“Everything that matters requires boldness.” – Anonymous

From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

July 1

‘The decision by the Confederacy’s high command to invade the North in the summer of 1863 was a gamble that held out the ultimate glittering prize. A Confederate victory on Northern soil would be just the thing to induce England and/or France to grant formal recognition to that thing which Lincoln saw as a complete fiction: the Confederate States of America. And, of course, with that recognition hopefully would come financial aid on more or less favorable terms, maybe even a military alliance that would break the pesky, ever-tightening Yankee blockade of Southern ports [and resume the flow of cotton to all those hungry European factories]. In short, a victory on Northern soil could easily translate into Southern independence.’

- Arnold Kunst

‘There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.

Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.

On such a full sea are we now afloat.

And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.’

- William Shakespeare