In doing some research on a trivia question about Lincoln’s last words, I’ve come across three options:
“They won’t think a thing about it”, referring to his wife asking what others will think about them holding hands at the theater.
“I think I should like to see Jerusalem”, supposedly based on a letter written by his wife afterwards, concerning some chit-chat between them during the play about them someday traveling to Palestine.
No one knows.
Number 1 is the most commonly cited quote, but number 2 also pops up on Google. My problem with number 2 is the references are found during contemporary sermons, trying to make the point about Abraham Lincoln becoming a Christian (one sermon even quotes he was going to make a public confession of his faith that coming Easter Sunday, but that seems like a fabrication). It seems too poetic, with the gunshot coming just as he says “Jeru”.
This site says his last words were “She won’t think anything about it”, in response to Mary’s question “what will Ms. Harris think of my hanging on you so?” This gibes with what I’ve heard before, IIRC.
In the early 70s i read a book, non-biased towards Christianity, that it was a tossup as to which one he had actually said. It being Passion weekend, I don’t see it being too much of a stretch for even a pagan to be thinking of Jerusalem.
I think they’re pretty much the same words of surprise he spoke after a weekend bender with the boys. I will not post it because so many have tissue thin skin and are easily offended.
Mary Lincoln gave several versions of the events of that evening, editing history, so to speak, to make it play better. “She won’t think a thing of it,” is the likely true last words Lincoln spoke. Several biographies I have read have stated that for Lincoln to suddenly, with no preamble, mention a desire to see the Holy Land in the midst of a comedic, secular play is odd to say the least.
At the time Mary Lincoln wrote this, Lincoln had been transformed from a president into an almost holy martyr. The Victorian era was one of exaggerated mourning, and reverence for the dead. She might have said that his last thought was of Jerusalem simply to add to the mystique and religious implications of Lincoln-mania.
Perhaps this happened earlier in the play, but biographers agree that the last words that Lincoln heard were: “Don’t know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal - you sockdologizing old mantrap!”
This one time, in real life, I was involved in a political discussion that was getting pretty heated about the civil war and slavery and economics and such. One guy, who was pretty quiet through the whole deal ended the conversation by saying… “Well, you know what Lincoln would say if he was alive today…”
What I meant was the * customs * of mourning were exaggerated. Women wore black for years, had jewelry made of hair from the dead, and had drawings made of the graves of their loved ones. . . . things that would be considered a bit morbid today. Social activites of those in mourning were strictly curtailed, and a mourner’s home, person, and even stationery was festooned with black for a prolongd period of time.
Mary Lincoln took it to extremes. Instead of accepting sadly “God’s will” like a “good Christian” in the deaths of her husband and two sons, she wept loudly, bewailed her fate, refused to leave her bed, and generally broke the social conventions of how mourning was properly constructed. She faced a great deal of social dissaproval for this, having not been very popular in the first place during her husband’s presidency.
Somewhere, I recall seeing a TV show that said that old Abe had a very vivid dream of his death. He (Lincoln) said that he descended the stairs at the White House, and founf mourners weeeping, and saw the bier (with his dead body on it). Creepy stuff! anybody know about this?