT OFFERING
Please join us for our second meeting of 2025, a presentation by Mr. Stan Weinstein on the critical election held at a tough time of the war for Abraham Lincoln: the election of 1864 in which he faced the Copperheads and General McClellan. To be held at the restaurant Draught 55, located at 245 East 55th Street.
The speaker for this meeting will be Stan Weinstein, a former New Yorker who has lived in Manhattan, Bensonhurst, Bath Beach, Sheepshead Bay, and now lives on Long Island. He attended Brooklyn College where he earned both a BS and an MS in Communications, and then spent 40 years in the advertising business. He has maintained a lifelong interest in History and Political Science, and is presently a member of two CW groups on Long Island. And just as I have been fortunate enough to have enjoyed doing ever since our beginnings in 2009, Stan has delivered presentations to several other CW groups in the tri-state area.
Stan's topic will be The Presidential Election of 1864, which we all recognize as perhaps the most important election in US history. It was the first US Presidential election held during wartime, which in itself was considered to be a great achievement for democracy! But considering the way the war was going, Lincoln entered the summer of 1864 believing that he would be beaten, and beaten badly! His nemesis? The Union General who contributed greatly to Lincoln's change in appearance from almost young looking in 1860 to aged and battle weary only four years later, George McClellan.
Abraham Lincoln, in 1860, and in 1864...
And George McClellan, youthful, proud and ever boastful.
Things looked so bad that some members of Lincoln's Republican Party, in an effort to gain support from groups of voters who would simply not vote Republican, had renamed themselves the National Union Party, and it was this party that nominated Lincoln for re-election. Still, Lincoln's only hope for victory was some major battlefield miracle to change the tide of the Civil War! And it was General William T Sherman who, at what seemed to be the last possible moment, delivered that miracle to Lincoln, making a gift to Lincoln of the City of Savannah, after having already taken Atlanta and completing a historic March through Georgia to arrive at Savannah in the most consequential Union battle march of the entire war. As a result, Lincoln's 55% of the popular vote was distributed advantageously enough for him to capture 212 of the available 233 electoral votes! This was the first victory by a sitting President in over 30 years, and notwithstanding the temporary renaming of his party, his election victory signaled the start of a 50 year period of Republican Party dominance. What a perfect subject to be presented the month after my deep look into the early, troubled life of Sherman at February's meeting.
The meeting will be held on Monday, March 24th, at Draught 55, 245 East 55th St, NY NY. It will begin at 6:00PM sharp with a cash bar from 5:30PM. The cost to everyone, members and non-members, will be $60 per person. As always, to help with both the seating arrangements and the proper amount of food preparation, PLEASE remember to reserve your seat by contacting Ann Plogsterth, either at 212-877-6814, or plogsterth@aol.com, as soon as your plans are set. And there's no better time than right now!
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Jim Santagata
Mobile: 718-930-0611