Abraham Lincoln's Horrible Dream Became Reality!

"We live in the midst of alarms; anxiety beclouds the future; we expect some new disaster with each newspaper we read."

Little did President Abraham Lincoln know that he would make headlines on April 14, 1865. But then again, perhaps he did. Lincoln's presidency was characterized by his alarm about the future. Lincoln's quote, "We live in the midst of alarms; anxiety beclouds the future; we expect some new disaster with each newspaper we read," is as much as commentary about the perils of a country at war as it is about the complex times we live in today, for Lincoln's quote is as pertinent now as it was then.

As for his own death, Lincoln is said to have had a vision of it days before. A couple weeks before he was shot, he had a dream. In it he heard the sobs of people. Looking for a source of the crying, he made his way to the East Room of the White House. There, he found a catafalque with a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Guards were standing watch as people passed by the coffin. "Who is dead in the White House?" he asked. "The President," a guard answered. "He was killed by an assassin!"

Lincoln was so disturbed by the dream that he told his wife Mary and a few Cabinet members about it a couple days later. That night, he left to see Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington D.C., the dream became a horrible reality.