President William Rosecrans

General William Rosecrans was a prominent War Democrat who won important battles in the American Civil War’s Western Theather, though he would be relived of command by Grant following a devesating defeat at the Battle of Chickamauga. Lincoln was seriously considering Rosecrans as a running mate in 1864 and sent him a written request. Rosecrans showed interest in the offer and wrote back to the president. However this reply was never delivered as Secretary of War Edwin Stanton intercepted and destroysed the telegram.

What if Rosecrans was on the ticket rather than Johnson? How would the 1864 election be effected, and if Lincoln still dies in office what does a Rosecrans presidency look like?
 
Considering Ambrose Burnside had a shockingly successful political career despite Fredericksburg, I'd guess Chickamauga wouldn't be too big an impediment to Rosecrans. The ticket would still win, certainly. As for his Presidency, well, he pushed for increased voter registration IOTL, so maybe he'd have been a better ally to Reconstruction than Johnson was. That wouldn't be too hard, of course.
 
Rosencrans was a Catholic (and a convert to boot), whose brother was made a RC bishop in 1862. It wouldn't be till a hundred years later that a Catholic could be elected President in the US (and he also faced prejudice which he had to address and JFK was not noticeably publicly devout as Rosencrans apparently was). I can't see him being accepted as Vice-President in 1864.
 
I think you are way overestimating Rosecrans' chances. See Allan Peskin, Garfield: A Biography. (Garfield was the chief booster of Rosecrans for vice-president at the Baltimore convention.)

"Garfield was certainly not blind to Rosecrans's erratic temperament, his vanity, his constant need of reassurance. Under the circumstances, his efforts in his behalf at Baltimore bear a touch of irresponsibility. It seems to have been a spur-of-the-moment effort, without advance preparation or consultation; an expression of Garfield's boredom with the convention and his desire to play the role of kingmaker. He dashed off a telegram to Rosecrans asking permission to enter his name in the vice-presidential contest. Rosecrans sent back a verbose but indecisive reply, as ambiguous as the famous order at Chickamauga and with similar effect. His friends at the convention retreated in confusion and the nomination went to Andrew Johnson, with whom Garfield had been in 'intimate acquaintance' ever since Johnson had been War Governor of Tennessee. Johnson was a friend of Garfield's and presumably radical, so that Garfield was content. He was not as well pleased with the main work of the convention. 'Of course we must all go for Lincoln if a Copperhead is the alternative,' he told a friend, 'but we have made a fearful mistake in nominating him.'" https://books.google.com/books?id=SRmY164czTQC&pg=PA240

What about Stanton's alleged interception of the letter? This seems to be speculation on the part of Rosecrans, though accepted by his biographer Lamers (The Edge of Glory) and the Wikipedia article on Rosecrans. However, as Peskin writes:

"34. Lamers, in Edge of Glory, 424-25, maintains that Garfield never received Rosecrans's reply, presumably because Secretary of War Stanton used his control of the telegraph lines to suppress it, thereby dooming the Rosecrans movement. However, a copy of this telegram does exist in the Garfield Papers, LC, dated June 7, 1864, and bearing a comment on the back dated the following September. This clearly indicates that if Garfield did not receive Rosecrans's wire in June he must have seen it quite soon thereafter. Since he nowhere betrays any irritation at having his telegrams intercepted and, in fact, never indicated that there was any irregularity at all, it seems reasonable to assume that it was delivered on time and that Rosecrans lost the nomination on his own merits and not through the machinations of Stanton." https://books.google.com/books?id=S...oks.google.com/books?id=SRmY164czTQC&pg=PA643

There really is no reason to think that Rosecrans would have gotten the nomination, even if his response to Garfield would have been less ambiguous. Not only was his role at Chickaumaga controversial at best but he was a Catholic in an era when the Catholic vote (compared to the twentieth century) was still small and the anti-Catholic vote large. The Know Nothing movement was only a decade in the past, and nativists remained powerful in the Republican/Union Party. Indeed, Fremont may have lost in 1856 partly because of false rumors that he was a Catholic.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-real-reason-fremont-lost-in-1856.444186/ And hostility by nativists was one reason Seward was defeated for the Republican nomination in 1860. Besides, Lincoln wanted a southerner to advance the cause of reunion--if he couldn't get Johnson, I think Joseph Holt of Kentucky would be the most likely choice.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...t-lincoln-veeps-in-1864.444947/#post-17102564
 
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