The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War (51 page)

Speculation about the Baltimore plot was only beginning, however. In the years to come, many of the men who had taken part in the events of 1861 would come forward with reminiscences and memoirs. Several would suggest that Lincoln had been advised poorly in the matter. Left to his own instincts, they claimed, the president-elect would have preferred to face the residents of Baltimore openly. This appeared to be consistent with views that Lincoln himself had expressed on the few occasions when he made reference to the episode. “I did not then, nor do I now believe I should have been assassinated had I gone through Baltimore as first contemplated,” he had told an Illinois congressman, “but I thought it wise to run no risk where no risk was necessary.” This would have been a politically expedient thing to say at the time, given the ridicule he had endured over the matter, but it stopped short of expressing regret for the course he had taken.

Others would claim that he had been greatly pained by the decision. “I have several times heard Lincoln refer to this journey, and always with regret,” wrote the Pennsylvania Republican Alexander K. McClure. “Indeed, he seemed to regard it as one of the grave mistakes in his public career.” James G. Blaine, a future secretary of state, would write that Lincoln took the night journey “much against his own will and to his subsequent chagrin and mortification.” Blaine insisted that “to the end of his life he regretted that he had not, according to his own desire, gone through Baltimore in open day, trusting to the hospitality of the city, to the loyalty of its people, to the rightfulness of his cause and the righteousness of his aims and ends.” Elihu B. Washburne, who had been the first to see Lincoln on his arrival in Washington, took issue with this interpretation. “I know he was neither ‘mortified’ nor ‘chagrined’ at the manner in which he reached Washington,” the Illinois congressman wrote. “He expressed to me in the warmest terms his satisfaction at the complete success of his journey.… I do not believe that Mr. Lincoln ever expressed a regret that he had not, ‘according to his own desire, gone through Baltimore in open day,’ etc. It is safe to say he never had any such ‘desire.’”

For a few years, Pinkerton kept his silence. In 1868, at the time of Kate Warne’s death, however, he began to feel differently. As George Bangs, his right-hand man in Chicago, sadly noted, the “old group” had now dwindled to a proud few. Mindful of the passing years, Pinkerton decided to lift the veil on what had transpired in Baltimore. He began work on a pamphlet he would call
History and Evidence of the Passage of Abraham Lincoln from Harrisburg, Pa., to Washington, D.C., on the 22nd and 23rd of February, 1861.
In spite of the unwieldy title, the document was characteristically short and blunt. Pinkerton gave a businesslike summary of his role in the affair—addressed to “The People of the United States”—and attached several letters from witnesses and participants. Norman Judd, Samuel Felton, Governor Andrew Curtin of Pennsylvania, and the intrepid George Dunn of Harnden’s Express—keeper of the key to the back door of the sleeper—all attested to Pinkerton’s skill and prescience in delivering Lincoln safely to Washington. Even Andrew Wynne, who had cut the telegraph wires leading out of Harrisburg, produced what he called a “truthful statement of what passed.”

Pinkerton insisted that he sought no glory for himself. “It would be egotistical on my part,” he claimed, “to parade before the public my acts.” Rather, he suggested, he had come forward merely to set the record straight, and to make history aware of the efforts of fallen comrades such as Timothy Webster. “He, amongst all the force who went with me, deserves the credit of saving the life of Mr. Lincoln,” Pinkerton declared, “even more than I do.”

For all his professed reluctance, Pinkerton had a transparent agenda. He had been goaded into writing the pamphlet by the actions of New York’s police superintendent, John Kennedy, who at the time was noisily staking a claim to his share of the credit. The previous year, an article had appeared in the
New York Times
under the headline
WHO SAVED MR. LINCOLN’S LIFE IN 1861
? In it, Kennedy gave details of the work of his men in uncovering the plot, and expressed regret that there appeared to be confusion as “to whom the country is indebted” for the president-elect’s safe passage. Kennedy stated confidently that “the assassination consummated in April, 1865, would have taken place in February of 1861” if not for the efforts of his men. He emphasized the role of David Bookstaver in carrying a timely warning to General Scott in Washington, which, Kennedy claimed, had been the clinching piece of evidence. “Mr. Lincoln has stated that it was this note which induced him to change his journey as he did,” Kennedy wrote. He finished with a pointed swipe at the Chicago team: “I know nothing of any connection of Mr. Pinkerton with the matter.”

“In this respect Mr. Kennedy spoke the truth,” Pinkerton fired back, “[for] he did not know of my connection with the passage of Mr. Lincoln, nor was it my intention that he should know of it.” The details of his secret plan for the night journey, he explained, had been imparted “only to those whom it was necessary should know it,” and not to interlopers such as Kennedy. Pinkerton allowed that the superintendent had “done much service for the Union,” but he gave damning evidence that Kennedy had not been a key figure in the Baltimore drama. During Lincoln’s ride from Philadelphia to Baltimore, Pinkerton revealed, Kennedy had been “on the same train and occupied the third berth in the same sleeping car,” although he remained oblivious of Lincoln’s presence. Pinkerton’s message was clear: Though Kennedy now claimed to have orchestrated the events, he had, in fact, been clueless as the plan unfolded under his nose.

Pinkerton’s irritation with Kennedy was understandable, especially in light of the oddly conflicting statements the New York detective had made in the aftermath of the drama. Three days after Lincoln’s arrival in Washington, Kennedy had written a cordial letter to Pinkerton. He expressed regret that he had not known of Pinkerton’s presence in Baltimore, and offered his full cooperation now that the “field of operation” had transferred to the capital. Only two days later, however, Kennedy reversed course, sending a letter to Marshal Kane in Baltimore, in which he stated his belief that “there was no foundation in the story” of a plot to murder Lincoln. Moreover, Kennedy claimed that he had written to William Wood, Lincoln’s “Superintendent of Arrangements,” to assure him that the route to Washington was “perfectly safe.” Given Kennedy’s dismissal of the danger at the time, his later attempt to hog the credit would have been all the more exasperating to Pinkerton.

It would not be the last time Pinkerton felt the need to defend his record. Though the
History and Evidence
pamphlet included many impressive testimonials, one name was notably absent. Ward Lamon, who had traveled side by side with Lincoln and Pinkerton on the fateful journey, would not lend his voice to the chorus of praise.

Pinkerton realized that a statement from Lamon would carry considerable weight, and he tried earnestly to get one. Lamon had spent the war years as marshal of the District of Columbia, and he had often been found at Lincoln’s side. He had continued to hold himself responsible for Lincoln’s safety in the White House, often sleeping outside the door of the president’s bedroom with his private arsenal at the ready, and he can be glimpsed in the only known photograph of Lincoln delivering the Gettysburg Address in November 1863. After Lincoln’s death, Lamon often expressed his belief that he would have been able to save the president’s life had he not been sent out of town at the time of the assassination. “I wanted him to promise me that he would not go out after night while I was gone,” Lamon was quoted as saying, “particularly to the theatre.”

On the very day that Superintendent Kennedy’s comments appeared in the
New York Times,
Pinkerton composed a letter to Lamon, asking, “as a favor,” for his recollections. Pinkerton knew that Lamon probably still harbored hard feelings over the unpleasant scene at Willard’s Hotel, where Pinkerton had exploded over Lamon’s drunken disclosures to the press. In addition, there had been Pinkerton’s sharp rebuff in Philadelphia when Lamon offered a pistol and knife to Lincoln. Writing to him now, Pinkerton appealed to Lamon’s sense of fair play. “If Mr. Kennedy or Mr. Seward is entitled to any credit in this, I beg of you to give it to them,” Pinkerton wrote. “If I am entitled to any, I hope you will do the same by me.”

No reply came. Pinkerton would try twice more, but Lamon maintained a stony silence. Lincoln’s “particular friend,” it seemed, was carrying a grudge.

Soon enough, Pinkerton would inadvertently hand him an instrument of revenge. For some time, Lincoln’s former law partner William Herndon had been compiling research materials for the biography he intended to write. Learning of Pinkerton’s detailed records of the Baltimore episode, Herndon wrote to the detective in 1866, asking permission to make use of them. Pinkerton readily agreed. Though Superintendent Kennedy had not yet come forward at that stage, Pinkerton was already eager for a chance to go on record with his side of the story. “Your book must be one of great interest to the American People,” he told Herndon, “owing to your long and intimate acquaintance with Mr. Lincoln; and if I can add a mite to aid you it shall be done cheerfully.”

Mindful of the sensitivity of the material, Pinkerton laid down a pair of conditions. First, Pinkerton asked Herndon to omit the name of James Luckett, who had occupied the neighboring office in Baltimore, and for whom he had feelings of genuine friendship. Luckett, the detective said, “was undoubtedly a rebel at heart, yet he is a man of not much means; he has lost considerable during the war, and the publication of his name might tend to his serious injury in business. I deprecate this in any publications coming from my records.” Pinkerton’s second condition addressed the more sensitive matter of his squabbles with Lamon. Even before his attempt to extract a testimonial, Pinkerton realized that the comments in his record books—especially his dismissal of Lamon as a “brainless egotistical fool”—would cause unnecessary embarrassment if they came to light. To avoid stirring up trouble, he told Herndon to “consider as confidential any remarks which are found therein concerning Ward H. Lamon, Esq.”

Pinkerton might just as easily have blacked out the offending comments, but as he expected Herndon to make a copy of the record books and return the originals, it must have seemed sufficient to rely on Herndon’s discretion without censoring his own materials. As it happened, Herndon would fail miserably in honoring Pinkerton’s conditions. Within a few years, having suffered a number of financial reverses, Herndon would sell off his research archive, including the copies of Pinkerton’s records, to another prospective Lincoln biographer, who also happened to be a former law partner of Lincoln’s—none other than Ward H. Lamon, Esq.

Lamon soon came across Pinkerton’s unflattering remarks, and his reaction is clearly recorded in the transcript itself: “A falsehood of Allen Pinkerton the Detective,” he wrote on a scrap of paper jammed into the pages. In the margins of the text he scribbled an even more forceful denial: “This is an infamous lie from beginning to end. This detective, Allen Pinkerton was angry with me because I would not take sides with him—and make a publication in his favor when he and Kennedy—the New York detective—had the difficulty as to which of them the credit of saving Lincoln’s life was due from the public—Ward H. Lamon.”

Lamon’s anger had apparently clouded his logic; Pinkerton’s offending comments clearly date to February 1861, whereas the turf battle with Kennedy would not occur for another seven years. In any case, Lamon does not appear to have known that Pinkerton tried to suppress the remarks, nor is it likely that he would have been placated. Lamon’s long-simmering resentments now came to a boil. In 1872, when Lamon’s
The Life of Abraham Lincoln
appeared in print, it contained a bitter and prolonged attack on the detective. Lamon began with a claim that Lincoln “soon learned to regret the midnight ride” through Baltimore:

His friends reproached him, his enemies taunted him. He was convinced that he had committed a grave mistake in yielding to the solicitations of a professional spy and of friends too easily alarmed. He saw that he had fled from a danger purely imaginary, and felt the shame and mortification natural to a brave man under such circumstances. But he was not disposed to take all the responsibility to himself, and frequently upbraided the writer for having aided and assisted him to demean himself at the very moment in all his life when his behavior should have exhibited the utmost dignity and composure.

Others had already suggested that Lincoln regretted the decision, but Lamon was not content to leave the matter there. He went on to accuse Pinkerton of having fabricated the entire episode to burnish his own reputation. The Baltimore plot, according to Lamon, had been a total fraud, “a mare’s nest gotten up by a vainglorious detective.” Pinkerton’s motive, as Lamon explained it, had been a simple matter of advancing his own career:

Being intensely ambitious to shine in the professional way, and something of a politician besides, it struck him that it would be a particularly fine thing to discover a dreadful plot to assassinate the President elect; and he discovered it accordingly. It was easy to get that far: to furnish tangible proofs of an imaginary conspiracy was a more difficult matter. But Baltimore was seething with political excitement.… It would seem like an easy thing to beguile a few individuals of this angry and excited multitude into the expression of some criminal desire; and the opportunity was not wholly lost, although the limited success of the detective under such favorable circumstances is absolutely wonderful.

In disparaging the “limited success” of Pinkerton’s efforts, Lamon was referring to the fact that the detective had uncovered only a tiny cabal of potential assassins, in contrast to William Seward’s claim that “about fifteen thousand men were organized” to prevent Lincoln’s passage through Baltimore. “Here,” Lamon claimed, “was a plot big enough to swallow up the little one.” Pinkerton, in his view, had been blind to a more serious danger while focusing on a comparatively unimportant, if not wholly imaginary, threat.