Do you have a link to where NYT editions from the early 1860’s can be viewed?
Not at the moment, but I have found links in the past that go straight to the New York Times website and it shows they do show past issues in the 1860s era.
I can probably find you such a link Monday, but I'm not going to do a whole lot of posting for the remainder of today or Sunday.
Just as an aside, Horace Greeley’s ‘New-York Daily Tribune’ was a much more important paper in the run up to the CW.
Greeley was a founder of the Republican Party and published articles by Karl Marx for years.
I believe almost all of the CONVENIENT old newspaper archives (including the NYT) are subscription, but there are some on the web: