History holds many strange coincidences, but few are as haunting as the life of Robert Todd Lincoln, the eldest son of President Abraham Lincoln. On April 14, 1865, Robert was not inside Ford's Theatre when his father was shot, but he was immediately summoned to the deathbed across the street and spent the tragic night standing by his father's side. Sixteen years later, as Secretary of War under President James A.
Garfield, Robert was walking alongside Garfield at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D. C. , on July 2, 1881, when assassin Charles J.
Guiteau opened fire. Robert witnessed the shooting firsthand. Twenty years after that, on September 6, 1901, Robert was invited by President William McKinley to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
Though not in the immediate room when Leon Czolgosz shot McKinley, Robert was arriving at the venue at that exact moment and rushed to the wounded president's side. Recognizing his grim track record, Robert reportedly declined future presidential invitations, famously stating that there was a certain fatality about his presence around commanders-in-chief. Despite this morbid string of events, Robert lived a distinguished life as a lawyer, cabinet official, and business executive before passing away peacefully in 1926.