“Success is failure turned inside out.” - Anonymous

From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

September 8

The horrendous casualty figures just before the 1864 election seemed to guarantee that Lincoln would not be reelected although he was the party's official nominee, and many of his “friends” turned on him. Lincoln made the following observation: “They urge me with almost violent language to withdraw from the contest although I have been unanimously nominated...God knows I have at least tried very hard to do my duty, to do right to everybody and wrong to nobody. And now to have it said by men who have been my friends and who ought to know me better that I have been seduced by what they call the lust of power, and that I have been doing this and that unscrupulous thing hurtful to the common cause only to keep myself in office! Have they thought of that common cause when trying to break me down? I hope they have.” - Abraham Lincoln