The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War (33 page)

Snethen had couched his letter in terms of unflagging support, but the underlying message was unmistakable: Lincoln was not welcome in Baltimore. The following morning, as the Lincoln Special’s route turned toward Washington, Lincoln would be headed due south for the first time. Maryland lay directly in his path, but the political establishment of the state had yet to acknowledge his approach. Governor Hicks, still trying to maintain his partisan balancing act, had been especially notable in his silence. Only Snethen and his plucky fellow Republicans had troubled to extend a hand of welcome, and even they appeared to be thinking better of it.

*   *   *

AS IT HAPPENED,
the man who would have best understood Lincoln’s concerns was not on board when the Lincoln Special pulled out of Albany at eight o’clock the following morning. Norman Judd, who had already received two warnings about conditions in Baltimore from Pinkerton, found himself left behind when the train departed ahead of schedule. Judd had “never felt so mortified in all his life,” he admitted, and hastily bought a ticket on a regular passenger train to catch up with the Lincoln Special in New York City later that afternoon.

It was felt by some that Lincoln’s early departure reflected his disgust with the hectic arrangements in Albany—“a miserable botch,” in Villard’s words—but it was more likely a concession to difficult travel conditions. Ice floes in the Hudson River had made the original route inadvisable, so Wood adjusted the timetable to allow for a detour. Whatever the official reason, both Lincoln and his wife were said to be grateful for “safe deliverance” from their overeager hosts, and vowed never to return.

At three o’clock that afternoon, after another day of “cheers and hurrahs,” the train pulled into New York City’s Hudson River Railroad terminal at West Thirtieth Street. It was a significant milestone for the man whose name had been misreported as “Abram Lincoln” at the time of election. Nearly one year had passed since his previous visit to the city, when he had delivered his pivotal address at Cooper Union. On that occasion, he had been virtually unknown, and he had walked to the Astor House hotel on foot. Now, as John Nicolay reported, the city’s streets, doorways, windows and rooftops were lined with a “continuous fringe of humanity” as residents jockeyed for a clear view of the incoming president.

New York City’s police superintendent, John Kennedy, greeted Lincoln at the station, signaling an unparalleled level of security and crowd control. Lincoln’s arrival had been an occasion of bedlam at every previous stop, but Kennedy had imposed a system of ticketed admission at the station, limiting the crowd to invited guests. Maj. David Hunter, who still wore his arm in a sling after the melee in Buffalo, looked on with obvious approval as he climbed down from the train.

Kennedy’s security measures remained in evidence outside the station, where a line of thirty-five coaches stood waiting for a procession of three and a half miles through the city streets. Lincoln submitted to a brief grooming from his wife, who attempted to smooth his unkempt hair and beard, before stepping into an ornate carriage at the head of the column, drawn by six black horses. As the procession rounded onto Ninth Avenue from Thirtieth Street, squads of mounted police took up positions at the front and rear, with patrolmen on foot flanking the carriages, and hundreds of additional men lining the parade route. “The police arrangements were among the most perfect,” Nicolay reported. “Broadway had been kept clear, so that the double line of carriages which made up the procession moved in perfect order.”

Significantly, New York Mayor Fernando Wood was not on hand to greet Lincoln that day. The previous month, Wood had proposed that New York declare a form of independence during the secession dispute, so as to continue “uninterrupted intercourse with every section” of the country. “When Disunion has become a fixed and certain fact,” he declared, “why may not New York disrupt the bands which bind her to a venal and corrupt master?” The suggestion drew bitter criticism. “Wood evidently wants to be a traitor,” wrote Horace Greeley. “It is lack of courage only that makes him content with being a blackguard.” Lincoln’s response, expressed privately, was equally cutting. “I reckon,” he said, “it will be some time before the front door sets up housekeeping on its own account.”

If Mayor Wood’s views were extreme, they reflected New York’s mood, which had turned anxious and pessimistic in the wake of the election. Businesses were faltering and the stock market had plummeted. Many New Yorkers believed that their troubles rested squarely on Lincoln’s shoulders, and they greeted his arrival with “much respect,” according to one reporter, but “little enthusiasm.” Signs of the city’s ambivalence could be seen clearly along the route to the Astor House.
RIGHT MAKES MIGHT
read one banner, a reference to Lincoln’s triumphant Cooper Union address, but another urged the incoming president to show caution:
WELCOME ABRAHAM LINCOLN
, it read.
WE BEG FOR COMPROMISE.

After bowing and doffing his hat for an hour and a half as the procession rolled slowly along, Lincoln arrived at last at the Astor House, located on Broadway between Vesey and Barclay streets. Across the street, watching from the top of a Broadway omnibus, the poet Walt Whitman looked on as Lincoln stepped out of his carriage. “The figure, the look, the gait, are distinctly impress’d upon me yet,” Whitman wrote many years later. “All was comparative and ominous silence. The newcomer look’d with curiosity upon that immense sea of faces, and the sea of faces return’d the look with similar curiosity. In both there was a dash of something almost comical. Yet there was much anxiety in certain quarters. Cautious persons had fear’d that there would be some outbreak, some mark’d indignity or insult to the President elect on his passage through the city, for he possess’d no personal popularity in New York, and not much political. No such outbreak or insult, however, occurr’d.” The poet went on to take a bit of license with the scene, looking back over the intervening years to suggest a presentiment of roiling dangers: “I had no doubt (so frenzied were the ferments of the time) many an assassin’s knife and pistol lurk’d in hip or breast-pocket there—ready, soon as break and riot came.”

While Whitman watched from the street, Kate Warne looked down on the scene from the top floor of the hotel. “Lincoln looked very pale and fatigued,” she noted in her field report. “He was standing in his carriage bowing when I first saw him. From the carriage he went directly into the house, and soon after appeared on the balcony.” As had become his habit, Lincoln attempted to deflect the calls for an impromptu speech, insisting that he had “nothing to say just now worth your hearing,” but the crowd persisted. Mrs. Warne looked on as he ventured a few remarks, but “there was such a noise it was impossible to hear what he said.”

For Mrs. Warne, it had been a day of frustrations. Her train ride from Baltimore had been an eleven-hour crawl, finally reaching New York at the inhospitable hour of 4:00
A.M.
She then made her way to the Astor House, where, “after much trouble,” she succeeded in getting a room. Weary from the unpleasant journey, she tried to get a few hours of rest but found herself unable to sleep. She rose and breakfasted at 7:30, then settled down in her room, awaiting the chance to meet with Norman Judd. In the meantime, Mrs. Warne hoped to make contact with Edward Sanford to deliver the other message Pinkerton had left in her care. Summoning a messenger boy, she sent a note to Sanford’s office to arrange a meeting, and waited with increasing impatience for a reply. Finally, at three o’clock that afternoon, she sent a second message, underscoring the urgency of her errand. At this, Sanford replied, saying that he was unavailable but would call on Mrs. Warne that evening. In the meantime, upon seeing Lincoln arrive, Mrs. Warne dispatched a note to Judd, asking him to come to her room as soon as convenient. “I gave the note to the bell-boy and told him to deliver [it] immediately,” she noted in her field report, but her hopes for a prompt meeting were dashed when the messenger returned with the news that Judd had been left behind in Albany. Exasperated, Mrs. Warne pulled a chair to the window and resumed her vigil.

Several hours later, as Judd belatedly straggled into the Astor House, the hotel bellboy pressed Mrs. Warne’s note into his hand. Judd lost no time in answering the summons, having been well primed by his earlier messages from Pinkerton. “I followed the servant to one of the upper rooms of the hotel,” he recalled, “where, upon entering, I found a lady seated at a table with some papers before her. She arose as I entered.”

Judd took a moment to assess the agreeable, if understated, young woman standing before him, likely wondering why Allan Pinkerton had sent a woman to do a man’s job. Seeing his hesitation, Mrs. Warne hurried forward and offered her hand. “Mr. Judd, I presume,” she said crisply.

Judd gave a curt nod. “Yes, madam,” he replied, but before he could speak further, Mrs. Warne guided him firmly to a chair, explaining that Pinkerton had sent her to New York because he “did not like to trust the mail in so important a matter.” Judd had been expecting as much, and he apparently felt the need to steel himself for the contents of Pinkerton’s letter. On the long journey from Springfield, John Hay and others had become accustomed to seeing Judd with an unlighted cigar clamped between his teeth. Now, as Mrs. Warne passed over the envelope from Pinkerton, Judd asked for her permission to light up.

Judd tore open the letter and read through it with visible agitation. Once again, Pinkerton had been sparing with his details. New evidence of a plot against Lincoln had come to light, he insisted, but the particulars were too sensitive to be shared in a letter. It was imperative, however, that Judd be prepared to take whatever action would be necessary when the time came. In the meantime, Pinkerton and his operatives would gather information and form a plan to meet the crisis. Mrs. Warne had been instructed to arrange a face-to-face meeting with Pinkerton at Judd’s earliest-possible convenience. At that time, the detective promised, all would be revealed.

For several moments, Judd said nothing. He read through the letter a second time, sending up a thick plume of cigar smoke, then allowed the paper to dangle from his fingers. Up to this point, he had kept his own counsel about the bulletins Pinkerton had sent from Baltimore, so as to “avoid causing any anxiety on the part of Mr. Lincoln.” Now, after staying silent for nearly a week, he worried that he had badly misjudged the seriousness of the situation. Pinkerton had made it plain that nothing more could be revealed until they met in person, but Judd was not willing to wait. Desperate for more detail, he rounded on Mrs. Warne. What, exactly, was this new evidence? How many conspirators were in on the plot? Why had Pinkerton not gone to the police?

“Mr. Judd asked me a great many questions, which I did not answer,” Mrs. Warne recalled. “I told him that I could not talk on the business.” Instead, she promised Judd that she would hand-carry a message directly to Pinkerton in Baltimore. The two of them could speak in person the following day so that “all the proofs relating to the conspiracy could be submitted.”

This did nothing to calm Judd’s fears. “He said he was much alarmed and would like to show the letter I had given him to some of the party,” Mrs. Warne wrote, “and also consult the New York police about it.” Mrs. Warne stood firm. She told Judd that he was “to do no such thing,” and advised him to “keep cool” until the meeting with Pinkerton could be arranged.

Pinkerton had feared just such a response from Judd, and was counting on Mrs. Warne’s considerable powers of persuasion to keep him in check. Pinkerton earnestly believed that bringing others in on the plot would pose a danger to his agents in the field, and limit his options in dealing with the threat. Secrecy, as he had told Samuel Felton, was the lever that guaranteed his success. Any wider discussion of his discoveries within Lincoln’s circle would almost certainly spark rumors in the press. If that were to happen, the conspirators might well abandon their current plan and form a new one, and Pinkerton’s hard-won information would become useless.

For the moment, Mrs. Warne’s arguments appeared to be having little effect. Judd began to pace the room, puffing hard at his cigar. After a moment, he asked if Pinkerton couldn’t be summoned to New York immediately. Mrs. Warne calmly pointed out that Pinkerton couldn’t possibly reach the city before Lincoln was scheduled to depart. This served only to deepen Judd’s gloom. He repeated that he “did not know what to do” and felt he must “consult with one of his party” to determine a course of action. Mrs. Warne furrowed her brow and said nothing. She now feared that Pinkerton’s decision to confide in Judd was about to backfire.

At that moment, help arrived from an unexpected quarter as Edward Sanford, Pinkerton’s client in the Adams Express robbery, appeared at the door of Mrs. Warne’s room. The last time Sanford had seen Mrs. Warne, she had been streaked in grime from digging in a dirt cellar for his company’s stolen money. Meeting her again now, Sanford swept into the room and clasped Mrs. Warne’s hands in a warm greeting, praising her lavishly as someone to whom he owed a great debt.

Sanford’s effusive words seemed to have a calming effect on Norman Judd. After Mrs. Warne made the introductions, she handed Sanford his letter from Pinkerton, asking for his assistance in making arrangements to conduct Lincoln safely through Baltimore. When Sanford finished reading the letter, he passed it over to Judd. Although this second message offered no new information, Judd took added reassurance from the fact that Pinkerton was already laying plans with Sanford to meet the crisis. As his mood brightened, Judd told Sanford that everything appeared to be “all right” now. Pinkerton, it appeared, was a man of sound judgment. Sanford heartily agreed, and he offered Judd the use of the American Telegraph Company’s lines for any communication he might wish to make. Judd declined, saying that he would withdraw to his room for the moment to consider the matter further.