Commander in Chief & Great Emancipator

Broughton's Monthly Planet Reader and Astrological Journal. Vol. 1, no. 6, September 1860. Philadelphia: L. D. Broughton, 1860. Complete Image HOLLIS Catalog Entry

L.D. Broughton was a Philadelphia astrologer, onetime president of the American Society of Astrologers, and the author of Elements of Astrology (1906).  In 1860, Broughton inaugurated his Monthly Planet Reader and Astrological Journal in order to “illustrate and teach the Astral Sciences on simple and plain but efficient principles, so as to render it a useful miscellany and companion to the farmer, gardener, traveler, merchant, and the youthful inquirer after truth.” The September 1860 issue shown here included the nativity of the “Hon. Abram Lincoln” in which the journal’s editor predicted that the candidate “will be defeated this next coming presidential election.”  Although the journal’s prediction was proven wrong, a post-election prophecy of a tragedy befalling the Lincoln presidency turned out to be chillingly accurate.  The editor thought that Lincoln’s election was as one of the “worst things that could have happened to the United States.”  “The evil will not be felt in its full force right away,” stated the journal, but would occur “about next April or May.”  The Civil War began on 13 April 1861.   In late 1864, the journal predicted that a tragedy would befall Lincoln sometime during his second term.  The editor had no idea of how accurate that prediction would prove to be.

Lin 2809.30   The William Whiting Nolen Collection of Lincolniana.