The Wide Awakes

The Wide Awakes was a youth organization and uniformed "marching club" cultivated by the Republican Party during the 1860 presidential election in the United States. Using popular social events, an ethos of competitive fraternity, and even promotional comic books, the organization introduced many to political participation and proclaimed itself as the newfound voice of younger voters. The structured militant Wide Awakes appealed to a generation which had been profoundly shaken by the partisan instability in the 1850s, and offered young northerners a much-needed political identity.. Once the Civil War began, young members of local "Wide Awake" chapters volunteered in large numbers for the U.S. Army; historians estimate that up to 75% of Wide Awakes served during the Civil War, as compared to approximately 50% of Northern men as a whole.