WI: Rutherford B. Hayes and William McKinley Are Killed at Antietam

What if Rutherford B. Hayes and William McKinley are killed at the Battle of Antietam during the American Civil War? What direction does the U.S. take?
 
Hayes wasn't at Antietam he was badly wounded in the arm at the Battle of South Mountain just before it so have the bullet kill him.
 
Unless another popular Ohioan can be found you probably get President Tilden in 1876. Hayes carried his home state by a single percentage point, and just about any other Republican would probably have lost it.
 
Unless another popular Ohioan can be found you probably get President Tilden in 1876. Hayes carried his home state by a single percentage point, and just about any other Republican would probably have lost it.

Hayes's strength is not only that he comes from the key state of Ohio, but that he had sufficient reform credentials to get the support of Carl Schurz and other Liberal supporters of 1872.

However, are we sure that without Hayes, the Democrats would nominate Tilden? Suppose William Allen was re-elected governor of Ohio in 1875--in OTL he was narrowly defeated by Hayes:
William Allen : 292,273 Rutherford B. Hayes : 297,817) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_gubernatorial_elections

See a DBWI I once wrote about this:

***

> Other candidates for most undeservedly obscure figures in AH?

Governor William Allen of Ohio, who narrowly won re-election against ex-
governor Rutherford Hayes in 1875. That may seem trivial, but if Hayes had
won, he might well have been the Republican candidate for president in 1876,
and might even have won (he was probably the only Republican candidate who
could have carried Ohio that year).

But that was not the only significance of Governor Allen's victory. Allen
was a leading supporter of the soft-money wing of the Democratic party. His
victory was a smashing rebuke to the hard-money forces led by Governor Tilden
of New York. (Indeed, it is said that Tildenites were secretly financing
General Hayes' campaign.) Moreover, the momentum it generated led to another
soft-money Democratic victory in Pennsylvania a month later. After that,
Tilden was finished. The Democrats in 1876 nominated a soft-money man,
Senator Thomas Hendricks of Indiana, who defeated the Republican candidate
James Blaine. Although President Hendricks was not able to get the
Resumption Act repealed, he did the next best thing by remonetizing silver
and reversing the "crime of 1873." Thus, the nation was spared what might
otherwise have been decades of deflation.

So without William Allen we might have had a choice between two hard-money
men--Hayes and Tilden--in 1876. Ugh.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/53YbbB7B9Sc/Ja6nP3GoNy0J
 
How popular was Garfield in 1876?

He would have been something of a dark horse, but then he was in 1880, too. But if we are speaking of Ohioans running in the absence of Hayes, I think John Sherman (a Hayes supporter in OTL) would be more likely. But Sherman is one of those people who always looks like a plausible presidential nominee but is somehow never nominated.
 
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He would have been something of a dark horse, but then he was in 12880, too. But if we are speaking of Ohioans running in the absence of Hayes, I think John Sherman (a Hayes supporter in OTL) would be more likely. But Sherman is one of those people who always looks like a plausible presidential nominee but is somehow never nominated.

Interesting.

As weird as it sounds, how likely would a third term Grant be? Its not as far fetched as it sounds (even with all the government corruption) given he was still personally popular, and I think it was the Pennsylvania Republican Party??? that planned to endorse him - have to check which Grant bio I got that from though. Apparetnly he had considered the idea, and some people told him to run, but he didn't want to remain Presidnet for another four years as he was pretty miserable by then .
 

Thomas1195

Banned
He would have been something of a dark horse, but then he was in 1880, too. But if we are speaking of Ohioans running in the absence of Hayes, I think John Sherman (a Hayes supporter in OTL) would be more likely. But Sherman is one of those people who always looks like a plausible presidential nominee but is somehow never nominated.
Well, either Sherman or Reed might get the 1896 nomination without McKinley
 
Well, either Sherman or Reed might get the 1896 nomination without McKinley

I think Sherman's age and health would have ruled him out in 1896. (In OTL, "he gave speeches on behalf of fellow Ohioan William McKinley in his campaign for the presidency, but took a lesser role than in previous campaigns because of his advanced age." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sherman)

Reed is a possibility but would have been a weak candidate IMO. Kevin Phillips in his biography of McKinley William McKinley (New York: Times Books 2003) writes that "In all likelihood, no other Republican could have done as well as McKinley. Certainly not porcine House Speaker Reed, whose Yankee drawl, acerbic wit, and longtime support for gold would have fit into an Eastern stereotype to voters west of the Appalachians. Simply subtract from McKinley's total the reasonably close states of California, Oregon, Indiana, Ohio, and North Dakota--all political cultures where Reed's Eastern orientation would have played into Bryan's hands--and the House Speaker would have been defeated. Probably he would not have done that well."

Probably the strongest candidate in the absence of McKinley would have been Iowa Senator William B. Allison. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_B._Allison He was less of a hardliner on gold than Reed, and could appeal more to the Midwest.
 
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