Death. [applause] good morning. Let me see what it says here. My name is douglas wilson. [laughter] im the codirector of the lincoln study center at knox college. It is my privilege to introduce the first speaker in the 2015 Abraham Lincoln institute symposium. He is a young scholar who has already earned an array of honors. He was educated at penn state where he took his bachelors degree in 2001 and at the university of maryland where he earned a masters degree in 2003 and a phd in 2008. The department of history at maryland awarded him its eb an jean smith prize in political history. He won the prize in 2010. He is already the author of several books including two lincoln titles. Abraham lincoln entries and in the and treason in the civil war, and most recently, emancipation the union army and Abraham Lincoln. More than two dozen articles have appeared under his name in scholarly journals and Popular History magazines. In 2005, he won the john t. Hubble price for the best article in civil war history. His current project is midnight in america night, sleep, and dreams in the civil war. This energetic young historian is currently assistant professor of american studies at Christopher Newport university. He is here today to speak on lincoln and dreams of death. It is a pleasure to introduce professor jonathan w. White. [applause] dr. White thanks so much. Im thrilled to be here. I have sat in the audience here about a dozen times but this is my first time on the stage. I almost thought i should have waited until the introduction and made a dramatic entrance onto the stage. Im hoping since im the first folks on the program, i was wondering if i might be able to recline on one of the couches in the box up there for the rest of the symposium. I have to say from the outset i have been coming to the symposium for more than 10 years and it just happens that my wifes birthday is tomorrow, which means i out of town for her birthday almost every are. Lauren if youre watching at home, happy birthday. I havent gotten you a gift yet but i plan on going out to the book table when im done here. [laughter] i will see if theres anything you like. I had an idea to write the history of dreams in the civil war and i have chapters on soldiers and civilians, slaves and pows. I also have a chapter on lincoln and that is what i will focus my remarks on today. The civil war placed new strains on lincolns generations and their nightly dreams reflected those hardships. Sometimes the war intruded on peoples slumbers. Rivet the vividly bringing the horse of conflict to them in sleep. For others, nighttime was an escape from the harsh realities of wartime. The dreams of civil war era americans reveal that generations deepest longings, is hope and fears, his desires and struggles. Its guilt and its shame. When americans recorded their dreams in diaries, letters, then the moors, they sought to make sense of the change around them and do with the loneliness of life amid the turmoil of a gigantic civil war. In my research i found that both northerners and southerners dreamed about Abraham Lincoln through the war. Union officer sometimes dropped they met with the president to discuss promotion. [laughter] it did not always work out the way they hoped. Pows dreamed about negotiating prisoner exchanges and some dreamed about having conversations with the president about the end of the war. My favorite happens to be a confederate civilian posturing. On july 7, 1864 richmond attorney George Wooten dreamed he died and went to another war. He asked st. Peter, are there any lawyers here in heaven . The apostle replied he could not find any. [laughter] wooten said is the mayor of richmond appear in heaven . St. Peter said, oh, you will find him and that other place. Wooten turned around and made his way to what he described as a somberlooking castle and above the entrance was painted the word hell and he met sa tan and saw seats on the floor. Some were vacant and some are occupied by lawyers. Wooten went up to sit and when the seats and the devil said you cant sit there. That is reserved for the mayor of richmond. He went to sit on oc. The devil said that is reserved for Union General benjamin butler. He went to see a another seat. The devil is reserved for Union General benjamin butler. He went to see a third c. All the lawyers shouted dont take that c. That is reserved for old abe. Wooten said you will cup shaking and shivering, wishing it was not it woke up shaking and shivering, wishing it was not a dream. One soldier wrote this in a letter about lincoln. He said, lincoln has become a vampire that gnaws into the bowels of the country. He is the nightmare of the horse of which the nation groans the horrsors of which the nation groans in despair. There you have it. Before Abraham Lincoln became a vampire hunter, he was a vampire himself. The nation has been fascinated i lincolns prophetic statements. In the 1861 he said he would rather be assassinated on the spot than give up the principles of the declarations of independence. Sometimes its sometimes his sense of humor cannot. He dreamed he was in a party of plain people and as they begin to realize who he was, they began to comment on his appearance. One said he is a commonlooking man. The president replied in his gym,looking people are the best in the world. That is why the lord make so many of them. Many are secondhand accounts. There are rare secondhand there are rare glimpses from his own it. Lincoln wrote a letter to marry about Robert Todd Lincoln, their child. The medium concerned until he got a letter back that he was ok. 15 years later, lincoln sent a telegram to marry telling her to put tabs pistol away because he had an ugly dream about him. Historian Richard Wightman fox argues that lincoln clearly believed that dreams had predictive capacity. They were not revelations into the future, but they gave one a sense, however murky, of what might come to pass. I think this is a very good assessment of what lincolns view of dreams was. One of lincolns most famous dreams was depicted in the recent spielberg movie. On april 14, 1865, lincoln said this to his cabinet i had this stream dream again last night. We shall have great news very soon. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles asked about the nature of the stream, to which lincoln replied that it had to do with welles expertise, the water. He described the dream. He was on a ship in the water some singular, indescribable vessel that was moving with great rapidity towards a sure. Lincoln told the cabinet that he had the dream before the attack on fort sumter as well as preceding the battles of bull run, antietam, gettysburg, and the surrender at vicksburg. Lincoln believed that the stream portended some Great Results. Hopefully involving shermans army. General Ulysses S Grant was present at the meeting that they and he pointed out that stones river was not a victory and he knew of no Great Results that followed from it. However that might be, lincoln per side lincoln replied, the dream proceeded. Secretary welles did not think much about the dream but remembered it after and wrote it down in his diary. Great events did follow, he wrote mournfully, for within a few hours, the truly great man who narrated that dream close for his earthly career. The provo nonce for the screen the providence of this dream is well recorded. Edward stanton told the dream to Charles Dickens in 1968 and dickens wrote about it to a friend in england. Frederick seward was at the meeting since his father had a carriage accident and seward recorded it in his memoirs in the early 20th century. Finally, the New York Herald reported the dream in april 1865 before any of lincolns cap the members wrote it down. By may of 1865, the story had been repeated in newspapers as far west as san francisco. The dream continues to fascinate modern readers and has been the subject of a recent childrens book. Another dream or vision took place around his election to the presidency. While on a couch lincoln looked across the room at a mirror and saw a double image of himself. It startled him because one of the images was lifelike and vibrant and the other was ghostly pale. The image disappeared and he looked back and the double image appeared again. He got up to look at it and could not see the double image again. This was curious to lincoln. There are several accounts that say why he was president in the white house, he tried to reproduce this phenomenon but was never able to make it happen. The people who heard the story from lincoln disagree about the meaning of this vision but some claim that lincoln believed this meant he would live through his first term but diane is second. The third tree missed most startling. Lincoln allegedly drink this a few weeks before his assassination. He kept it a seat dreamt this if you would for the session it. He kept it a secret. Lincoln approached a small group of friends at the white house which included Mary Todd Lincoln. The president was in a melancholy, meditative mood and had been silent for some time. Mary aroused her husband to speak what was on his mind. It seems strange how much there is in the bible about dreams, lincoln said. There are, i think, 16 chapters in the Old Testament and four or five in the new in which dreams are mentioned and there are many other passages scattered throughout the book which refer divisions. If we believe the bible refer to visions. If we believe the bible, we must believe that in the old days god and his angels made themselves known in dreams. Mary todd lincoln was struck by her husbands statement and said, do you believe in dreams . He said i had one the other night that has haunted me. After the dream, he said he opened up his bible and it fell to the pages in genesis were jacob dreams of a ladder ascending to heaven and there are angels going up and down. Lincoln said he turned to other passages, each of which dealt with dreams. As lincoln said this, he looked so serious and disturbed the mary exclaimed, you frighten me. What is the matter . Lincoln said, you should not have brought the subject up, but it has got possession of me. Mary strongly urged to tell the dream. He was hesitant but lincoln decided he would describe the dream and he was said to do so with his brow overcast. This is what the gloomy president said. About 10 days ago, i retired very late. I had been waiting for important dispatches from the front. I could not have been long in bed when i fell into a slumber for i was weary. Soon begin to dream. There seemed to be a deathlike stillness about me. I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people weeping. I went downstairs. The silence was broken by the same solving, but the mourners were in same sobbing, but the mourners were invisible. No living person was in sight but the same sounds of the stressed distress met me. Where were all the people who were weeping . I was puzzled and alarm. What could be the meaning of 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. There i met with a sickening surprise. Upon the was before me was a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were soldiers acting as guards. Around it there was a crowd. Others were 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 awoke me from my dream. I slept no more that night. Although it was only a dream, i have been strangely annoyed with it ever since. Mary lincoln responded that the story was horrid and she wished lincoln hadnt told it. I am glad i dont believe in dreams, she said it. Lincoln responded that it was only a dream. Lets say no more about it. He continued his telling of the story that the dream was so horrible and real and in keeping with other dreams that mr. Lincoln was profoundly disturbed by it. He said lincoln looked grave and visibly pale as he described the vision. There was something about it that was so amazingly real, so true to the actual tragedy which occurred soon after that more than moral strength and wisdom would have been required to let it pass without a shutter or a shudder or a pang. This is a remarkable story. The president dreamed of his own assassination a few days before it happened. Its no wonder that popular writers spanning the 20th and 21st century like Carl Sandburg , james swanson, and bill oreilly have all included in their books. Just last week, i was reading destiny of the republic for pleasure. Its a wonderful book about the assassination of james garfield. The author claims Robert Todd Lincoln told the dream to president garfield during the final Cabinet Meeting in 1881, two days before he was assassinated. What irony. What drama. You cant get more than that. A historian appropriated it for title of their own book, lincoln dreamt jhhe died. But dont buy that book. Wait for mine to come out. [laughter] is the story true . I think we should be hesitant to accept such a fantastical story. It should because for concern. The account was First Published in 1887, 22 years after lincoln died. It later appeared in recollections of Abraham Lincoln, published in 1895. In recollections, laman claimed that it came from notes made in 1865. Scholars have treated the story with some reservation. Harvard historian David Herbert donald said he was highly unreliable in some accounts while a stanford historian claims that more than a little of lamans quotation of lincoln was invented. He demolishes lamans credibility of the funeral dream. Pointing out the timing doesnt make any sense. There are a few ways that he points this out. Most importantly laman quotes lincoln as saying he was waiting for dispatches from the front in early april of 1965. In fact lincoln was at the front , from march 24 until april 9. The analysis should have been enough to discredit the story. He did not dig deeply enough into the origins of this dream. I found several versions of the white house funeral dream that predate lamans telling. Your this came from a pennsylvania. The earliest came from a pennsylvania newspaper. A more detailed version appears in an unsigned article in a literary magazine called gleasons monthly companion. It was after the dream appeared in this literary magazine the newspapers around the country began circulating it. The details differ in several ways from lamans account and recollection. The 1880 version has no chronological clues as to when lincoln was supposed to have had this dream compared to laman who , said it was an early 1865 just before his death. Second, lincoln was in conversation with mrs. Lincoln and the children in the 1880 version. Not as laman described it with only two or three people present. In 1880, it was lincolns son who implored his father to tell the dream and later called dreadful. Robert todd lincoln makes an appearance in the 1880 version of the story. According to the 1880 version, mary lincolns first exclamation after John Wilkes Booth shot her husband was this, his dream was prophetic. The author of the 1880 article wrote this remark has not been understood. It makes me think that laman could not have written the earlier version since he claimed to be present the telling of the story. Clearly he would have known what , the dream meant and what mary meant by that statement. I should add that no other period source has mary saying his dream was prophetic when he was shot. In 1866, mary told herndon that in lincolns later years, he never dreamt of death. There are other discrepancies, i wont get into them here. I think the most important is that he is nowhere to be seen in the 1880 version of the story. That piece concludes subsequently, the circumstances of mr. Lincolns dream was told to many in washington. It formed one of the most impressive incidents connected with the tragedy which gave the nation its immortal mortar. I have done a digital search of newspapers in a number of different databases and i found that the ship on the water dream was reproduced in 1865 and got widespread attention in the months after lincolns death. I found no mention of this more provocative funeral dream. If it was the talk around washington, surely it would have found its way into the papers. Two weeks ago, i traveled to the Huntington Library to look at ward hill lamans private collection of papers to see if i could find any evidence of the story. I searched to see if there were any notes that laman took. After all, he said he took notes after lincoln said it. I found no notes related to this story. I did find plenty of other notes that laman took for other articles he wrote later in his life. I also found no correspondence with the editor from gleasons monthly companion. It was common for laman to communicate with editors. Nothing from that editor. I did find a set of drafts of letters that laman wrote to editors all over the country in 1887 saying i have some great recollections of lincoln and i will sell them for 25 each. Clearly he was trying to make a , profit off his connection to lincoln. Now the most interesting evidence. I found a letter in which a correspondent sent a letter to laman about lincoln. As part of this correspondence , he thanked laman for sending a counterfeit presentiment. We dont know what the counterfeit presentment was as the corresponding letter does not survive. The entire letter was about lincoln and it being dated 1882 after the story began circulating in newspapers, laman read the story in the newspaper and called it a counterfeit presentment. It was only later that he realized this was a great story that he can insert himself into. On april 27, laman wrote a letter to the secretary of war saying he met with lincoln on april 13 had not spoken with him for three weeks before that. By his own testimony, he could not have heard the story from lincoln a few weeks before the assassination, which is how he rendered thanks 22 years later. Did he give story from lincoln . I dont think so. I think this was a fictional piece written for a newspaper. It was embellished by a literary magazine. I think the dream was another fabrication. I found a newspaper article from the 1940s where some of the todd family claims that <