This rare story is about the ghost of the famous president. Actually, there seems to be evidence that Mr. Lincoln himself was quite mystic. It is said he dreamed his Emancipation Proclamation.
Summer 1948
by E. Sagerquist
Summer 1948- Vol. 1, No. 2
CARL SCHURZ, the great German-American statesman, was a close friend of Abraham Lincoln.
He had taken part in the Illinois campaign between Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, and in 1861 he
was sent by Lincoln to be minister to Spain. He soon resigned this post and returned to the
United States to join the Union Army with the rank of major-general of volunteers.
After Lincoln’s death, President Johnson summoned him to Washington. On his way there he
stopped off in Philadelphia to visit his close friend, Doctor Tiedemann. Tiedemann’s father was
a renowned professor of medicine in the University of Heidelberg. Mrs. Tiedemann’s brother was
Frederick Hecker, a famous revolutionary leader in Germany who later served well in the Union
Army.
Schurz found that his friends had become quite interested in spiritualism. They had lost two
sons, in the war and Mrs. Tiedemann had received messages from both. They discussed spiritual
matters at dinner and after they had eaten decided to have a seance. Their young daughter had
mediumistic powers and could do automatic writing.
During the seance, Shurz asked for Abe Lincoln. When the medium told him Lincoln was present,
Schurz asked him if he knew why President Johnson was calling him to Washington. Lincoln told
him that Johnson wanted him to go on a very important journey and advised him to go. It turned
out that President Johnson did send him on a trip through the south to study conditions there.
Then Schurz asked Lincoln if he knew anything more about his future and Lincoln told him that
he would some day become a United States Senator from Missouri. This amused Schurz, because
his home was in Wisconsin and he had no intention of leaving there. But two years later a
business opportunity took him to St. Louis and after a short time he was elected to the Senate
of the United States.
