![]() On April 14, 1865, President Lincoln was shot by a Southern sympathizer, John Wilkes Booth, in the back of the head as he watched Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theater. The faint, ghostlike image was a sign, she said, that he would be renominated for a second term, but would not live to complete it. She prophesied that the sharper image indicated that he would serve out his first term. ![]() Lincoln’s superstitious wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, did not see the mirror images, but was deeply troubled by her husband’s account of the incident. One was his “real” face, the other a pale imitation. Soon after his election in 1860, he’d seen a double image of his face reflected in a mirror in his Springfield, Illinois, home. It was not the first time Lincoln “saw” his own death. “‘Who is dead in the White House?’ I demanded of one of the soldiers. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards and there was a throng of people, some gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face covered, others weeping pitifully. ![]() Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs … I arrived at the East Room. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. There seemed to be a deathlike stillness about me. Ward Hill Lamon, a close friend of the president’s, wrote down what Lincoln told him on an evening in early 1865: “About ten days ago I retired very late…,” the president told Lamon. There may have been more to his sadness than even he would admit: Lincoln dreamed of his own death. During his five years as commander in chief, he had slept little and taken no vacations. The melancholy bearing of Lincoln himself, and several instances of eerie prescience on his part, only add to the legends of the Great Emancipator’s ghost.īy the time of his 1864 reelection, deep lines etched Lincoln’s face and heavy black circles underlined his eyes. He is also remembered for his untimely death-and his supposed afterlife in the White House.įor years, presidents, first ladies, guests, and members of the White House staff have claimed to have either seen Lincoln or felt his presence. He’s remembered for his character, his speeches and letters and as a man of humble origins whose determination and perseverance led him to the nation’s highest office. Mary Todd Lincoln photographed with President Abraham Lincoln’s ‘spirit.’įrom the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection, courtesy of the Indiana State Museum and Allen County Public LibraryĪbraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States (1861-1865), is remembered for his vital role as the leader in preserving the Union during the Civil War and beginning the process that led to the end of slavery in the United States. Stories of a ghostly President Lincoln wandering the corridors and rooms of the White House have persisted for more than a century.
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