Just days before the 1864 presidential election, the Chicago Tribune leads with Union military victories that seem to vindicate Lincoln's war strategy. General Grant's reconnaissance near Petersburg has gained 15 miles of territory and captured 300 prisoners, while General Sherman's army pursues Confederate General Hood through Georgia with such vigor that 1,900 rebel stragglers—many barefoot and starving on parched corn—are surrendering daily. Pennsylvania's election results show a Union landslide with an 8,000-vote majority in the home vote alone, with soldiers' ballots expected to push it to 15,000. Meanwhile, the paper skewers Democratic candidate Cyrus McCormick for pretending to be a "workingman's friend" while actually patronizing laborers and ignoring the Southern Democrats' explicit belief that capital should own labor itself.

This election edition captures the Civil War at its crucial turning point—October 1864. Lincoln's reelection hung in the balance, with many Northerners weary from three years of brutal conflict. Military victories like Sherman's Atlanta Campaign and Grant's Petersburg push gave the Union Party concrete proof that victory was possible, not a distant dream. The Tribune's mockery of McCormick and the Democrats reveals deep ideological fractures: Democrats were fractured between War Democrats and Copperheads (those opposing the war), while Republicans increasingly embraced the radical abolition position. The soldiers' votes mentioned throughout—cast from the field itself—represented a historic shift in how Americans understood citizenship and democracy.

• The paper mocks Democratic candidates for writing contradictory letters about their platform positions, then declares: 'Let them continue to write letters, and on the 8th of November not one of them will know which end he stands on.' The actual election was November 8, 1864—written just 9 days before.
• A brief notice reports that 'the 5th Wisconsin Battery voted as follows: Lincoln 143, McClellan 1'—a 143-to-1 ratio showing how overwhelmingly soldiers supported Lincoln despite civilian opposition.
• Gov. Bradford's proclamation announcing Maryland as a 'free State' is buried mid-page, yet represents Maryland becoming the first slave state to abolish slavery during the war itself (through its new state constitution).
• The subscription rates reveal the paper's reach: daily delivery in the city cost $2.50/quarter, while mail subscribers paid $12/year—making it accessible to middle-class readers across Illinois and beyond.
• A correspondent reports Hood's Confederate army reduced to 27,000 men (including cavalry) and notes that 'Forrest is known to be recoonoitering for a crossing place at the Muscle Shoals'—Nathan Bedford Forrest, who would later found the KKK, is casually mentioned as a current military threat.

• The Tribune mentions Cyrus McCormick as a 'workingman's friend' running for office—but McCormick was already famous as the inventor of the mechanical reaper and a ruthless industrialist. His 1864 campaign was a rare political foray; he'd go on to donate his fortune to establish McCormick Theological Seminary, which still operates today.
• The paper references the Homestead Act being passed 'two years ago'—that was 1862, and it fundamentally redistributed 270 million acres of public land to settlers. The McCormick criticism that he's late to champion it is pointed satire of opportunism.
• Hon. Salmon P. Chase is announced as arriving to campaign for Lincoln on November 4th—Chase was Lincoln's Treasury Secretary and the man literally putting his face on the $10,000 bill (currency he designed). He'd later become Chief Justice.
• Sherman's army is reported near 'Galesvillle' pursuing Hood—this is the Atlanta Campaign, one of history's most consequential military operations. Sherman's March to the Sea begins just two weeks after this paper's publication.
• The British Duke of Newcastle's death is noted in the back pages—he was the guardian of the Prince of Wales and had visited Chicago in 1860. His death marked the end of the old Peelite conservative faction in British politics, coinciding with America's own political realignment.