Was President Lincoln a Spiritualist?

A story of seances in the White House.

Published in

The History Insider

7 min readOct 4, 2022

It was early 1875 with the impending anniversary of her husband’s death looming over her head, when Mary Todd Lincoln found herself enjoying the inviting weather of Green Cove, Florida. As with every anniversary, she found her anxiety slowly building, and like a forgotten tea kettle her nerves would soon erupt with an alarming conclusion. Unlike the times before, her anxiety didn’t bring forth a spontaneous shopping spree for things she did not need, this time her defining moment came in the form of a premonition that no mother would want to envision… Her only living son Robert was dying.

Mary dropped everything and rushed to be by her son’s side in Chicago only to be met with aggravation at the front door. She soon learned the only thing Robert was sick of was her dabbling with the supernatural. Unbeknownst to her at the time Robert had taken the liberty to hire Pinkerton men to document her every move including her multiple engagements with mediums and spiritualists. This information and personal testimonies collected from Mary’s peers would aid in her arrest for lunacy, later being committed to a sanitarium known as Bellevue Place on May 20, 1875.

Mary’s interest in spiritualism was nothing new, it pre-dated her husband’s assassination and was a prominent part of their lives. The practice was absorbent in a period that was defined by the need to know. Families begged for answers for their missing or fallen loved ones in a battle between brothers and they searched for these answers beyond the veil. And a family riddled with tragedy like the Lincolns were no different.

The Spiritualism Movement

As the Britannica Encyclopedia explains, spiritualism is the “belief that departed souls can interact with the living.” An individual can’t usually interact with the spirit world on their own and one often requires the assistance of a medium. A medium is a person who is believed to have direct contact with the spirit world and in some cases a vessel for otherworldly occurrences. Although mediums or psychic mediums are still relevant today, individuals have found other means of contact with those beyond the grave through an arsenal of tools used for “paranormal investigations.”

Not only did the advances in scientific studies and urbanization add to the rise in spiritualism during the early 1800s in the United States, but a country on the verge of uncertainty in the form of a civil war was a driving factor. An added contributor was the rise in photography. For the first time, people bore witness to the true tragedy of warfare seeing presumably their loved ones laying still on the battlefield. These photographs were a catalyst in the beliefs of spirits and the afterlife as these early photographs often picked up strange figures in the background. With this joint information family members searched for answers or closure for their loved ones and turned to mediums for this.

Beyond the Civil War, in 1848 the Fox family of Hydesville, NY would see two sisters rise to become prominent “mediums” in the movement. Kate would be the first sister to experience a paranormal encounter when she communicated with the spirit of a murdered man in her house through a series of knocks. This first encounter would be an important method of communication henceforth. Soon after she would be joined by her sister Maggie and the two would commit much of their lives to the practice, acting in both the United States and England.

The Lincolns were not unlike any other family at the time and having lost two sons by 1862 Mary Todd Lincoln was a wreck. The loss of her 11-year-old son Willie was enough to leave her resigned to the confines of her own living space for weeks on end to mourn. To help alleviate the pain of a grieving mother, former First Lady Jane Pierce, a woman who could relate, suggested the practice of spiritualism.

Seances in the White House

On the advice of Jane Pierce, Mary found comfort in a group of mediums who resided in Georgetown known as “The Lauries.” These seances performed with the Lauries would prove not only to be successful as an outlet for the grieving mother but also a means of communication with her lost loved ones. In addition to these practices, Mary is quoted as saying that she was visited by Willie nightly, and he was often accompanied by another familiar face, her other lost son Eddie who had passed at the early age of four. This newfound trust in the practice soon found its way through the White House’s front door, landing within the confines of the Red Room. It is here that Mrs. Lincoln is recorded as performing at least eight seances within the comfort of her own home. A typical séance saw Mrs. Lincoln and a group of participants seated around a table with joined hands led by a medium. The group would set the mood by darkening the room and playing music to aid in their conjuring of the spirits, often making communication through a series of knocks.

Though President Abraham Lincoln was devout in his religious beliefs it is recorded that he participated in a handful of the seances that occurred in the Red Room with the most notable being in April of 1863. This event saw the Lincolns alongside medium Charles E. Shockle joined by a duo of supporting cabinet members and Prior Melton, a reporter for the Boston Gazette. Mr. Melton documented the event as President Lincoln called upon the spirits of past political leaders for guidance in dealing with the current adversities he was facing. When the story hit the press this taboo practice was met with much scrutiny along with the president’s sanity. Modern historians beg to explain the event as more or less an attempt to show a lighter side of the Presidential family showing they faced the same issues as them and found solace in similar coping mechanisms. This would not be the only time President Lincoln leaned on spiritualism for political guidance, just a year prior in December of 1862 he was within the company of medium Nettie Colburn Maynard and the outcome was compelling.

Nettie Colburn Maynard found herself in Washington DC in December of 1862 with one thought on her mind, what happened next was by chance. Her intentions were set on visiting her brother in the Federal Army Hospital where she hoped to secure a leave of absence for him so he could properly recover. Unfortunately, this did not happen, and she found herself at loss for words.

Unknown to her at the time, her friend Mr. Cranstoun Laurie was in deep discussion with Mrs. Lincoln about other matters, a medium who could perform physical manifestations. This idea had Mrs. Lincoln’s ears perked and she had to witness it herself. Nettie was called upon under the orders of the First Lady and she soon found herself among the likes of some of the most prominent people of the time. Upon her arrival, Mrs. Lincoln noticed that the young medium was distraught, seeing the pain on her face and she searched for reasoning. Nettie would explain the situation and her original reason for visiting DC. After learning of this news Mrs. Lincoln promised to make things right and asked for Nettie to visit the White House the following day.

When Nettie arrived at the White House the following day she would be in the company of President Lincoln. What started as a simple conversation, later leading to a séance under the president’s interest would become monumental in political guidance. Under the control of a spirit later referred to by Nettie as “old Dr. Bamford” she provided President Lincoln with the importance of the Emancipation Proclamation. She spoke in a strong, sometimes referred to as “divine” like voice explaining the event’s significance and how it would become a pivotal moment not only for his administration but in his life. She explained that he must stand firm and fearless in doing so.

When Nettie came too, she remembers feeling out of place and initially unaware of what just happened. Her eyes fell upon the president who gazed upon her intently. After a brief discussion with the rest of the party members, the president met Nettie with kind words, “My child, you possess a very singular gift; but that it is of God, I have no doubt. I thank you for coming here tonight. It is more important than perhaps anyone present can understand. I must leave you all now, but I hope I shall see you again.”

Outside of spiritualism, séances, and mediumship the practices influence President Lincoln in another realm, his dreams. There is questionable information recorded that the president dreamt of being assassinated just days before his death. In his dream, he visited the East Room of the White House to find a conglomerate of mourners surrounding a covered corpse. When he questioned the soldier guarding the body who had died, he explained it was the president and that he had been assassinated. President Lincoln would later confine in a small group the details of his dreams and it wouldn’t be until the 1880s that a close friend of the family and former bodyguard Ward Hill Lamon would share this “premonition” with the populous. Whether this dream was truly a premonition, influenced by other knowledge, or completely made up, we will never know.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post!