When it came to dying a violent death in office, the President seemed to live a charmed life.
How many examples there were!
In the summer of 1864, while riding alone one humid summer night to the Soldiers Home - think Camp David - a hidden marksman had fired at him, the bullet whizzing through his top hat. He asked that no mention be made of it. "It was probably an accident and might worry my family."
There is some evidence that poison had been tried as well - at one point the castor oil that had been ordered from a pharmacy had arrived deadly with poison, but had had too odd a taste to be swallowed.
Another story had it that a trunk of old clothes taken from yellow fever victims in Cuba had been delivered to the Executive Mansion in the hope that Lincoln would come down with that deadly disease.
And only a few days before his fatal trip to Ford's Theater Lincoln had walked through the still-burning streets of Richmond - an inviting target indeed for anyone, say, in an upstairs window with a rifle. "I was not scared about myself one bit," he commented afterward.
And of course there was the very real threat in Baltimore toward the end of the President-elect's train ride from Springfield to Washington - Lincoln, in disguise and with Ward Hill Lamon at his side [and armed to the teeth] slipped into the nation's capital on a different train ahead of schedule.
Yes, God Himself seemed to have marked this man for the completion of some task…
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