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A remarkably similar scene was playing out in Albany. Around midnight, Cleveland stretched, saying, “If you stay up much longer, you will be counting me out.” Then he announced that he was going to bed and advised everyone to do the same. They watched the candidate retire for the night. The moment he was gone, the wily Apgar and Lamont leapt into action. Now they were free to play some hardball politics. Something was definitely up. Returns from the Republican counties seemed “suspiciously slow,” and the two men suspected that the tabulations were being withheld until GOP leaders could determine to what extent the ballot boxes had to be stuffed to make up the difference. Apgar and Lamont divvied up the list of every Democratic Party county leader in the state and sent telegrams to all of them:

“The only hope of our opponents is a fraudulent count in the county districts. Call to your assistance today vigilant and courageous friends, and see that every vote is honestly counted. Telegraph me at once your estimate.”

To this telegram they affixed Daniel Manning’s name, for added weight. Across the state, party leaders were ordered to head to their respective county clerk’s office and remain there until the votes were tabulated and certified. No one wanted a replay of the election theft of 1876.

The morning after the election, Americans were bewildered; the Democratic newspapers projected Cleveland as the next president while the Republican papers assured their readers that Blaine had emerged triumphant. No one knew for certain. Unofficially, in New York State, Blaine was ahead by just 988 votes, with thirteen election districts yet to report. Outside Democratic Party headquarters at the Hoffman House and GOP headquarters at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, vast partisan crowds gathered as the official count trickled in. Two bellwether states, New Jersey and Indiana, went for Cleveland. So had Connecticut—which cut into Blaine’s lock on New England. California was up in the air. Of course the entire Deep South had voted for Cleveland.

Outside the Hoffman House, the shout went up, “Give us New York!” Everyone was waiting for the results from the Empire State; without his home state, Cleveland was done for. The propaganda machines went into overdrive, and accusations flew on both sides. The Western Union Telegraph Company, which was owned by the Republican robber baron Jay Gould, issued a communiqué, claiming that Blaine had taken New York by a plurality of 11,000 votes, but most people assumed it was just dust being thrown in the electorate’s eyes. In retaliation, an angry mob marched to Gould’s mansion on 5th Avenue, chanting, “We’ll hang Jay Gould to a sour apple tree.” Bulletins posted at the nation’s leading Republican newspaper, the New York Tribune, proclaiming Blaine victories in Virginia, Maryland, and Tennessee were laughed off as “simply idiotic, ” and a throng of outraged Cleveland supporters stormed the Tribune building on Nassau Street. Had a quick-thinking janitor not slammed the iron doors shut just in time, the Tribune would have been taken over before reinforcements from the city hall police precinct got there and dispersed the horde.

“I believe I have been elected president,” Cleveland informed the mayor of Troy, New York. “And nothing but the greatest fraud can keep me out of it, and that we will not permit.” Dan Manning even hinted at inaugurating Cleveland by force of arms if necessary.

Writing to his father from his desk at the judge advocate’s office on Broadway, Horatio King said the anxiety of the people “equaled anything I ever felt in the war.”

“Cleveland is elected,” King declared, and any attempt to deny him the office “will be met by force. The people here are greatly excited, and it will take but a spark to create a riot.”

On the Friday following Election Day, Cleveland finally took the official lead in New York. A recount for the entire state was ordered. When Cleveland learned that he had been defeated