trife."[856] This settled the question of a compromise
candidate.

[Footnote 855: _Ibid._, October 15 and 17.]

[Footnote 856: Morgan Dix, _Memoirs of John A. Dix_, Vol. 2, pp.
51-52.]

Elections in the October States did not encourage the Radicals.
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana voiced the sentiments of the
opposition, defeating Galusha A. Grow, speaker of the House, and
seriously threatening the Radical majority in Congress. This
retrogression, accounted for by the absence of soldiers who could not
vote,[857] suggested trouble in New York, and to offset the influence
of the Seymour rally in Brooklyn a great audience at Cooper Institute
listened to a brief letter from the Secretary of State, and to a
speech from Wadsworth. Seward did not encourage the soldier candidate.
The rankling recollection of Wadsworth's opposition at Chicago in 1860
stifled party pride as well as patriotism, and although the _Herald_
thought it "brilliant and sarcastic," it emphasised Wadsworth's
subsequent statement that "Seward was dead against me throughout the
campaign."[858]

[Footnote 857: New York _Tribune_, October 17, 1862. See other views:
New York _Herald_, October 17, 18, 19.]

[Footnote 858: Henry B. Stanton, _Random Recollections_, p. 216.]

Wadsworth's canvass was confined to a single speech. He had been
absent from the State fifteen months, and although not continuously at
the front there was something inexcusably ungenerous in the taunts of
his opponents that he had served "behind fortifications." His superb
conduct at Bull Run entitled him to better treatment. But his party
was wholly devoted to him, and "amid a hurricane of approbation"[859]
he mingled censure of Seymour with praise of Lincoln, and the
experience of a brave soldier with bitter criticism of an unpatriotic
press. It was not the work of a trained public speaker. It lacked
poise, phrase, and deliberation. But what it wanted in manner it made
up in fire and directness, giving an emotional and loyal audience
abundant opportunity to explode into long-continued cheering.
Thoughtful men who were not in any sense political partisans gave
careful heed to his words. He stood for achievement. He brought the
great struggle nearer home, and men listened as to one with a message
from the field of patriotic sacrifices. The radical newspapers broke
into a chorus of applause. The Radicals themselves were delighted. The
air rung with praises of the courage and spirit of