 Election interference by the Union Army gave him a landslide victory over his opponent, Charles A. Wickliffe.Within a year, however, federal policies such as recruiting Kentucky Negroes for the Union Army and suspending the writ of "habeas corpus" for Kentucky citizens caused Bramlette to abandon his support of the Lincoln administration and declare that he would "bloodily baptize the state into the Confederacy".After the war, Bramlette issued a general pardon for most ex-Confederates in the state.