The Chicago Tribune leads with a blistering attack on General George B. McClellan, the Democratic Party's presidential nominee, for accepting the party's nomination while simultaneously rejecting its platform. The Democratic Convention in Chicago had demanded an immediate armistice with the Confederacy, but McClellan's letter of acceptance insisted that 'the re-establishment of the Union in all its integrity is and must be the indispensable condition of any settlement.' The Tribune calls this an extraordinary political spectacle—a candidate who won't endorse the principles of the men who nominated him. The paper suggests McClellan has entered into a conspiracy with August Belmont, agent of the Rothschilds, to negotiate a dishonorable peace that would saddle the United States with the Confederate debt. Below the fold, a harrowing firsthand account from an emigrant party on the Plains describes Indian attacks, stolen livestock, murdered settlers, and families surrounded by raiders demanding supper before opening fire. The correspondent reports 60 head of stock lost, one teamster with an arrow wound, and military forces that refuse to pursue the attackers despite having 200 volunteers and two mounted howitzers available.

September 1864 was the election's critical moment. Lincoln's re-election was uncertain—many Northerners were war-weary, and the Democrats hoped McClellan could unite peace advocates with war supporters. This front page reveals the Republican strategy: expose the Democrats' real platform (immediate armistice) while using McClellan's own words against them. The Tribune's vehement tone reflects genuine anxiety about losing the presidency to someone they viewed as potentially treasonous. Meanwhile, the Indian attacks on the frontier underscore the war's wider impact—settlers were exposed to violence while the Army was consumed fighting in the East. These two stories frame America in September 1864: politically fractured at home, militarily stretched across a continent.

• The Tribune is selling a 16-page pamphlet compiling 'treasonable and revolutionary utterances' from the Democratic Convention for just five cents per copy or 30 cents per dozen—essentially mass-producing political attack ads for distribution to soldiers in the field.
• A subscription to the Chicago Tribune cost $13 per year for daily delivery by mail, but only $6 for a full year of tri-weekly service—revealing a two-tier information system for readers willing to wait longer between issues.
• The paper notes that gold fell to $2.29 the previous day and predicts Lincoln's election victory in November will drive the price even lower by guaranteeing the war's end and Union restoration—treating the election outcome as a commodity futures bet.
• Captain Granger's company had 60 loose mules stolen but managed to scrape together only 31 mules to send back as replacements—illustrating the desperate arithmetic of frontier supply chains during wartime.
• The military expedition sent to recover stolen livestock left with '200 soldiers and ten days' rations,' yet the writer observes they 'could have gone' after the raiders but chose not to—suggesting either incompetence or deliberate indifference to settler concerns.

• August Belmont, mentioned here as the Rothschilds' agent allegedly plotting with McClellan, was actually the Democratic National Committee chairman—making him not some shadowy foreign operative but the party's own establishment figure. He would later serve as a major financier of the Union cause post-war.
• The Tribune's invocation of Pope election procedures is oddly prescient: just weeks after this paper, the First Vatican Council would convene in December 1864, the first ecumenical council in 300 years, making papal succession suddenly topical in ways American readers would understand.
• McClellan had indeed suspended habeas corpus and arrested Maryland legislators during his military command—exactly what the Tribune references—making the Democratic platform's denunciation of such 'despotic acts' genuinely hypocritical since their own candidate had committed them.
• The Plano Bridge mentioned in the emigrant letter was a crucial Overland Trail crossing in Nebraska; it would become a telegraph relay station and supply depot for thousands heading to California and Utah during the 1860s gold rush migrations.
• By November 1864, Lincoln would win re-election with 55% of the popular vote and 212 electoral votes to McClellan's 21—the Tribune's confidence in these pages proved justified, and the party fracture they documented never healed; McClellan would be cashiered from politics entirely within two years.