Years ago I remember reading that President Lincoln had a dream, a few months before his asassination. Supposedly, he awoke one night in the White House, and heard the sound of weeping. he rose and walked downstairs, and saw a bier with a coffin lying on it, with soldiers standing guard.
I heard that he related this dream to his wife…is there anyone who has a reference for this story?
What do the dream experts say about a dream fortelling death?
The story has been passed around and is probably true. However, Lincoln originally said that, when he asked who had died, he was told, “The President.” He did not believe the dead man was himself, and recounted the story with no indication he thought it was anything other than a strange dream.
Oh, and the “dream experts” saying dreams fortelling death is impossible. Well, the reputable ones, anyway. Unless you like dream of yourself killing yourself, then you do, but that doesn’t count. Either way, dreams cannot tell the future. Nothing can.
I don’t think you can be president and not think of assassination at least occasionally. JFK said it was one of his greatest fears. I’m guessing you’d be hard pressed to find a president who hadn’t had a dream or two about it.
Here’s an article on this subject: http://www.csicop.org/si/9905/i-files.html
I did an article on this a few years ago for a public history newsletter. Lincoln apparently had such a dream, but as Reality- Chuck has said, Lincoln said something like “it was some other fellow” in the coffinn.
I’ve also read that either Lincoln or his wife saw a reflection of Lincoln’s weary face in a mirror that he was not facing. This was also taken to be an omen of death.
Actually I don’t think there had been even any attempted assassinations up until then so that wouldn’t have been foremost in his mind. The president was guarded, when and if, by Pinkerton employees.
Lincoln had a considerable streak of melancholy that he relieved by jokes from all I’ve read. Given that I would assume he had a number of premonitions of death and if you have enough of them, one is bound to score.
I should have checked the link rowrrbazzle provided before posting. It has detailed information on both the mirror image and the dream.
Once I was dating an African-American woman. Somehow the subject of Lincoln’s premonitions of death came up. I said how eerie it was.
She looked at me like I was dumb, like this was a no-brainer and there was nothing the least bit mysterious about it. “Are you kidding? He freed the slaves! Of course he knew he was gonna die! I mean, he freed the slaves!”
I believe Andrew Jackson was approached by a man who pointed two dueling pistols at him and fired at point-blank range. Miraculously, the pistols both misfired, and Jackson, who was not in the best of healt at the time, but was still full of piss and vinegar, subdued the would-be assassin by clubbing him with his (Jackson’s) cane.
But assassination attempts on presidents were not common prior to Lincoln.
I believe Andrew Jackson was approached by a man who pointed two dueling pistols at him and fired at point-blank range. Miraculously, the pistols both misfired, and Jackson, who was not in the best of health at the time, but was still full of piss and vinegar, subdued the would-be assassin by clubbing him with his (Jackson’s) cane.
But assassination attempts on presidents were not common prior to Lincoln.
Yes, a man attempted to kill Andrew Jackson. His name was Richard Lawrence.
Oops. That’s interesting and now that you bring it up I guess I do dimly remember having heard of it. Just the same, I don’t think that assassination was high on Lincoln’s list of problems.
Though if you think about it, it probably was. A lot of people really hated him. He was probably the most opposed president up to that time. The fact that the U.S. was in a major civil war while Lincoln was president would also probably be important. I wouldn’t be suprised if he feared for his life.
President Lincoln’s personal bodyguard from November 1864 until his death the following April was composed of four Washington policemen. Patrolman John F. Parker was assigned to protect him at Ford’s Theatre, but left his post to watch the play, and eventually slipped outside to have a drink at a nearby saloon. And thus the course of American history was changed.
Incredibly, charges of dereliction of duty were dropped again Parker, and he remained on the White House guard until 1868.
I have no desire to turn this into a great debate- I just thought I’d point something out: MOST of us have premonitions about one thing or another, and 99.999% of the time, those premonitions turn out to be wrong, and we forget about them. It’s only in those incredibly rare situations that the premonitions seem to come true that we bother to remember them.
So, assuming Abe Lincoln had a premonition of his death, that doesn’t tell us much. For all we know, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter had such premonitions at one time or another- but since neither died in office, who’d care?
As mentioned in the article I linked, when Lincoln was first elected, he entered Washington secretly because of death threats.
IIRC, Lincoln got a lot of death threats and was likely under a lot of stress still, since the war had only been over for a few days and reconstruction was next on the agenda.
I wouldn’t be suprised at all if he was having dreams about death.
I think you are right. I probably confused Lincoln’s guard duty with thePinkerton intelligence work during the war. Pinkerton had come to know both Lincoln and George B. McClellan while doing pre-war security work for the Illinois Central Railroad.
When Lincoln made the trip to Washington to be sworn in Pinkerton was horrified to find that his exact schedule was well known and convinced Lincoln to change it because of the danger involved. That was the last presidential security by Pinkerton but his organization subsequently furnished most of the intelligence agents for McClellan as long as he was in command.
And to get back on point. As astorian said, the interesting coincidences are remembered and the non-coincidences forgotten.
As I remarked before, Lincoln had a melancholy streak and probably had all sorts of dire premonitions one of which was sooner or later bound to be confirmed if he kept them up.
some presidents thought about assassination attempts more than others