The Real Story Of Abraham Lincoln's Ghost

While seeing Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., John Wilkes Booth murdered Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president, on April 14, 1865. Lincoln died the next day at 7:22 am in the Petersen House opposite the theater after being shot in the head while watching the performance. First U.S. president killed. A long national sorrow followed his funeral and burial.

Lincoln's murder was part of Booth's political scheme to resurrect the Confederate cause by removing the three most powerful federal officials toward the conclusion of the Civil War. The conspirators Lewis Powell and David Herold killed Secretary of State William H. Seward, while George Atzerodt killed Vice President Andrew Johnson.

The scheme collapsed after Lincoln's death: Seward was injured, and Johnson's assailant went intoxicated instead of murdering him. After a daring escape, Booth was slain after a 12-day pursuit. Powell, Herold, Atzerodt, and Mary Surratt were executed for conspiracy.

Despite Booth's previous news, Grant and Julia Grant refused to join the Lincolns since Mary Lincoln and Julia Grant were not friends. After many rejections, Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancée Clara Harris (daughter of New York Senator Ira Harris) accepted the Lincolns' offer. Mary had a headache and wanted to remain home, but Lincoln informed her he had to go since newspapers had reported his attendance.

Although Lincoln's bodyguard William H. Crook encouraged him not to attend, Lincoln stated he had promised his wife. Lincoln informed Speaker Schuyler Colfax, "I suppose it's time to go though I would rather stay" before helping Mary into the carriage.

The presidential party arrived late and settled inside their box, two neighboring boxes with a barrier removed. During the play's break, the orchestra performed "Hail to the Chief" as 1,700 people applauded. Lincoln sat on a Ford family-selected rocking rocker.

To commemorate Lincoln, the cast changed the phrase "Well, you're not the only one that wants to escape the draft" to "The draft has already been stopped by order of the President!" when the heroine begged for a draft-free seat. A spectator noted that Mary Lincoln regularly brought her husband's attention to stage activity and "seemed to take great pleasure in witnessing his enjoyment"

Mary murmured to Lincoln, who was clutching her hand, "What will Miss Harris think of my hanging on to you so?" Lincoln said "She won't consider it". Later, these statements were deemed Lincoln's final, however family friend N.W. Miner said in 1882 that Mary Lincoln informed him Lincoln's last words indicated a desire to see Jerusalem.

Lincoln's normal precautions were absent at Ford's that night. Crook was working a second shift in the White House, while Lincoln's bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon, was in Richmond on duty. John Frederick Parker guarded the Presidential Box. He, Lincoln's valet Charles Forbes, and Coachman Francis Burke proceeded to a local bar for intermission.

Booth had many beers while waiting before his appointment. Parker may have returned to the theater, but he was not at his station when Booth entered the box. A star like Booth may have been let in. Booth braced the door after entering the box, expecting a guard. Booth returned to Ford's Theatre around 10:10 pm via the front door after leaving the pub. Showing Charles Forbes his calling card, he entered the dress circle and headed to the Presidential Box. Navy Surgeon George Brainerd Todd watched Booth come.

Booth wedged a stick between the hallway door and wall to block it. Another entrance led to Lincoln's box. Evidence reveals Booth poked a peephole in this second door earlier in the day.

Booth was familiar with the play Our American Cousin and timed his shot at 10:15 pm to match Harry Hawk's laughing at one of the lines: "Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal; you sockdologizing old man-trap!" Booth unlocked the door, walked forward, and shot Lincoln from behind as he laughed at this statement.

After breaking both orbital plates, the bullet entered Lincoln's skull behind his left ear, went through his brain, and rested toward the front. Lincoln collapsed and fell backward on his chair. Booth was fewer than four feet behind Lincoln when Rathbone turned.

Booth dropped the revolver and stabbed Rathbone in the left forearm with a knife as Rathbone leaped from his seat. Rathbone seized Booth again as he prepared to leap twelve feet from the box to the stage [50]. Booth fell awkwardly on his left foot when his riding spur got caught on the box's Treasury flag. Some audience members assumed he was in the performance when he crossed the stage.

The mob blocked Charles Leale, a young Union Army physician, from opening the Presidential Box door until Rathbone, within, noticed and removed Booth's wooden brace.

Lincoln was sitting with his head to his right while Mary cried and embraced him. "His eyes were closed and he was in a profoundly comatose condition, while his breathing was intermittent and exceedingly stertorous." Leale lowered Lincoln, thinking he was stabbed. Charles Sabin Taft, another doctor, was hauled into the box from the stage.

Leale spotted the bullet wound behind Lincoln's left ear after he and spectator William Kent took away his collar while unbuttoning his coat and shirt and found no stab wound. Although the bullet was too deep to remove, removing a blood clot helped Lincoln's breathing. He discovered that constantly removing new clots preserved his breathing. Leale let Laura Keene hold Lincoln's head on her lap after artificially respirating him. He declared the wound fatal.

Leale, Taft, and another doctor, Albert King, concluded Lincoln should be relocated to the closest Tenth Street residence since a carriage journey to the White residence was too perilous. Seven men carefully lifted Lincoln out of the auditorium, where an irate throng had gathered. They decided to take Lincoln to one of the homes across from Peter Taltavull's Star Saloon. Soldiers dragged Lincoln onto the street, where a man directed them to tailor William Petersen's home. It was pouring.

The tall Lincoln lay diagonally on a little bed in Petersen's first-floor bedroom. After evacuating the room, including Mrs. Lincoln, the physicians removed Lincoln's garments but found no more wounds. As Lincoln was chilly, they used hot water bottles, mustard plasters, and blankets. More doctors arrived: Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes, Charles Henry Crane, Anderson Ruffin Abbott, and Robert K. Stone.

All agreed Lincoln wouldn't last. Barnes found the bullet and bone pieces in the wound. They removed blood clots to reduce head pressure throughout the night, and Leale clutched the unconscious president's hand tightly "to let him realize he was human and had a friend.

Lincoln's elder son Robert Todd Lincoln arrived around 11 pm, but twelve-year-old Tad Lincoln, who was seeing Aladdin at Grover's Theater when he heard, was kept away. Navy Secretary Gideon Welles and War Secretary Edwin M. Stanton arrived. After forcing the crying Mrs. Lincoln out of the sick room, Stanton operated the US government from the mansion for the rest of the night, including the search for Booth and the conspirators. Guards kept the public out, but officials and doctors were allowed to pay their respects.

Lincoln started with serene features and steady respiration. Later, one eye swelled and his right cheek darkened. In a letter to The New York Times, Maunsell Bradhurst Field said Lincoln began "breathing consistently, although with difficulty, and did not appear to be struggling or suffering.

Lincoln's look became "perfectly natural" (save for eye deterioration) as he approached death. Mary returned to Lincoln's side before 7 am, and Dixon said, "she again seated herself by the President, kissing him and calling him every endearing name."

On April 15, Lincoln died at 7:22 am.

Lincoln's ghost

After Lincoln's murder in 1865, the White House Ghost is supposed to haunt the White House. Springfield's Lincoln Law Office and other old houses are claimed to be haunted.

Lincoln's ghost is one of the most renowned White House ghost tales. Citation required Grace Coolidge, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, Winston Churchill, and Theodore Roosevelt reportedly witnessed Lincoln's spirit at the White House.

Lincoln's ghost is the White House's most renowned. In 1927, First Lady Grace Coolidge encountered Lincoln's ghost at a Yellow Oval Room window looking out over the Potomac.

Possibly the most famous incidence occurred in 1942 when Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands heard footsteps outside her White House chamber and answered a tap on the door to see Lincoln in frock coat and top hat.

Winston Churchill liked to retire late, take a hot bath with Scotch, and smoke a cigar. He reportedly got out of the water and entered the neighboring bedroom nude, save for his cigar. He was surprised to find Lincoln resting on the mantel beside the fireplace. Churchill, always quick to respond, pulled his cigar out of his mouth, tapped the ash off the end, and replied "Good evening, Mr. President. You appear to disfavor me." Lincoln smiled gently, chuckling, and vanished.

Theodore Roosevelt, Maureen Reagan, Dennis C. Revell, and other Franklin D. Roosevelt administration staff members claimed to have encountered Lincoln's ghost. Roosevelt's valet once rushed screaming from the White House, claiming to have seen Lincoln's ghost. Though she never saw Lincoln's spirit, Eleanor Roosevelt said she sensed him throughout the White House. She also said that Fala, the Roosevelt household dog, would bark at Lincoln's spirit without cause.

Lady Bird Johnson's press secretary Liz Carpenter and President Dwight D. Eisenhower's press secretary James Hagerty reported they often sensed Lincoln's presence.

The passageway outside the Lincoln Bedroom apparently hears the former president's footsteps. Lillian Rogers Parks said in her 1961 memoirs My Thirty Years Backstairs in the White House that she heard them. When she stayed in the Lincoln Bedroom, Margaret Truman, daughter of President Harry S. Truman, heard a spirit pounding at the door and thought it was Lincoln. President Truman was woken by door raps while sleeping in the Lincoln Bedroom.

Several unidentified eyewitnesses have claimed to have seen Abraham Lincoln's shadow laying down on the bed in the Lincoln Bedroom (which was utilized as a conference room during his administration), while others have seen him sit on the bed and put his boots on. The most famous eyewitness was Eleanor Roosevelt's assistant Mary Eben, who witnessed Lincoln put on his boots and rushed screaming from the room.

Some say Lincoln's ghost was spotted outside the White House. Lincoln was claimed to haunt a Loudonville, New York, residence owned by a lady who was in Ford's Theatre when Booth murdered Lincoln. Other Lincoln hauntings included his cemetery in Springfield, Illinois, a painting of Mary Todd Lincoln, and a ghost train on April evenings following the same route his burial train took from Washington, D.C. to Springfield

Lincoln's ghost was last seen in the early 1980s by White House operations foreman Tony Savoy, who saw Lincoln seated in a chair at the top of the steps.

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Abraham_Lincoln

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln%27s_ghost