Claim: One President of America was Abraham Lincoln.

The United States presidential election of 1864 was the 20th quadrennial presidential election , held on Tuesday , November 8 , 1864 . In this match , incumbent president Republican Abraham Lincoln ran for re-election against Democratic candidate George B. McClellan , who tried to portray himself to the voters as the `` peace candidate '' who wanted to bring the American Civil War to a speedy end . Lincoln was re-elected president by a landslide in the Electoral College .   Since the election of 1860 , the Electoral College had expanded with the admission of Kansas , West Virginia , and Nevada as free-soil states . As the Civil War was still raging , no electoral votes were counted from any of the eleven southern states that had joined the Confederate States of America .   Lincoln won by more than 400,000 popular votes , partly as a result of the recent Union victory at the Battle of Atlanta and was the first president to be re-elected since Democrat Andrew Jackson in 1832 . The second inauguration of Abraham Lincoln took place on March 4 , 1865 , but he was assassinated on April 15 , 1865 , only 42 days later . Lincoln 's second term is the second shortest term served by any U.S. president , next to the 31-day presidency of William Henry Harrison .