The Confederates treated him well; he wound up in Bermuda, then sailed to Canada. Having been nominated in July 1863 for governor of Ohio, he ran in absentia but lost. He returned to Ohio in 1864 where many cheered him as a hero. Not wanting to create a martyr, Lincoln ignored him and did not arrest him. Vallandigham also ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 1869 and then had great success as a trial lawyer. Unfortunately, as an attorney for the defendant in a murder trial, Vallandigham accidentally shot himself to death while demonstrating how the victim had been shot.