Wednesday, April 15, 2009

In The End It's Not The Years In Your Life That Count. It's The Life In Your Years.

Lincoln's Deathbed in the Petersen House

"A little before seven I went into the room where the dying President was rapidly drawing near the closing moments. His wife soon after made her last visit to him. The death struggle had begun. Robert, his son, stood with several others at the head of the bed. He, bore himself well but on two occasions gave way to overpowering grief and sobbed aloud, turning his head and leaning on the shoulder of Senator Sumner. The respiration of the President became suspended at intervals and at last entirely ceased at twenty-two minutes past seven"
Morse, John T. (editor), The Diary of Gideon Welles (1911)

Gideon Welles served Lincoln as Secretary of the Navy. Upon hearing the news that the President had been shot earlier in the evening of April 14th, he and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton rushed to the side of the stricken Lincoln. Aides had moved the dying President across the street from the Ford Theatre to the Petersen House.


"Die when I may, I want it said by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow."
Abraham Lincoln

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