The 1876 U.S. Presidential Campaign

1876 U.S. Army Campaign against the Sioux. (source)

1876 -- Three southern states are still under federal military occupation: Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina.

Jun 14-16 -- Republican National Convention in Cincinnati nominates Gov. Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio for President.

Hayes was a virtual unknown outside his home state of Ohio, where he had served two terms as a Congressman and then two terms as governor. Henry Adams wrote "[Hayes] is a third-rate nonentity whose only recommendations are that he is obnoxious to no one." He had served in the Civil War with distinction as colonel of the 23rd Ohio Regiment and was wounded several times, which made him marketable to veterans. He had later been brevetted as a Major General. Hayes' most important asset was his help to the Republican ticket in carrying the crucial swing state of Ohio. 

Jun 25-26 -- Battle of Little Bighorn in the Montana Territory. Five companies of the 7th U.S. Calvary under Custer are wiped out, and Custer is killed.

Jun 27-29 -- Democratic National Convention in St. Louis nominates Gov. Samuel Tilden of New York for President. 

Tilden, who had prosecuted machine politicians in New York and sent legendary political boss William M. Tweed to jail, ran as a reform candidate against the background of the corruption of the Grant administration. 

Newspaperman John D. Defrees described Tilden as "a very nice, prim, little, withered-up, fidgety old bachelor, about one-hundred and twenty-pounds avoirdupois, who never had a genuine impulse for many nor any affection for woman."

Jul 4 -- U.S. celebrates the Centennial of Independence.

Aug 1 -- Colorado admitted to the Union, adding three electoral votes to the Electoral College.

Aug 8 -- Thomas Edison receives a U.S. patent for the electric pen, a device for duplicating hand-written documents that was the forerunner of the mimeograph.

1876 Fall -- U.S. Presidential campaign.

Both parties backed civil service reform and an end to Reconstruction. Both sides mounted mud-slinging campaigns, with Democratic attacks on Republican corruption being countered by Republicans raising the Civil War issue.

Nov 7 -- U.S. Presidential election of 1876 held in 38 states with 369 Electoral Votes.