This Lincoln Bicentenniel Lecture was sponsored by the History department, and her talk was based on her book, Copperheads: The Rise and Fall of Lincoln's Opponents in the North.
Copperheads were anti-war Democrats in the 1860s. They also were called Butternuts. And they were typically seen as Southern sympathizers who feared large centralized government--republicanism with the lower case r.
Dr. Weber's lecture presented the delicate political game that Lincoln had to play with a whole wing of the Democratic party, a wing that called themselves "Peace Democrats." They thought the Civil War was a horrible idea, and they certainly hated the whole idea of freeing slaves.
Like a number of historians, Weber stated that if Gen. Sherman hadn't taken Atlanta in September of 1864, Lincoln probably would have lost the election. And the fate of this nation would have vastly different with McClellan as President.
And there's local history here in Charleston with the Copperheads. The "Charleston Riot" took place on March 28, 1864. If you're interested, Wikipedia actually has a decent entry on it (click HERE) along with the local paper's story about it (click HERE) and a longer version of what went on if you're really interested (click HERE).
Having Southern sympathizers in this area of Illinois isn't surprising since white settlers from the South moved into the southern half of the state in the early 1800s. This area of the state was settled by folks from Kentucky, so the references to "corn whiskey" in the linked documents is understandable. People can move out of Kentucky, but you can't take the Kentucky out of the people.
In fact, Charleston was known as a Democrat and Southern town in the county. And Mattoon, Charleston's natural rival still in many ways, was Republican and Yankee by blood. Those party leanings of the towns still kind of hold to this day, but the two parties have changed drastically since 1864.
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