Could it be possible that Abraham Lincoln knew he was going to be killed?
Or, in an even more outlandish scenario, that he faked his death?
Keep watching for the basis for these theories.
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, was assassinated on the night
of April 14, 1865.
That is an undeniable and unimpeachable fact about which there is no ambiguity in the annals
of American history.
Further, it's known for certain that he was shot and killed at Ford's Theatre while he
watched a play — "Our American Cousin."
He was killed by a disgruntled actor and Confederate sympathizer named John Wilkes Booth.
The actor jumped from the president's box seat, injuring his ankle in the process while
the audience laughed, thinking it was part of the show.
Meanwhile, the fatally injured president was taken to a boarding house across the street,
where he later died.
Except, what if that's not what actually happened?
Like so many other important turning points in American history, speculation and alternative
theories abound.
It's been suggested that perhaps Booth wasn't tracked down and killed, and that there were
sightings of him in the years that followed.
Some claim that Booth actually went on to live for another 38 years after the assassination
and that the body recovered from a barn in Virginia — which most mainstream historians
agree belonged to Booth — wasn't his at all.
What if Lincoln and some co-conspirators managed to pull a fast one on history, and the president
actually faked his own death?
He certainly had reason to, and there may be the slightest bit of evidence that, reviewed
in the right frame of mind, could back up the notion that his death was a deliberate,
elaborate hoax.
Sounds highly unlikely?
Sure.
But let's talk about this theory.
John Wilkes Booth was almost certainly not the only person who wanted Abraham Lincoln
dead following the end of the Civil War, and of course, the president and his team knew
that.
As such, had Lincoln successfully pulled off a faked assassination, he could have convinced
his enemies that he was already dead and then, in some way or another, managed to escape
and live out his remaining years in safety.
What evidence is there that this actually happened?
Little to none.
And what there is more circumstantial than anything.
Nevertheless, some doctors believe that Lincoln's wounds were survivable.
Further, accounts of what happened that night, taken from different doctors, are contradictory.
Blaine Houmes, an emergency medicine doctor who has studied the Lincoln assassination,
explains:
"Unfortunately, depending on which account you read, you'll find that there could have
been a different path of the bullet.
[If you read] one or two of the reports, in theory Lincoln could have survived, particularly
today with our medical care.
But if you read all the others, there's no way he could have survived, due to the severity
of the injury.
In a couple of the accounts they claimed that the bullet went straight forward; if you read
other accounts, it went diagonally and ended up somewhere above or behind the right eye."
The sad fact is, given the majority of descriptions of Lincoln's wounds, the president could not
have survived, even if he'd received 21st-century medical attention.
But there are outliers.
Looking at this matter from a slightly more occult angle, there's also the allegation
that Lincoln was apparently fixated on his own impending death for several days prior
to it actually happening.
He reportedly told others about premonitions and/or dreams about it, and was quoted as
saying:
"I believe there are men who want to take my life ... and I have no doubt that they
will do it.
But if it is to be done, it is impossible to prevent it."
"One can't help but think of all the good we could do if we had more time.
Limitless time."
The story goes that Lincoln told William H. Crook, one of his bodyguards, he had been
having dreams or visions of his impending assassination.
Crook was allegedly so disturbed by Lincoln's dreams that he offered to accompany the Lincolns
to Ford's Theatre.
However, Lincoln declined the offer, saying that he couldn't afford to pay his bodyguard
to work both a day shift and a night shift.
Finally, in the last bit of "evidence" that he faked his assassination, the last words
Lincoln said to his personal bodyguard, according to the book "The Assassination of Lincoln:
History and Myth," were "Good bye," rather than the customary "good night."
According to Crook's story, this was the first time the president had ever said that to him.
"Yes, well, time waits for no man."
"We're gonna be late for the theatre!"
Surely, this is just some bizarre, 21st-century weirdness, right?
Not exactly.
There were conspiracy theories about what happened that night at Ford's Theatre and
in the days that followed the assassination.
According to Ford's Theatre, this was because emotions were running so high and there was
a high level of misinformation.
Immediate speculation fell on remaining members of the former Confederacy, including President
Jefferson Davis or Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin.
Some factions in Lincoln's Republican party at the time carried strong anti-immigrant
sentiments, which meant that some were willing to believe that Benjamin, who was Jewish,
had supposed ties to European banks.
The same reasoning can be applied to why others initially thought that high-ranking Catholics
— or even the pope himself — had been involved in a plot to assassinate the president.
Others suspected Irish immigrants, many of whom were Catholic and had tended to support
the Democratic party and oppose the war.
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