McClellan Tries to Ride Two Horses

Title: McClellan Tries to Ride Two Horses

Year: 1864

Creator: National Union Party Cartoon

Description: Democratic presidential candidate George B. McClellan is portrayed in the awkward dilemma which the 1864 Democratic National Convention placed him. General McClellan was nominated to run on a peace platform which was incompatible with his own views. As circus performer McClellan straddles the horses of “Peace” and “War”, a clown-attired Abraham Lincoln says: “You tried to ride them two horses on the Peninsula for two years, Mac, but it wouldn’t work.” McClellan, who failed in that campaign to take Richmond, says confidentially: “Curse them balky horses – I can’t manage the act no how. One threw me in Virginia, and the other is bound the other way.”