Lincoln Stories
Three days before Abraham Lincoln was assassinated he told his wife and a small circle of friends a story: How one night he’d stayed up late waiting for dispatches from the front – when he finally got to bed, weary, he quickly fell asleep.
In a dream a deathlike silence surrounded him. He heard distant sobs. Rising, wandering (in the dream) from room to room in the White House he saw no one but still heard sobs.
He walked into the East Room, stared at a catafalque with a corpse laying on it, face covered, surrounded by soldiers.
He asked one soldier: Who’s dead?
The soldier said: The president. He was killed by an assassin.
No one repeated that story until years later when Ward Hill Lamon – one of the friends who’d been in the room when Lincoln told about the dream – wrote a biography of Lincoln. A lot of historians doubt it’s true.
But the day Lincoln was assassinated, sitting in a cabinet meeting, he told another story – about another dream.
Lee had just surrendered at Appomattox. Lincoln and the cabinet were waiting to hear if the Confederate Army in North Carolina had surrendered to General Sherman.
Looking at Ulysses Grant, Lincoln said he was sure they’d hear good news because of a dream he’d had the night before – in the dream, Lincoln said, he’d been sailing across a vast sea in an unknown ship toward an unknown shore. He’d had the same dream, he said, before Gettysburg and Vicksburg – so he was sure they were about to hear good news. No one disputes that dream. Historians include it in their books.
That night Lincoln was assassinated.
He’d had a hard life.
His mother died when he was 9.
His sister died when he was 18.
The first woman he fell in love with, Ann Rutledge, died when he was 26.
After he married, his 4-year-old son Eddie died of tuberculosis.
After he was president, his 11-year-old son Willie died in the White House.
As a young man for Lincoln religion was a challenge – his law partner William Herndon called him an unbeliever. After his second son’s death during the war Lincoln turned to God.
Sitting in Ford’s theater the night he was assassinated he told his wife he hoped someday they’d go to the Holy Land – there was no place he wanted to see as much as Jerusalem.
Lincoln Stories
Three days before Abraham Lincoln was assassinated he told his wife and a small circle of friends a story: How one night he’d stayed up late waiting for dispatches from the front – when he finally got to bed, weary, he quickly fell asleep.
In a dream a deathlike silence surrounded him. He heard distant sobs. Rising, wandering (in the dream) from room to room in the White House he saw no one but still heard sobs.
He walked into the East Room, stared at a catafalque with a corpse laying on it, face covered, surrounded by soldiers.
He asked one soldier: Who’s dead?
The soldier said: The president. He was killed by an assassin.
No one repeated that story until years later when Ward Hill Lamon – one of the friends who’d been in the room when Lincoln told about the dream – wrote a biography of Lincoln. A lot of historians doubt it’s true.
But the day Lincoln was assassinated, sitting in a cabinet meeting, he told another story – about another dream.
Lee had just surrendered at Appomattox. Lincoln and the cabinet were waiting to hear if the Confederate Army in North Carolina had surrendered to General Sherman.
Looking at Ulysses Grant, Lincoln said he was sure they’d hear good news because of a dream he’d had the night before – in the dream, Lincoln said, he’d been sailing across a vast sea in an unknown ship toward an unknown shore. He’d had the same dream, he said, before Gettysburg and Vicksburg – so he was sure they were about to hear good news. No one disputes that dream. Historians include it in their books.
That night Lincoln was assassinated.
He’d had a hard life.
His mother died when he was 9.
His sister died when he was 18.
The first woman he fell in love with, Ann Rutledge, died when he was 26.
After he married, his 4-year-old son Eddie died of tuberculosis.
After he was president, his 11-year-old son Willie died in the White House.
As a young man for Lincoln religion was a challenge – his law partner William Herndon called him an unbeliever. After his second son’s death during the war Lincoln turned to God.
Sitting in Ford’s theater the night he was assassinated he told his wife he hoped someday they’d go to the Holy Land – there was no place he wanted to see as much as Jerusalem.