The 1865 Mississippi gubernatorial election took place on October 2, 1865. Benjamin G. Humphreys defeated Ephraim S. Fisher and William S. Patton.
Andrew Johnson appointed William L. Sharkey provisional governor of Mississippi following the conclusion of the American Civil War. A prewar Whig and member of the Antebellum planter class, Sharkey's background reflected the profile of the Southern Unionist planters and entrepreneurs whose support Johnson sought for his planned bid for re-election. As governor, Sharkey oversaw the revision of the state's laws to comply with the terms of Presidential Reconstruction, abolishing slavery and annulling the 1861 Ordinance of Secession. His staunch opposition to Black suffrage forced him to rely on the support of former Confederates to uphold his authority. Sharkey permitted former Confederate officials to keep their positions and clashed with Union Army commanders over his plan to reorganize the state militia with Confederate veterans. He took minimal action to recognize the civil rights of freedpeople as part of an agreement to curtail the operations of the Freedmen's Bureau, which was a major antagonist of white planters.
With elections to chose the governor and other members of the reconstructed state government set for October 2, members of the state convention held a caucus on August 23, 1865, and nominated Fisher for governor. A prewar Whig who had briefly served in the Confederate home guard in 1864, Fisher represented the choice of the convention's Unionist Whigs, who comprised 75 percent of the delegates. His opponents, Humphreys and Patton, were both Unionists who opposed secession in 1861; Humphries, like Fisher, was a prewar Whig, while Patton had been a Unionist Democrat before the war. The campaign revolved around the rights of freedpeople and the need for debt relief following the war. With few concrete differences separating the candidates, prewar allegiances and wartime activities were important issues. Humphreys's opponents alleged he was ineligible to serve as governor, as he had not received a presidential pardon for his Confederate military service, while in several counties voters were unaware of his candidacy until after the election. Humphreys's military record increased his popularity with Confederate veterans, who were a significant voting bloc in the state.
The elections were a resounding conservative victory, as Whigs won the governorship, the state's five congressional races, and a majority in the Mississippi Legislature. Humphreys strongest performance was in the historical Whig heartland of the Mississippi embayment, while he received few or no votes in several counties in southeastern Mississippi. Patton carried the traditionally-Democratic southeastern counties; here, the combined vote for Humphreys and Fisher was less than the vote for John Bell in 1860. The strong correlation between Bell's showing and Humphreys's and Fishers's combined vote in the river counties, and between John C. Breckinridge's 1860 performance and Patton's vote in Southeastern Mississippi, indicates the persistence of partisanship despite the war. In contrast, the strong vote for Fisher over Humphreys in traditionally-Democratic Northeastern Mississippi represents a break with Second Party System allegiances influenced by the region's Unionist wartime leanings.
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