The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War (43 page)

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AMONG THE CREW OF SAMUEL FELTON’S RAILROAD,
it appeared that the most notable thing to occur on the evening of February 22 had been a set of special instructions concerning the eleven o’clock train from Philadelphia. Felton himself had directed the conductor to hold his train at the station to await the arrival of a special courier, who would hand off a vitally important parcel. Under no circumstance could the train depart without it, Felton warned, “as this package
must
go through to Washington on
tonight’s
train.”

In fact, the package was a decoy, part of an elaborate web of bluffs and blinds that Pinkerton had constructed to limit the number of people who knew what was actually happening that night. In order to make it convincing, Felton would recall, he and Pinkerton had assembled a formidable-looking parcel done up with an impressive wax seal. Inside was a stack of useless old railroad reports. “I marked it ‘Very important—To be delivered, without fail, by eleven o’clock train,’” Felton recalled. The name on the package was Mr. E. J. Allen, care of Willard’s Hotel, Washington, D.C. “E. J. Allen,” as Pinkerton would later admit, “was the
nom-de-plume
I generally used when on detective operations.”

Pinkerton realized that ruses of this type would be crucial if he expected to accomplish his task. Lincoln’s original plans for traveling from Harrisburg to Washington had been admirably direct, a two-part run of just over one hundred miles, with a change of stations in Baltimore. Now, under Pinkerton’s plan, Lincoln would instead set off on a three-part marathon, backtracking from Harrisburg to Philadelphia on the Pennsylvania Railroad, jumping from there to Baltimore on Felton’s line, and finally connecting with a Baltimore and Ohio train into Washington. In all, Lincoln would have to cover some 250 miles in a single night—doubling the original distance—and running in darkness for most of the journey, with two changes of train. Though laborious and indirect, the revised scheme would accomplish Pinkerton’s original goal of bringing Lincoln through Baltimore earlier than expected. In addition, Lincoln would make his approach to the city on a different rail line, and arrive at a different station, which might allow him to slip past any sentries acting on behalf of the conspirators, who expected him to arrive at the Calvert Street Station on the Northern Central line direct from Harrisburg.

The added mileage was only the first of many problems Pinkerton faced that night. Though Lincoln would be making the first leg of his trip in a private train, Pinkerton could not risk using special equipment for the remaining two segments of the journey, as it would draw attention to Lincoln’s movements to have an unscheduled special train on the tracks that night. In order to travel anonymously, Lincoln would have to ride on regular passenger trains, gambling that the privacy of an ordinary sleeping compartment would be sufficient to conceal his presence.

Having charted this route, Pinkerton now confronted a scheduling problem. The train carrying Lincoln from Harrisburg on the first segment of his journey would likely not reach Philadelphia in time to connect with the second segment, the eleven o’clock train to Baltimore. Felton’s decoy parcel, it was hoped, would hold the Baltimore-bound train at the depot, without drawing undue suspicion, until Lincoln could be smuggled aboard. If all went according to plan, Lincoln would arrive in Baltimore in the dead of night. His sleeper car would then be unhitched and drawn by horse to the Camden Street Station, where it would be coupled to a Washington train for the final leg of the journey.

Pinkerton had laid his plans “keenly, shrewdly and well,” as Norman Judd would say, drawing on his long experience in railroad security to coordinate details across the three separate lines. So long as Lincoln’s presence remained secret, Pinkerton assured Judd, there would be little danger of any of the three trains being attacked. It was essential, therefore, that Lincoln should not be recognized at any stage of the journey.

With that in mind, the task of getting Lincoln safely aboard the Baltimore-bound passenger train would be especially delicate, as it would have to be done in plain view of the passengers and crew. For this, Pinkerton needed a second decoy, and he counted on Kate Warne to supply it. In Philadelphia, Mrs. Warne made arrangements to reserve four double berths on the sleeper car at the back of the train. She had been instructed by Pinkerton to “get in the sleeping car and
keep
possession” until he arrived with Lincoln, but when the time came, the job proved difficult. “I found it almost impossible to save the berths together,” she reported, because arriving passengers were permitted to take any available space. As the train began to fill up, Mrs. Warne grew anxious, fearing that only a few scattered places would remain by the time Pinkerton got there. In that case, he and Lincoln would be obliged to wedge themselves into whatever berths happened to be vacant, and any hope of concealing the president-elect’s identity would be lost. As more and more passengers climbed aboard, rapidly filling the available berths, Mrs. Warne flagged down a conductor and pressed some money into his hand. She needed a special favor, she said, because she would be traveling with her “invalid brother,” who would retire immediately to his compartment and remain there behind closed blinds. It was important, due to his fragile nature, that a group of spaces be held at the back of the train to ensure his comfort and privacy. The conductor, seeing the obvious concern in the young woman’s face, nodded his head and took up a position at the rear door of the train.

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IN HARRISBURG, SIMILAR ARRANGEMENTS
were being carried out by a late addition to Pinkerton’s network: George C. Franciscus, a superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Pinkerton had confided in Franciscus the previous day, since the last-minute revision of his plan required Lincoln to make the first leg of his journey on Franciscus’s line. “I had no hesitation in telling him what I desired,” Pinkerton reported, because he had worked with Franciscus previously and knew him to be “a true and loyal man.” After spending much of Thursday night in conference with Pinkerton in Philadelphia, Franciscus had traveled to Harrisburg the following morning—catching a ride on the Lincoln Special—to make certain that the initial phase of the plan went smoothly.

Later that afternoon, when he got final word that Lincoln had consented to the plan, Franciscus put the wheels in motion. A Pennsylvania Railroad fireman named Daniel Garman recalled that Franciscus came hurrying up to him, “very much excited,” with orders to get a special train charged and ready. “I quick went and oiled up the engine and lighted the head light and turned up my fire,” Garman recalled. As he finished, he looked out and saw engineer Edward Black running along the track at full speed. Having been ordered by Franciscus to report for emergency duty, Black now hopped up into the cab and scrambled to make ready, apparently under the impression that a private train was needed to carry a group of railroad executives to Philadelphia. “I said everything was all ready,” Garman recalled, and the two men backed the engine into the depot and coupled to an empty saloon car. This done, they ran the two-car special a mile south toward Front Street, as instructed, and idled at a track crossing to wait for their passengers. Franciscus, meanwhile, had circled back to the Jones House in a carriage, pulling up just as Governor Curtin, Ward Lamon, and Lincoln himself—his appearance masked by his unfamiliar hat and shawl—emerged from the side entrance of the hotel. As the door closed behind the passengers, Franciscus flicked his whip and started off in the direction of the railroad tracks, with the indignant cries of the abandoned Colonel Sumner trailing after him.

As the carriage clattered through the streets, Governor Curtin noted a crush of people gathering at his official residence on South Second Street. “The halls, stairways and pavement in front of the house were much crowded,” he said, “and no doubt the impression prevailed that Mr. Lincoln was going to the Executive Mansion with me.” Instead, the carriage thundered past and made directly for the waiting train.

At the Front Street crossing, engineer Black and fireman Garman had barely maneuvered their two-car special into position when the carriage rolled to a stop alongside. Garman looked on as a tall person quietly alighted, escorted by Franciscus, and made his way down the tracks to the saloon car, in the company of a group of local railroad men. Once he and the other travelers were on board, Garman said, “the gong rang and we did some lively running.” Lincoln’s 250-mile dash to Washington was under way.

Even as the train vanished into the darkness, Andrew Wynne of the American Telegraph Company was climbing a square-cut wooden utility pole two miles south of town. Under the direction of George Burns and others, Wynne carefully laid a copper ground wire across the cables at the top, cutting off all telegraph communication between Harrisburg and Baltimore. The wires that Wynne had cut, however, did not belong to the American Telegraph Company. Earlier that day, Wynne had been asked by his supervisor if he would object to “fixing the wires” of a rival company to prevent any communications from passing over them. “I answered I would not,” he recalled, “in some cases.” This, apparently, was one of those cases.

Governor Curtin, meanwhile, returned to the Executive Mansion and spent the rest of the evening turning away callers, so as to give the impression that Lincoln was resting inside. It was “eminently proper,” Curtin said, “that it should not be generally known that Mr. Lincoln had left Harrisburg.”

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ON BOARD THE TRAIN,
Edward Black and Daniel Garman were pushing their engine to the limit. “If ever I got a fast ride,” Garman said, “I did that night.” All other trains had been shunted off the main line to allow the special an unimpeded run. Black had been instructed to make no stops, apart from essential watering breaks, and to arrive at the West Philadelphia depot as speedily as could be managed without running off the tracks. Garman would recall shoveling coal at such a frantic pace that much of it wound up on the floor. At times, he said, he was literally rolling in it.

In the passenger coach, Lincoln and his fellow travelers sat in the dark, so as to reduce the chance that the president-elect would be spotted at a watering stop. The precaution wasn’t entirely successful. At one of the stops, as Garman bent to connect a hose pipe, he caught sight of Lincoln in the moonlight streaming through the door of the coach. He ran forward to tell Black that “the rail-splitter was on the train,” only to be muzzled by Franciscus, who warned him not to say a word. “You bet I kept quiet then,” Garman recalled.

Climbing back into the cab alongside Black, Garman could not entirely contain his excitement. He cautiously asked his colleague if he had any idea what was going on in the saloon car. “I don’t know,” the engineer replied, “but just keep the engine hot.” By this time, Black may well have had suspicions of his own. Earlier that day, he had driven the flag-draped special that brought Lincoln to Harrisburg to address the state legislature. “I was introduced to Lincoln,” Black recalled, “and after a few words, he shook me by the hand, handed me a cigar, and passed into the train. Could I only have foreseen what was to occur in the next few years I think that cigar, instead of being smoked, would have been kept as a precious and hallowed remembrance.”

Now, some nine hours later, there were no cigars or other pleasantries. Lincoln, exhausted from the labors of the previous days, sat in the darkened saloon car with his eyes closed as Garman and Black bent to their work in the cab. Compared to the luxurious trappings of the earlier trains in which Lincoln had ridden, the arrangements that night were notably spartan. As the train paused to take on more water in Downingtown, Lamon and the other passengers climbed down to find refreshments, leaving Lincoln huddled by himself in the dark train. “A cup of tea and a roll was taken to him in the car,” recalled one of the railroad men.

Aside from watering stops, the train ran “mighty sharp” for the entire length of the line. “I have often wondered what people thought of that short train whizzing through the night,” engineer Black would later say. “A case of life and death, perhaps, and so it was.”

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IN PHILADELPHIA, ALLAN PINKERTON
had been in a state of suspense for two hours, awaiting word that Lincoln was safely under way. Though the telegraph wires between Harrisburg and Baltimore had been cut at the detective’s instigation, communications into Philadelphia were operating normally under the watchful eye of a Pinkerton confidant. Eager for news, Pinkerton made the rounds of the telegraph and express offices to see if any reports had arrived. Finally, at 8:30
P.M.
, he fired off a message to George Burns, using the agreed-upon cipher: “Where is Nuts?” After forty-five agonizing minutes, the answer came: “Nuts left at six—Everything as you directed—all is right.”

Greatly relieved, Pinkerton readied himself for the next phase of the operation. Hiring a closed carriage, he made his way to the Pennsylvania Railroad’s West Philadelphia depot at Market and Thirty-Second streets. Pinkerton left the carriage waiting at the curb and took up a position near the main stairs, where he could keep an eye on the arriving trains. Soon, the detective was joined by H. F. Kenney, another of Samuel Felton’s employees. Kenney reported that he had just come from the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore depot across town, where he had issued orders to hold the Baltimore-bound train for Felton’s “important parcel.” Pinkerton checked his watch. “Thus far,” he noted, “everything had passed off admirably.”

Just after ten o’clock, the squeal of brake blocks and the hiss of steam announced the arrival of the two-car special from Harrisburg, well ahead of schedule. As the train lurched to a halt, George Franciscus handed over two ten-dollar gold pieces to Black and Garman. Later, when Garman realized exactly what had happened that night, he commented on Franciscus’s generosity: “So we can say that we got the first money in protecting the President,” he declared proudly.