The Night Lincoln Died

On April 26, 1865, Booth was cornered by Union soldiers near Bowling Green, Va. It is said that he tried to avoid arrest by running away. Perhaps the truth is that a court trial was not desired. He was shot and killed on the spot.

The rest of the conspirators were rounded up within a matter of days. Paine and Atzerodt were hanged, along with a young friend and co-conspirator of Booth's by the name of David Herold. Mrs. Mary E. Surratt, who had allowed the conspirators to meet at her house, was also hanged. Mudd and others received jail time.

Mary Todd Lincoln, who was unstable beforehand, spent a year in an asylum after her husband's death. Ironically, Major Rathbone was later murdered himself.

Lincoln's blood can still be found on the pillow on which they laid his head down to die. It is said that, if we wanted to, we might be able to clone him from the specimen.

But many believe Lincoln is with us still. Grace Coolidge, wife of the 30th president, Calvin Coolidge, claimed to have seen the ghost of Lincoln by the window of the Oval Office. Guests at the White House would later hear noises that they attributed to Lincoln's footsteps. Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, invited to the White House by FDR, purported that she answered a knock at her door one night and found Lincoln standing before her. Norman Vincent Peale related the account of an unidentified actor staying at the White House who heard Lincoln's voice calling out for help, and awoke to see "the lanky form of Lincoln prostrate on the floor in prayer, arms outstretched with fingers digging into the carpet."

Other Lincoln-visit stories have been reported by Eleanor Roosevelt, Ronald and Nancy Reagan and Harry Truman. Even Winston Churchill claimed to have awoken one night to see the ghostly silhouette of Lincoln standing within his room.