The Wide Awakes run ballots.
After the brutal attack, the hospitalized grade school Wide Awakes become the top political story in Connecticut with 72 hours before Election day. Newspapers in Boston and New York echo Connecticut papers implying that if the Republicans go on to lose, it would not be the fault of the Wide Awakes. But if they do win…this gang of young liberals that started as a Church’s youth group would be in the driver’s seat of a political party that had momentum and a shot at the White House. On E-Day across the state, for twelve hours straight, the Wide Awake ballot runners “get-out-the-vote,” canvassing their friends and family to squeeze every vote they can from their network. We reveal a step-by-step portrait of 19th-century electioneering. At 3:00 AM, news breaks that by a margin of 561 votes, the upstart Republican Party had won the governor’s mansion. The Monday after the election, on his desk, Sperry finds hundreds of letters from more States requesting to start new chapters. Sperry notes on a map which areas of the North have not yet started chapters. Sperry’s work is just beginning.