Frequently Asked Dead Presidents Questions

What Were The Dead Presidents' Last Words??

George Washington

I am just going. Have me decently buried and do not let my body be put into the vault in less than three days after I am dead. [His secretary, Tobias Lear, to whom these words were addressed, was so affected that he could not speak a reply, but nodded his assent.] Do you understand? ["Yes," replied Lear.] 'Tis well.

John Adams

[Asked by Mrs. Clark if he knew what day it was.] Oh, yes; it is the glorious Fourth of July. It is a great day. It is a good day. God bless it. God bless you all. [He then lapsed into unconsciousness. He awakened later, and mumbled] Thomas Jefferson.... [This is often reported as the beginning of the sentence "Thomas Jefferson still survives," but this cannot be held reliable. If this is indeed what John Adams was saying, he was wrong. He spoke the words at the approximate time of Jefferson's actual death; Jefferson preceded Adams in death by a couple of hours.]

Thomas Jefferson

Is it the Fourth? [Asked of his doctor, Robley Dunglison, who replied, "It soon will be."] I resign my spirit to God, my daughter to my country. [Like John Adams, Jefferson died on the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.]

James Madison

Nothing more than a change of mind, my dear. I always talk better lying down. [In response to a niece, who asked, "What is the matter, Uncle James?"]

James Monroe

I regret that I should leave this world without again beholding him. [referring to James Madison]

John Quincy Adams

This is the last of Earth. I am content.

Andrew Jackson

I hope to meet you all in Heaven. Be good children, all of you, and strive to be ready when the change comes.

Martin Van Buren

There is but one reliance...

William Henry Harrison

Sir, I wish you to understand the true principles of government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more. [Spoken in delerium to Vice President John Tyler.]

John Tyler

Doctor, I am going. ["I hope not, sir," said the doctor.] Perhaps it is best.

James Polk

I love you, Sarah. For all eternity, I love you. [He told her what provisions he had made for her, then passed away.] (spoken to his wife)

Zachary Taylor

I am about to die. I expect the summons very soon. I have tried to discharge all my duties faithfully. I regret nothing, but I am sorry that I am about to leave my friends.

Millard Fillmore

[Accepting a spoonful of soup from his doctor.] The nourishment is palatable.

Franklin Pierce

(unknown)

James Buchanan

Whatever the result may be, I shall carry to my grave the consciousness that at least I meant well for my country. Oh Lord God Almighty, as thou wilt.

Abraham Lincoln

It doesn't really matter. [In response to his wife's admonition not to hold her hand at Ford's Theater, because people might see them. Lincoln's final utterance was laughter. During the performance of the play Our American Cousin, one of the actresses called for a shawl to protect her from the draft. An actor then ad-libbed a reply, "You are mistaken, Miss Mary, the draft has been stopped by order of the President." Lincoln was laughing at this line when he was shot.]

Andrew Johnson

[After falling out of his chair, he spoke his last to his distraught daughter:] My right side is paralyzed. [struggling to move] I need no doctor. I can overcome my troubles.

Ulysses Grant

Water.

Rutherford Hayes

I know that I am going where Lucy is. [Lucy was his beloved wife.]

James Garfield

[To his chief of staff, David G. Swaim] Oh Swaim, there is a pain here. Swaim, can't you stop this? Oh, oh, Swaim!

Chester Arthur

(unknown)

Grover Cleveland

I have tried so hard to do right.

Benjamin Harrison

Are the doctors here? Doctor...my lungs.

William McKinley

Good-bye -- good-bye, all. We are all going. It's God's way. His will be done, not ours. Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee. We are all going, we are all going, we are all going. Oh, dear.

Theodore Roosevelt

Please put out the light.

William Taft

(unknown)

Woodrow Wilson

I am a broken piece of machinery. When the machine is broken... I am ready. [Spoken to his wife. Some accounts have him adding his wife's name, "Edith" at the end.]

Warren Harding

That's good. Go on. Read some more. [To his wife, who was reading him flattering newspaper accounts.]

Calvin Coolidge

Good morning, Robert. [To a carpenter working on his home.]

Herbert Hoover

[When told that Admiral Strauss had come to pay him a visit, Hoover was already speaking in past tense:] Levi Strauss was one of my best friends.

Franklin Roosevelt

I have a terrific headache. (FDR died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage.)

David Bornus advises: According to Conrad Black in his biography "Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom," page 1110, FDR was sitting for a portrait when he put his left hand to the back of his head and said: "I have a terrific pain in the back of my head." He then was carried to his bed by several people, as they were doing this "he was understood by Laura Delano to say, only semiconsciously, 'Be careful.' These were his last words."

Harry Truman

(unknown)

Dwight Eisenhower

I've always loved my wife, my children, and my grandchildren, and I've always loved my country. I want to go. I'm ready to go. God, take me.

John Kennedy

That's very obvious. [Spoken in response to Mrs. Connolly's comment, "Mr. President, you can't say that Dallas doesn't love you."] [Some claims have been made that President Kennedy exclaimed "My God, I've been hit." but one of the Secret Servicemen riding in the car when the president was shot said that Kennedy made no remarks after he was struck.]

Lyndon Johnson

Send Mike immediately! [To a Secret Service agent over an in-house telephone.]

Richard Nixon

"Help" [Called out to his housekeeper. A stroke then left him mute and partially paralyzed. He died the next day.]

Gerald Ford

(unknown)

Ronald Reagan

(unknown) His daughter Patti Davis described his death, and said that his final communication was love, spoken with his eyes rather than his voice. "At the last moment, when his breathing told us this was it, he opened his eyes and looked straight at my mother. Eyes that hadn't opened for days did, and they weren't chalky or vague. They were clear and blue and full of love. If a death can be lovely, his was. [My mother then] said to her husband that the expression was 'the greatest gift you could have given me.'"