1863 Alabama gubernatorial election

August 3, 1863


Nominee	Thomas Hill Watts	John Gill Shorter
Party	Whig	Democratic
Popular vote	28,221	9,664
Percentage	71.71%	24.56%

County results
Watts:      50-60%      60-70%      70-80%      80-90%      >90%
Shorter:      50-60%      60-70%      70-80%      >90%
     Returns Rejected

Governor before election

John Gill Shorter
Democratic

Elected Governor

Thomas Hill Watts
Whig

Elections in Alabama

Federal government

Presidential elections
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Presidential primaries
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U.S. House of Representatives elections
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State government

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State Treasurer elections
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Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries elections
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Ballot measures

1999: Amendment 1

2000: Amendment 2

2006: Amendment 774

2020: Amendment 1

2024: Amendment 1 (November)

Auburn

Municipal
2010 2014 2018 2022

Birmingham

Mayoral elections
2017 2021

Huntsville

Mayoral elections
2008 2012 2016 2020 2024

Lee County

Elections
2024

Mobile

Mayoral elections
2021 2025

Montgomery

Mayoral elections
2007 2009 sp 2011 2015 2019 2023

Government

The 1863 Alabama gubernatorial election took place on August 3, 1863 in order to elect the governor of Alabama. Whig Thomas Hill Watts won his first term as governor.

Candidates

Whig Party

Thomas H. Watts, 3rd Confederate States Attorney General

Democratic Party

John Gill Shorter, Deputy from Alabama to the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States; incumbent 17th Governor of Alabama
James F. Dowdell, member of the House of Representatives from Alabama, 1853–1859; colonel in the Confederate Army

Election

Statewide

1863 Alabama gubernatorial election
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Whig	Thomas Hill Watts	28,221	71.71	29.08
	Democratic	John Gill Shorter	9,664	24.56	−32.81
	Democratic	James F. Dowdell	1,371	3.74	3.74
Total votes			39,256	100.00
	Whig gain from Democratic

References

^ "Thomas Hill Watts". National Governors Association. January 17, 2011. Retrieved January 11, 2024.
"Watts, Thomas Hill". Encyclopedia of Alabama. Alabama Humanities Alliance. Retrieved January 11, 2024.
"Shorter, John Gill". Encyclopedia of Alabama. Alabama Humanities Alliance. Retrieved January 11, 2024.
"Dowdell, James Ferguson". Encyclopedia of Alabama. Alabama Humanities Alliance. Retrieved January 11, 2024.
Dubin, Michael J (2014). United States Gubernatorial Elections, 1861-1911 | The Official Results by State and County. McFarland. ISBN 9780786456468.

Reconstruction era

Participants

Federal government

Presidents

Congress

Federal judiciary

Federal bureaucracy

State governments

Others

Elections

Presidential	1864 DNC National Union Convention Radical Democracy Party 1868 DNC RNC 1872 DNC RNC Liberal Republican Party Straight-Out Democratic Party Victoria Woodhull 1876 DNC RNC Greenback Convention Prohibition Convention Electoral Commission Compromise of 1877
U.S. Senate	1864–65 1866–67 1868–69 1870–71 1872–73 1874–75 1876–77
U.S. House	1864–65 1866–67 1868–69 1870–71 1872–73 1874–75 1876–77
Gubernatorial	1863 AL CA CT KY MA MN NH OH PA VA VT WI WV 1864 CT IL IN LA MD MA MI MO NH VT WV 1865 CT FL LA MA MN NJ OH SC VT WI 1866 CT DE MA ME MI NC OR PA TX VT WV 1867 CA CT MA MD ME MN OH VT WI 1868 AL CT FL IL IN LA MA ME MI MO NC NJ SC VT WV 1869 CT IA MA ME MN MS OH PA RI VA VT WI 1870 AL CT DE MA ME MI MO OR RI SC VT WV 1871 CA CT IA KY MA MD ME MN NJ OH RI WI 1872 AL CT FL IL IN LA MA ME MI MO NC PA RI SC VT WV 1873 CT IA MA ME MN MS OH TX VA WI 1874 AL CT DE KS MA ME MI MO NJ NV OR SC VT 1875 CA CT IA KY MA MD ME MN OH OH WI 1876 AL CO CT Apr. CT Nov. FL IL IN KS LA MA ME MI MO NC RI SC VT WV
U.S. elections	1864 1866 1868 1870 1872 1874 1876

Key events

Prelude	American Indian Wars Slavery in the United States A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) The Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women (1838) Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1839) Seneca Falls Convention (1848) National Women's Rights Convention (1850) American Civil War Confiscation Act of 1861 Confiscation Act of 1862 District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act (1862) Militia Act of 1862
1863	Emancipation Proclamation General Order No. 143 Lincoln's presidential Reconstruction Ten percent plan National Bank Act Women's Loyal National League New York City draft riots 1863 State of the Union Address
1864	Wade–Davis Bill 1864 elections 1864 State of the Union Address
1865	13th Amendment Second inauguration of Abraham Lincoln Address Black Codes Special Field Orders No. 15 Freedmen's Bureau Freedmen's Bureau bills Confederates surrender at Appomattox Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Shaw University New Departure 1865 State of the Union Address Founding of the Ku Klux Klan
1866	Civil Rights Act of 1866 Memphis massacre of 1866 New Orleans Massacre of 1866 Swing Around the Circle Southern Homestead Act of 1866 Fort Smith Conference and Cherokee Reconstruction Treaty of 1866 Choctaw and Chickasaw Treaty of Washington of 1866 Tennessee readmitted to Union Petition for Universal Freedom National Labor Union Ex parte Garland Ex parte Milligan Slave Kidnapping Act of 1866 1866 elections
1867	Tenure of Office Act Command of Army Act Indian Peace Commission Knights of the White Camelia Pulaski riot Reconstruction Acts Reconstruction military districts Constitutional conventions of 1867 Habeas Corpus Act of 1867 Peonage Act of 1867 First impeachment inquiry into Andrew Johnson 1867 State of the Union Address
1868	14th Amendment Second impeachment inquiry into Andrew Johnson Impeachment of Andrew Johnson Timeline Impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson Impeachment managers investigation Articles of impeachment Arkansas readmitted to Union Florida readmitted to Union North Carolina readmitted to Union South Carolina readmitted to Union Louisiana readmitted to Union Alabama readmitted to Union Opelousas massacre Fourth Reconstruction Act Georgia v. Stanton 1868 elections 1868 State of the Union Address
1869	National Woman Suffrage Association American Woman Suffrage Association Alabama Claims Proposed annexation of Santo Domingo Board of Indian Commissioners Public Credit Act of 1869 Black Friday (1869) Ex parte McCardle First transcontinental railroad 1869 State of the Union Address
1870	15th Amendment Enforcement Act of 1870 Justice Department Naturalization Act of 1870 Kirk–Holden war Shoffner Act 1870 elections 1870 State of the Union Address
1871	Ku Klux Klan hearings Second Enforcement Act Ku Klux Klan Act Alcorn State University Meridian race riot of 1871 Treaty of Washington New York custom house ring Civil service commission United States expedition to Korea 1871 State of the Union Address
1872	General Mining Act of 1872 Crédit Mobilier scandal Modoc War Star Route scandal Salary Grab Act Amnesty Act 1872 elections 1872 State of the Union Address
1873	Panic of 1873 Colfax massacre Timber Culture Act Slaughter-House Cases Virginius Affair Coinage Act of 1873 Long Depression Comstock laws 1873 State of the Union Address
1874	Brooks–Baxter War Battle of Liberty Place Coushatta massacre Red River War Timber Culture Act White League Election Massacre of 1874 Vicksburg massacre Black Hills Gold Rush Sanborn incident Anti-Moiety Acts 1874 elections 1874 State of the Union Address
1875	United States v. Cruikshank Civil Rights Act of 1875 Red Shirts Mississippi Plan Clifton Riot of 1875 Yazoo City Riot of 1875 Specie Payment Resumption Act Whiskey Ring Wheeler Compromise Delano affair Pratt & Boyd 1875 State of the Union Address
1876	Hamburg massacre South Carolina civil disturbances of 1876 Ellenton massacre Great Sioux War of 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn United States v. Reese Trader post scandal Centennial Exposition Cattellism Safe burglary conspiracy 1876 elections 1876 State of the Union Address
1877	Electoral Commission Compromise of 1877 Nez Perce War Desert Land Act Great Railroad Strike of 1877
Aftermath	Posse Comitatus Act (1878) Civil Rights Cases (1883) United States v. Harris (1883) Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) Williams v. Mississippi (1898) Wilmington insurrection of 1898 Giles v. Harris (1903) Disenfranchisement

Aspects

Historiography	Bibliography of the Reconstruction era James Shepherd Pike The Prostrate State (1874) James Bryce The American Commonwealth (1888) Claude G. Bowers The Tragic Era (1929) Columbia University John Burgess Walter Lynwood Fleming Dunning School William Archibald Dunning Charles A. Beard Howard K. Beale W. E. B. Du Bois Black Reconstruction in America (1935) C. Vann Woodward Joel Williamson William R. Brock The American Crisis (1963) John Hope Franklin From Slavery to Freedom (1947) After Slavery (1965) Leon Litwack Been in the Storm So Long (1979) Eric Foner Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (1988) Kenneth M. Stampp Steven Hahn A Nation Under Our Feet (2003) The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution (2019)
Memory	Winslow Homer A Visit from the Old Mistress (1876) Thomas Dixon Jr. The Leopard's Spots (1902) The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan (1905) D. W. Griffith The Birth of a Nation (1915) United Daughters of the Confederacy Gone with the Wind (1939) David W. Blight Race and Reunion (2001)
Legacy	Women's suffrage in the United States Labor history of the United States Gilded Age Jim Crow era Civil rights movement American frontier
Other topics	African American founding fathers of the United States Forty acres and a mule Habeas corpus History of the United States (1865–1917) Paramilitary Race (human categorization) Reconstruction Treaties Suffrage Technological and industrial history of the United States White supremacy Whitecapping

Category

v t e (1862 ←) 1863 United States elections (→ 1864)
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U.S. House	California Delaware at-large (special) Connecticut Kentucky Maryland New Hampshire New York 14th (special) Rhode Island Vermont West Virginia
State governors	Alabama (confederate) California Connecticut Louisiana (confederate) Maine Massachusetts Minnesota New Hampshire Ohio Pennsylvania Texas (confederate) Vermont Virginia Virginia (confederate) West Virginia Wisconsin
Mayors	Boston, MA Chicago, IL Manchester, NH

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