Calling themselves "Conservative Republicans," a political grouping that would quickly become allied with the Democratic Party assembled in a convention in Des Moines, Iowa. With former Union general and former Democratic candidate for governor, Thomas Hart Benton, Jr. in the chair, the gathering sought to establish a "new" political party opposed to the radical wing of the Republican Party, to be known as the "National Union" party. Two weeks later the Iowa Democratic Convention adopted almost all the candidates the Conservative Republicans nominated at this gathering. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
"Iowa," The American Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1866 (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1873), 408.
Record Data
Date Certainty
Exact
Type
Campaigns/Elections