Did Lincoln Dream of His Own Death?

As the story goes, and it has been disputed, Abraham Lincoln had a dream predicting his own death by an assassin.

Following is reported to be an account which he shared with his wife just days before he was fatally shot by John Wilkes Booth.

"About ten days ago, I retired very late. I had been up waiting for important dispatches from the front. I could not have been long in bed when I fell into a slumber, for I was very weary. I soon began to dream.

There seemed to be a death-like 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 the silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, 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 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 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, which woke me from my dream. I slept no more that night; and although it was only a dream, I have been strangely annoyed by it ever since."

On April 14th, 1865, while watching a play at Ford's Theatre, Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. He was shot in the back of the head, and died the following morning. On Tuesday morning, April 18, 1865, soldiers opened the White House gates to receive an immense crowd stretching for blocks in downtown Washington. From 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. the shocked and grieving public filed past President Lincoln's open coffin in the East Room, in the first official mourning event after his assassination. Newspaper reporters estimated the number of visitors at 20,000 to 30,000 or more. So many had to be turned away that officials scheduled another public viewing at the Capitol two days later.