The Great Lincoln Irony By Kim Michael Copyright April 2015

   

The Great Lincoln  Irony

 By Kim Michael       Copyright April 2015

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines “irony”as: a situation that is strangely out-of-place, or something that has happened that seems to be the exact opposite of what you might normally expect. 

History is full of strange ironies, and perhaps one of the strangest is The Great Lincoln “Irony”.    

But first you need to meet Edwin Thomas, a key player in this irony of ironies.  He was a popular actor during the time that Abraham Lincoln was president.  To say he was popular is actually an understatement.  Some theatrical historians considered him one of the greatest American actors ever, and certainly the greatest Shakespearian actor of the nineteenth century.  He was the equivalent to George Clooney or Cary Grant today, and he traveled across the country performing in only the finest theaters; not to mention he was considered a major “heart throb” by many adoring female fans. 

But his life would take several unexpected turns.  In 1863 or 1864 (no one knows for sure); while standing on a crowded railway platform in Jersey City, New Jersey; a young man was accidentally pushed off the platform and onto the tracks of an oncoming train.  To be fair, there are some accounts that say the train was already in the station and that the young man had slipped down under the wheels.  In either case, it is pretty much agreed that the young man would likely have been killed if not for one man standing on the platform who saw the boy fall and leaped onto the tracks to pull him to safety.  That man was Edwin Thomas, and at the time, he had no idea who the young man was.   

Now keep in mind that Edwin Thomas was an actor, and the first in our series of ironies is that it was pretty well known that Abraham Lincoln did not like going to the theater, which he often did merely to appease his wife Mary, who loved the theater.  And it is probably safe to say that if Lincoln didn’t like the theater, that he probably didn’t care for actors as well. 

And so I believe one of the great ironies of this story is, that, when Lincoln went to Ford’s theater that fateful night of April 14, 1865, he went to satisfy an  agenda, other than placating his wife; he went to meet and thank the brother of the actor, a cast member in the play, who had saved his son’s life several months before. 

The young man that Edwin Thomas had saved on that railway platform that day was Robert “Todd” Lincoln…Abraham Lincoln’s son.    

History will forever remember that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth…an actor.  What history has conveniently left out is that it was Edwin Thomas’ brother (an actor) that Lincoln was probably there to see that night; and that both Edwin's brother and the actor who  assassinated the President...were the same man.    

You see, Thomas was not Edwin’s last name; it was his only his middle name.  His last name was actually “Booth”.  And John Wilkes Booth, in addition to being Edwin’s brother and Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, was the man that Lincoln had likely gone to Ford’s Theater that night to meet and thank.

And so the great Lincoln Irony may more accurately be described as the great “Booth” Irony, in that one brother took the life of a Lincoln… and the other… had saved his son’s life.