We’ve just survived another election season, with the attendant (and often hyperbolic) claims that the nation’s future hinges on the outcome. In the aftermath, it seems fitting to recall another campaign—exactly 150 years ago—that really did influence the fate of the republic.

In the fall of 1864, President Lincoln faced a series of obstacles in his bid for reelection. The civil war had dragged on for over three years, and the inability of the Union Army to capture Richmond and control Virginia led many Americans to doubt that victory was in sight. Lincoln himself faced criticism on all sides: many anti-war Democrats insisted he was a tyrant who cavalierly imposed a draft and violated civil liberties, while his fellow Republicans charged that he was insufficiently prosecuting the war against the Confederacy. The big gains of 1863—Gettysburg and Vicksburg—began to seem like distant memories. The party even flirted with the idea of dumping Lincoln for another candidate, and a pesky third-party candidate, John Fremont, threatened to steal away the votes of unsatisfied Republicans.

That grim summer, Lincoln actually acknowledged that he might lose the election. Such a prospect was particularly terrifying to Lincoln, for a repudiation of his administration was a repudiation of the war itself. The Democrats were about to adopt a platform that promised immediate negotiations to end the war with the Confederacy, which would have meant an end as well to his efforts to permanently end slavery with a Constitutional effort. Adding insult to injury, the opposing party nominated Lincoln’s adversary, General George McClellan, whom Lincoln had fired two years before. Reelection was essential; losing meant losing the war. What Lincoln needed, above all, was tangible evidence that the Union was on its way to victory over the South.

The Democrats put McClellan forward on August 31. His nomination enjoyed the spotlight for a single day before it was eclipsed by stunning news from the front: on September 1, Confederate forces had surrendered Atlanta to Union forces under the command of General William Tecumseh Sherman.

The timing shows the intricate relationship between the battlefront and the home front. Sherman’s victory gave the embattled president hope. Though this was not the only factor in the election, it certainly demonstrated strong territorial gains for the Union. And Lincoln won big on November 8, crushing McClellan with a 212-12 win in the Electoral College and 55 percent of the popular vote. Had McClellan won, General Sherman’s march through Georgia would surely have come to an end. But instead, just days after the election, Sherman took his men on one of the ambitious and risky campaigns of the war, cutting loose from his supply line to cut a sixty-mile swath through to the sea. He reached Savannah on December 10, presenting the city to the president as an early Christmas gift.