This chapter dissects the effects of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg on the army's organization as well as the army's activity during the crucial 1863 gubernatorial election season. Some Republican officers and men, including many who had led the war of words against Copperheads previously, knew of General McClellan's political positions and already considered him a threat to Northern unity in the struggle. The vast majority of the army still revered him, however. When General George Meade oversaw an effort to collect an army-wide testimonial of affection for McClellan, several Republican officers criticized the move in the press and ignited a partisan controversy. Soon after the scheme fell apart, McClellan endorsed the Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania governor, an act which infuriated the army and disabused many of the general's previous admirers. The chapter assesses the army vote in the Ohio, Maine, and Wisconsin governor races as well.

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This chapter details the army's collective proclamation of political sentiment in early 1863. Following the disaster at Fredericksburg and general frustration during the "emancipation winter," a growing number of anti-war Copperheads on the home front convinced junior officers to mobilize the army for political action. In a series of several dozen political resolutions adopted by regiments throughout the Army of the Potomac, the officers and men in the ranks proclaimed themselves in the nation's press to be the arbiters of loyalty and guardians of civic virtue. In the process, they endorsed the Lincoln administration and broadly supported its efforts to weaken the Confederacy through conscription, emancipation, and "hard war." This campaign elicited a backlash from Democratic men at home and in the ranks, but the publication of such a vehement political stance from the army throughout Northern newspapers drowned them out.

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