The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War (39 page)

Shortly before Lincoln left Springfield, this warning had been followed by an alarming letter from Henry C. Bowen, the editor of an antislavery newspaper in New York. Bowen forwarded a note he had received from an acquaintance named Charles Gould, warning of a plan “to kill Mr. Lincoln on his way to Washington,” and claiming that it would not be possible for the president-elect “to go in safety to the Capital when his progress is known to the public.” These statements, Gould insisted, “can be taken for truth without exaggeration.”

As it happened, Gould’s warning would not have satisfied Lincoln’s desire for independent corroboration, as it had originated with none other than Samuel Felton, the very man who had sent Pinkerton to Baltimore. Even so, it is clear that Lincoln could not have been as unaware of the gathering threat as Pinkerton supposed. That he was content to keep his own counsel suggests a lawyerly effort to weigh the evidence, free of distraction, as he attempted to separate reasonable suspicion from hearsay. “The time comes upon every public man,” he once had occasion to say, “when it is best for him to keep his lips closed.”

In this situation, however, that time would be brief. The following day, Pinkerton would need a verdict.

CHAPTER TWENTY

THE ASSASSIN’S KNIFE

Tomorrow we enter slave territory. There may be trouble in Baltimore. If so, we will not go to Washington, unless in long, narrow boxes.

—JOHN HAY, in a letter dated February 22, 1861

SHORTLY AFTER NOON ON THE FOLLOWING DAY,
February 22, an unusual train rolled into Baltimore’s President Street Station, the southern terminus of Samuel Felton’s Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad. A special sleeper car had been coupled to the regular passenger train and darkened with drawn curtains, although the train was running in broad daylight.

The atmosphere at the depot was charged. “The station was filled with rough characters,” according to one source, “and the temper of the crowd was unmistakably hostile to the Union. There were oaths heard that ‘no damned abolitionist like Lincoln or Hamlin should enter the White House,’ and the mob seemed capable of carrying out its threats.” As Felton’s train stood idling at the platform, a small contingent of “ruffians” pushed their way aboard and swarmed through the carriages, apparently looking for Lincoln. They made their way into the sleeper car at the back of the train and made a noisy search, even pushing back the curtains, where a man and his wife lay quietly on their berths. For a long moment, the intruders glared down at the couple, who stared back with expressions of polite confusion. Finally, finding themselves frustrated in their search, “the uncleanly creatures took themselves away, leaving an atmosphere of profanity and whiskey.”

Left behind in their sleeping compartment, unrecognized by the hooligans, were Hannibal Hamlin and his wife, Ellen.

*   *   *

IN THE OFFICES OF THE
BALTIMORE SUN,
meanwhile, a special editorial was being prepared for the next day’s paper. In a small masterpiece of benign contempt, the editors offered a plea for civility even as they thumbed their noses at the incoming president:

Mr. Lincoln, President-elect of the United States, is expected, in fulfillment of the route programme, to arrive in Baltimore today. He will thus put his foot upon Southern soil, and enter that section of territory in which those institutions exist and are esteemed by the people against which he has declared an “irrepressible conflict.” He comes into that territorial division of the country from which he received not one electoral vote, and in which but a meagre representation of his party and his views is to be found. To these few he might be very properly committed. But Mr. Lincoln, by virtue of the office to which he is elected, and the somewhat eccentric style, oratorical and otherwise, in which he approaches the capital, will be an object of curiosity to thousands, no doubt, consequently he may expect to meet a large multitude who, having nothing better to do, in this “artificial crisis,” will avail themselves of a free ticket to have a look at him. With all this we have little concern, but we have for something else.

It is of great concern to all who love and would honor the State of Maryland and the city of Baltimore that no demonstration whatsoever should be made, even by a single individual, inconsistent with our self-respect. We would a thousand times rather see the most elaborate exhibition of official courtesy, unbecoming as it would be in such a case, than that the slightest personal disrespect should mar the occasion, or blur the reputation of our well-ordered city.

Elsewhere in the city, an anonymous citizen was composing an urgent letter to be placed in the hands of Lincoln himself:

Dear Sir

I think it my duty to inform you that I was assured last night by a gentleman that there existed in Baltimore a league of ten persons who had sworn that you should never pass through that city alive—This may be but one of the thousand threats against you that have emanated from some paltry Southerners, but you should know it that your friends may be watchful while you are in the place, as it was asserted positively to be the fact. God defend and bless you—The prayers of many go with you!

A Lady

In Philadelphia, Allan Pinkerton had been busy. With the help of Norman Judd, Samuel Felton, and others, the detective had worked through the night in an eleventh-hour effort to revise his plan for Lincoln’s safe passage through Baltimore. There were now two extra difficulties to overcome. First, Lincoln’s scheduled appearance in Baltimore was now only one day away. As the appointed hour drew closer, the chances of slipping through the city unnoticed became more remote. As Hamlin’s unnerving experience at the President Street Station would demonstrate, the city’s hostile elements were already on alert.

At the same time, Lincoln’s insistence on making the time-consuming trip to Harrisburg had brought an extra dimension of difficulty to the planning. The state capital was roughly one hundred miles to the west of Philadelphia, adding an extra four hours of train travel in each direction. In order to accommodate this detour, Pinkerton would have to involve a second set of railroad men and telegraph operators, any one of whom could compromise the secrecy of the plan. Where possible, Pinkerton employed the latest word-substitution cipher from the Chicago office, in which the critical terms were replaced with the names of random foodstuffs. Over the wires, Pinkerton himself would be identified as “Plums,” and—in a bizarrely inappropriate quirk of circumstance—Lincoln would be known as “Nuts.”

The detective was also anxious to keep tabs on matters in Baltimore. For this, he turned to George Dunn, an agent of the local Harnden’s Express Company, with whom he had worked on previous operations. Dunn was sent off to Baltimore with a key to the office on South Street, where he was to collect the reports Pinkerton’s field agents had filed in the detective’s absence. Kate Warne’s report of that day, written while she was still in Philadelphia, offers a passing glimpse of Pinkerton’s hectic efforts. She recorded that Pinkerton came to her room at three o’clock that morning—“sick, and tired out”—with a fresh set of instructions, pausing only a few moments before ducking back out into the night.

“Every possible contingency was discussed and re-discussed,” said Norman Judd. Pinkerton crisscrossed the city, rousing railroad authorities from their beds and dispatching errand boys on secret missions. By the time he made his way back to the St. Louis for a quick change of clothes, swarms of people were converging on Independence Hall to witness Lincoln’s flag-raising ceremony—“which,” the detective noted wearily in his field report, “was announced for sun-rise.”

Kate Warne would be on hand for the celebrations that morning, looking out from a crowd of some thirty thousand people as Lincoln’s open carriage rolled slowly onto the plaza behind an honor guard of Mexican War veterans. Head uncovered, the president-elect climbed down and was led into the chamber where the Declaration of Independence had been signed, his features “betraying the emotion with which he stood in that historic room.”

Speaking before the city council and other prominent citizens, Lincoln offered a moving tribute to the Founding Fathers. “He gave a most eloquent expression to the emotions and associations which were suggested by the day and by the historic old hall where he then stood,” Pinkerton would remark, adding that a “tinge of sadness pervaded his remarks, never noticed before, and which were occasioned no doubt by the revelations of the preceding night.” Elsewhere, Pinkerton would attempt to recall a particular line of the speech that hinted at Lincoln’s uneasy state of mind. “I cannot quote it correctly,” he admitted. “It was something like this: ‘I will preserve the Union even if the assassin’s knife is at my heart.’”

Lincoln’s actual remarks, given in response to an introduction from Theodore Cuyler, an outspoken advocate of concession to the slaveholding states, were far more subtle, if no less dramatic. By this time, Lincoln had become a master at drawing urgent, timely lessons from the pages of history.

I am filled with deep emotion at finding myself standing here, in this place, where were collected together the wisdom, the patriotism, the devotion to principle, from which sprang the institutions under which we live. You have kindly suggested to me that in my hands is the task of restoring peace to the present distracted condition of the country. I can say in return, Sir, that all the political sentiments I entertain have been drawn, so far as I have been able to draw them, from the sentiments which originated and were given to the world from this hall. I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. I have often pondered over the dangers which were incurred by the men who assembled here, and framed and adopted that Declaration of Independence. I have pondered over the toils that were endured by the officers and soldiers of the army who achieved that Independence. I have often inquired of myself, what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the Colonies from the motherland, but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to the world, for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men. This is a sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence. Now, my friends, can this country be saved upon that basis? If it can, I will consider myself one of the happiest men in the world if I can help to save it. If it cannot be saved upon that principle, it will be truly awful. But if this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle …

Lincoln paused here for a long moment, his head bowed before the portraits of Jefferson, Adams, and Madison. When he spoke again, having apparently struggled to find the proper words, his voice was firm and clear. “I was about to say,” he declared, “I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it.”

Norman Judd would have been one of the few who understood the full significance of this extraordinary remark. In his mind, there was no doubt that the dramatic reference to “sacrificing himself for his country” sprang from Lincoln’s meeting with Pinkerton the previous evening, and from thoughts of what lay ahead in Baltimore.

The somber moment passed quickly. As Lincoln brought his remarks to a close, he was led to a wooden platform outside the hall, where he looked down on the vast cheering crowd that had gathered for the flag raising. “They had come, many of them, from a distance,” wrote Joseph Howard in the
New York Times,
“that they might witness the performance of a deed, the solemn beauty of which cannot well be overestimated.” Stepping forward, Lincoln “threw off his overcoat in an offhand, easy manner” and took hold of the halyards. Pulling hand over hand, he ran the oversized American flag up the pole and watched as it unfurled overhead. The air filled with patriotic music as the soldiers below fired off a crisp salute. Lincoln’s expression, according to more than one observer, was serene.

*   *   *

JUST AFTER 8:00 A.M.,
Pinkerton met again with Norman Judd at the Continental Hotel, where he learned that Lincoln had “signified his readiness to do whatever was required of him.” Pinkerton remained secretive about the details of his plan—“No particulars were given and none were asked,” he said—but it was understood that the broad strokes would remain the same, with Lincoln passing through Baltimore ahead of schedule. In this way, Pinkerton believed, he might yet catch the assassins off guard. “The common and accepted belief was that Mr. Lincoln would journey from Harrisburg to Baltimore over the Northern Central Railroad, and the plans of the conspirators were arranged accordingly,” Pinkerton wrote. “It became a matter of the utmost importance, therefore, that no intimation of our movements should reach that city.”

There were several channels by which this crucial information might reach Baltimore. Pinkerton had arranged to place friendly operators on the major telegraph lines to watch for suspicious messages, but he worried that this precaution would not be sufficient. If, as he believed, “agents of the conspirators” were shadowing the presidential party at all times, it was essential not to arouse suspicion. Any deviation from the official itinerary might signal an awareness of the plot. Toward that end, Pinkerton remained determined to withhold the details of his plan from all but the central participants. “I requested Mr. Lincoln that none but Mr. Judd and myself should know anything about this arrangement,” Pinkerton recalled. “I said that secrecy was so necessary for our success that I deemed it best that as few as possible should know anything of our movements: that I knew all the men with whom it was necessary for me to instruct my movements and that my share of this secret should be safe, and that if it only was kept quiet I should answer for his safety with my life.”