The Backstory: Abraham Lincoln dreams of his own murder

April 15th will be the 160th anniversary of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. He was noted for having a personality that was a unique combination of strength and determination, softened by incredible sensitivity to the pain of others. So, he was aware of the passions that influenced Americans on both sides during the Civil War. Did that knowledge and sensitivity allow him to predict the events of his own murder?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
In a couple of weeks, it'll be the one hundred
and sixtieth anniversary of the death of Abraham Lincoln. Now
you may have guessed by now what a freak I
am for Lincoln, and I know I am not alone.
But during the Civil War, as we belatedly realized, he
had a lot of enemies who just hated what he
believed in. He not only knew this intensely, but he

(00:20):
impacted both his waking and unconscious thoughts on Patty Steele.
Lincoln dreamed of his own assassination in the months, weeks
and days before John Wilkes Booth pulled the trigger. That's
next on the back story. The backstory is back. Abraham

(00:41):
Lincoln was the first US president to be assassinated, So
it wasn't if the guy in that office, or the
public for that matter, had any sense this this could
be a thing, but it was the Civil War, passions
ran high, even among family members that disagreed with each
other about what was the right path. Lincoln, in fact,
was married to Mary Todd, whose family, for the most part,

(01:04):
had Southern sensibilities. Her father, Robert Todd, was a wealthy
slave owner in Kentucky. He and Her mother had seven children,
of which Mary was the fourth. Her mother died when
she was six years old, and her father remarried. He
and Mary's stepmother had nine more children. It was a
full house, but it definitely was not always a loving

(01:24):
one for Mary. At twenty, she left home to live
with her sister in Springfield, Illinois, and from there on out,
right through Mary's marriage to Abe Lincoln in eighteen forty
two and right till his assassination in eighteen sixty five,
there was a cultural and political division in the Todd family.
At least five of Mary's sisters and half sisters and

(01:46):
three of her brothers were sympathetic to the Confederate cause.
Two of her sisters were married to Confederate generals and
others to Confederate soldiers. So that was the state of
the nation in the eighteen fifties and early eighteen sixties,
and it continued right on through the war. When you
have that much passion that conflicts with people you love,

(02:07):
it ignites more than just ideological disagreements. Throughout his presidency,
Abe and Mary Lincoln were aware that the stance he'd
taken against slavery and the power of states' rights and
her support of his stance made him a target among
people who were vehemently opposed to abolition. So how do
you live with the knowledge that there are people out

(02:29):
there who will do anything to stop you? Problem is,
there was no secret service to look after Lincoln's safety,
and he was very disinterested in being followed by private
security people. Interesting sidebar here, the Secret Service wasn't actually
officially created until Lincoln signed it into law on April fourteenth,

(02:50):
eighteen sixty five, just hours before he was shot at
Ford's Theater by John Wilkes Booth. He had definitely faced
threats after he was elected, even before he took office.
He literally had to sneak into Washington, d C. Before
his inauguration due to the threats, and in eighteen sixty
four he narrowly missed taking a bullet while riding his

(03:12):
horse out to the summer White House at the Old
Soldier's Home. He left d C late in the evening,
riding alone that night, and by the time he got home,
who was discovered he had a bullet hole in his stove.
Pip hat he didn't want to talk about it much.
So as the war had ramped up, emotions had gotten
even more intense. Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost

(03:35):
on both sides, and the battles just kept raging. Those
that believed Lincoln was the only thing standing between their
right to own slaves, other human beings, and abolition were infuriated.
Lincoln was an incredibly sensitive individual. While he knew what
was right, he also knew the level of pain and
anger on both sides. That knowledge, and his willingness all

(03:58):
through his presidency to speak in person to as many
regular citizens as he could fit into his day, gave
him a powerful knowledge of what he could be facing
when it came to his own safety. At one point,
he told the members of his cabinet that he'd had
a recurring dream that he was on an indescribable vessel
on the water, headed toward a dark shore, and he

(04:21):
felt it was a premonition. So how sure was he
that his life was on the line. Well. The story
goes that several days before his assassination, President Lincoln took
a moment to say goodbye to his former law partner
and bodyguard, Ward Hill Lahman Laman later said, mister Lincoln
saying goodbye was very strange to me. He always said

(04:42):
good night before we departed, never goodbye, and there was
another really disturbing dream. Laman recounted a conversation he witnessed
three days before the assassination, as Lincoln spoke to his
wife and several friends. He said, mister Lincoln told us
about ten days. I retired very late. I had been
up waiting for important dispatches from the front. I could

(05:06):
not have been long in bed when I fell into
a slumber, for I was weary. I soon began to dream.
There seemed to be a deathlike stillness about me. Then
I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people
were weeping. I thought. I left my bed and wandered downstairs.
There this silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing,

(05:28):
but the mourners were invisible. I went from room to room.
No living person was in sight, but the same mournful
sounds of distress met me as I passed along. I
saw light in all the rooms. Every object was familiar
to me. But where were all the people who were
grieving as if their hearts would break? I was puzzled

(05:48):
and alarmed. What could be the meaning of all this?
Determined to find the cause of a state of things
so mysterious and so shocking. I kept on until I
arrived at the East Room, which I entered. There, I
met with a sickening surprise. Before me was a catafalque
on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around

(06:10):
it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards, and
there was a throng of people gazing mournfully upon the corpse,
whose face was covered, others weeping pitifully. Who is dead
in the White House, I demanded of one of the soldiers.
The President was his answer. He was killed by an assassin.
Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd,

(06:32):
which woke me from my dream. I slept no more
that night, and although it was only a dream, I've
been strangely annoyed by it ever since. While Mary Todd
Lincoln worried about the possibility of assassination during their entire
time in Washington during his presidency, she never had any
dreams of it, at least that she spoke of. Despite

(06:54):
her connection to spiritualism. Only Abraham Lincoln seemed to understand
his desk tony and maybe how his martyrdom to the
cause would impact his legacy. Hope you're enjoying the Backstory

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On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Reel Patty Steele.
I'm Patty Steele. The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks,

(07:36):
the Elvis Durand Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer
is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new
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Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele, the

(07:57):
pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.
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