White House Ghost (Abraham Lincoln)

Accounts situate the origin of the tradition in the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln's assassination in 1865; reports and lore hold that Lincoln's post-mortem presence has been perceived at the U.S. White House and at several of his former Springfield, Illinois residences (including his law office). The supplied sources treat the haunting as a long-standing element of White House lore and note the phrase's later metaphorical uses in political commentary and books.

The supplied sources identify the entity as the ghost or apparition of Abraham Lincoln but do not provide consistent, detailed first‑hand visual descriptions in the provided excerpts. While popular accounts and anecdotes outside the supplied material sometimes describe sightings of a Lincoln-like figure in rooms associated with him, the excerpted sources here only record that the ghost is 'the ghost of U.S. president Abraham Lincoln' and do not offer uniform details about clothing, posture, translucence, or other physical specifics.

Within the provided material the phenomenon is described chiefly as a persistent, localized presence at sites Lincoln occupied in life (primarily the White House and several Springfield residences). The sources do not document verifiable abilities such as speech, physical interaction, possession, or causation of illness; they confine claims to reported sightings and a continuing reputation for haunting those locations.