The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War (44 page)

In fact, Garman’s and Black’s heroic efforts had created a problem for Pinkerton. As he stepped forward and exchanged hushed greetings with Lincoln, Pinkerton realized that the early arrival of the Harrisburg train left him with too much time on his hands. The Baltimore-bound train was not scheduled to leave for nearly an hour, and Felton’s depot was only three miles away. It wouldn’t do to linger at either train station, where Lincoln might be recognized, nor could he be seen on the streets. Pinkerton decided that Lincoln would be safest inside a moving carriage. To avoid arousing the carriage driver’s suspicions, he told Kenney to distract him with a time-consuming set of directions, which included “driving northward in search of some imaginary person.” Franciscus and the other Harrisburg railroad men took their leave of Lincoln at the depot and offered prayers for the remaining portion of the journey. “Mr. Lincoln thanked them for their kindness,” Pinkerton reported, “and I promised to telegraph them in the morning.” As Franciscus withdrew, Pinkerton, Lamon, and Lincoln, his features partly masked by his shawl, took their seats in the carriage. “I took mine alongside the driver,” Kenney recalled, and gave a convoluted set of orders that sent them rolling in aimless circles through the streets.

*   *   *

ACROSS TOWN, STANDING BESIDE
the Baltimore-bound train, George Dunn was growing anxious. Dunn, the Harnden’s Express agent whom Pinkerton had sent to Baltimore earlier that day, had returned to Philadelphia in time to meet up with Kate Warne at the depot. He gave Mrs. Warne the reports he had collected at Pinkerton’s South Street office, and assisted her in making the necessary arrangements for their “invalid friend,” who was expected to appear at any moment. As the scheduled departure time neared, Dunn wished to satisfy himself that “everything was free, clear and safe.” He decided to walk through the interior of the train to make sure he saw nothing suspicious. At the front of the sleeping car, he noticed “a small party of men, who from their quiet talk, vigilant appearance and watchfulness, seemed to be on the alert for somebody or something,” Dunn reported. “This feature was not at all satisfactory to me. Knowing the public feeling, I felt very sure that it boded no good to my expected party.”

As the suspicious characters clustered at the front door of the train, Dunn “quickly concluded” that Lincoln should enter at the back. Finding the rear door locked, Dunn sought out the porter of the sleeping car and asked for the key. “At first he declined,” Dunn recalled, “but on explanation of the fact that it was for the accommodation of an invalid, who would arrive late, and did not desire to be carried through the narrow passageway of the crowded car, he consented to the arrangement.” Dunn would recall this moment with pride to the end of his life. In a later conversation with Pinkerton, he reported, the detective “complimented me very highly on my forethought and complete arrangements.”

For the moment, Dunn’s greatest concern was letting Pinkerton know of his actions so that the detective could avoid the suspicious group at the front of the train. Dunn slipped quietly out the back of the sleeper, locked the door behind him, and kept an anxious eye on the front doors of the station.

*   *   *

LINCOLN, MEANWHILE,
was clattering through the streets “as if on the lookout for someone,” sandwiched between the small, wiry Pinkerton and the tall, stocky Ward Lamon. Lincoln used the time to brief the detective on what had occurred in Harrisburg. He admitted that he had shared the details of Pinkerton’s plan with the members of his suite, as well as with Governor Curtin, explaining that he would have “found it impossible to get away from the crowd” without their help. Pinkerton was distressed by the ever-widening circle of people who were now in on the secret, but in his field report he expressed satisfaction with the way Lincoln had dismissed the objections of his closest advisers: “Mr. Lincoln said that he knew me, and had confidence in me and would trust himself and his life in my hands.”

Lincoln also shared details of the visit from Frederick Seward the previous night at the Continental Hotel. The warning Seward brought had been “substantially the same” as Pinkerton’s, Lincoln reported, but the details were “much stronger,” suggesting a plot far greater in scope. According to Senator Seward and General Scott, there were “about fifteen thousand men” standing ready to prevent Lincoln’s passage through Baltimore. In addition, Lincoln had been told, plans were laid to blow up the railroad tracks and set fire to the train. “Here,” as Ward Lamon would write, “was a plot big enough to swallow up the little one.”

Pinkerton had heard such claims many times in Baltimore, but it would have been unsettling to hear them repeated by Lincoln himself, on the authority of the highest-ranking military officer in the nation. The previous day, the detective had insisted to both Judd and Lincoln that only a small handful of men were in on the plot. Soon enough, he would claim that he had never wavered in this conviction, but at that moment, sitting in the darkened carriage beside Lincoln, Pinkerton must have experienced a ghastly moment of doubt. Whatever lay ahead in Baltimore—a dozen men or an army of thousands—the die was cast. Lincoln, at least, appeared perfectly content to press ahead. “Mr. Lincoln was cool, calm, and self possessed—firm and determined in his bearing,” Pinkerton recalled. “He evinced no sign of fear or distrust.”

Ward Lamon did not share Lincoln’s confidence. Unsettled by what might lay ahead, and perhaps irritated at the manner in which Pinkerton had usurped his role, he now made an extravagant gesture to reclaim his ground as Lincoln’s protector. Reaching into his pockets, Lamon pulled out a revolver and a bowie knife. As Pinkerton looked on in disbelief, he held them out to Lincoln, offering the president-elect a chance to arm himself. “I at once protested,” Pinkerton wrote in his field report, “saying that I would not for the world have it said that Mr. Lincoln had to enter the National Capitol armed; that I anticipated no trouble; that if we went through at all we must do so by stratagem, but that if fighting had to be done, it must be done by others than Mr. Lincoln.” The president-elect, Pinkerton later insisted, shared his views. “Mr. Lincoln said that he wanted no arms, that he had no fears and that he felt satisfied that all my plans would work right.”

Pinkerton’s reasoning was sound, but it is likely that the rebuff gave offense to Lamon. As Kate Warne would note, the detective was “sick, and tired out” from strain and lack of sleep. He had already expressed irritation with Lamon the previous evening upon being addressed by his proper name, rather than by his alias. In the carriage, having just learned of General Scott’s estimation of the forces waiting in Baltimore, he likely interpreted Lamon’s gesture as a lack of confidence in his plan. Even at the best of times, Pinkerton was not noted for his even disposition. One suspects, in these circumstances, that his response to Lamon had not been quite so measured as he reported, and that perhaps some colorful Scottish idioms were heard. In any case, Pinkerton would soon learn that Ward Lamon was a dangerous man to cross.

At last, the meandering drive through the outskirts of Philadelphia had consumed sufficient time. Pinkerton banged on the roof of the carriage and barked out an order to make straight for the PW&B depot. “Driving up to the sidewalk on Carpenter Street, and in the shadow of a tall fence, the carriage was stopped and the party alighted,” Pinkerton wrote. Lamon kept watch from the rear as Pinkerton walked ahead, with Lincoln “leaning upon my arm and stooping a considerable [amount] for the purpose of disguising his height.” As they approached the train, Pinkerton scanned for signs of anything that was out of place. Kate Warne came forward to lead them to the sleeper car, “familiarly greeting the President as her brother.” In one rather colorful recounting of the scene, Lincoln responded in high style: “I believe it has not hitherto been one of the perquisites of the presidency to acquire in full bloom so charming and accomplished a female relation.” It seems unlikely that this well-turned phrase was spoken that night, but even Ward Lamon had praise for Mrs. Warne’s arrangements. “The business had been managed very adroitly by the female spy,” he remarked.

As the travelers reached the train platform, George Dunn’s great moment had at last arrived. “I quickly caught Mr. Pinkerton’s eye,” he reported. Dunn motioned toward the rear of the train, bent down to unlock the door, and stood aside as Pinkerton brought Lincoln aboard “without unnecessary delay, and without anyone being aware of the distinguished visitor who had arrived.”

At the same moment, as the rear door closed behind the travelers, H. F. Kenney made his way to the front of the train to deliver Felton’s decoy parcel. The package was placed in the hands of the unsuspecting conductor as the whistle sounded and the train lurched into motion. Pinkerton would claim that only two minutes elapsed between Lincoln’s arrival at the depot and the departure of the train: “So carefully had all our movements been conducted, that no one in Philadelphia saw Mr. Lincoln enter the car, and no one on the train, except his own immediate party—not even the conductor—knew of his presence.”

*   *   *

THE SECOND LEG OF THE JOURNEY,
from Philadelphia to Baltimore, was expected to take four and a half hours. The accommodations in the sleeper were crude—George Pullman’s luxurious “hotel” cars were not yet in use—and Lincoln’s party had to make do with narrow padded benches. Kate Warne had managed to secure the rear half of the car, four pairs of berths in all, but there was little privacy. Only a curtain separated them from the strangers in the forward half, so the travelers were at pains to avoid drawing attention. Lincoln was shown to a berth and encouraged to remain out of sight behind hanging drapes, but he would not be getting much rest that night. As Mrs. Warne noted, he was “so very tall that he could not lay straight in his berth.”

As the train cleared the Philadelphia city limits, Mrs. Warne handed over the reports George Dunn had collected in Baltimore. Pinkerton spent a few moments studying them, until a train conductor entered the car to collect their tickets. Pinkerton quickly intercepted him and produced Lincoln’s ticket, explaining that the “sick man” had already retired for the evening. The conductor glanced briefly at the closed curtains but left without further scrutiny. Pinkerton noted with satisfaction that he “did not return again during the trip.”

As the train pressed on toward Baltimore, Pinkerton, Lamon, and Mrs. Warne settled into their berths so as to appear to be ordinary travelers. Lamon recalled that Lincoln relieved the tension by indulging in a joke or two, “in an undertone,” from behind his curtain. “He talked very friendly for some time,” said Mrs. Warne. “The excitement seemed to keep us all awake.” Apart from Lincoln’s occasional comments, all was silent. “None of our party appeared to be sleepy,” Pinkerton noted, “but we all lay quiet.”

Pinkerton’s nerves kept him from lying still for more than a few minutes at a time. At regular intervals, he would step through the rear door of the car and keep watch from the back platform, scanning the track for signs of trouble. “I had arranged with my men a series of signals along the road,” he explained. It was still possible that “some reckless individuals” might be planning to destroy Felton’s tracks, or that “a suspicion of our movements might be entertained by the conspirators, and therefore the utmost caution must be observed.” As the train flashed past, each of Pinkerton’s watchmen raised a lantern in turn, signaling that all was well.

The train slowed as it neared the Susquehanna River, where each car was to be uncoupled and ferried across the water by steamer to Havre de Grace. From the earliest days of the operation, even before he suspected a threat against Lincoln, Pinkerton had understood that this crossing marked the point of greatest danger to Felton’s railroad. The ferry could be easily set ablaze, he realized, and if saboteurs had set their sights on the train itself, a night crossing would provide ideal cover. Timothy Webster and Hattie Lawton had been stationed in the area for weeks to ferret out and prevent hostile action, but if Lincoln had been spotted leaving Harrisburg—or if loose talk had filtered down to Baltimore—this would be the likely point of attack.

At last, as the crossing loomed, Pinkerton saw that his precautions had been effective. “I went to the rear platform of the car,” he wrote, “and as the train passed on a bright light flashed suddenly upon my gaze and was as quickly extinguished, and then I knew that thus far all was well.”

Lincoln, too, appeared conscious of the importance of the river crossing. “We are at Havre de Grace,” he said when Pinkerton stepped back inside, “we are getting along very well. I think we are on time.” Pinkerton marveled at his composure. “I cannot realize how any man situated as he was could have shown more calmness or firmness.”

There would be several more points where danger might present itself that night, including the wooden bridge spanning the Gunpowder River, but Pinkerton was able to report that “nothing of importance transpired” for the remainder of the journey. Later, he would admit to a tremendous sense of relief at seeing the unbroken line of lantern signals each time he stepped out onto the rear platform. “From this point all the way to Baltimore, at every bridge-crossing, these lights flashed, and their rays carried the comforting assurance: ‘All’s Well!’”

*   *   *

AT 3:30 A.M., SAMUEL FELTON’S
“night line” train steamed into Baltimore’s President Street depot on schedule. As the cars rolled to a halt, an “officer of the road” named William Stearns entered the rear compartment. Stearns, along with his brother George, had been assigned by Felton to keep watch over the running of the train, in case further delaying tactics were needed on the final leg of the journey. As Pinkerton stepped forward, Stearns whispered that “all was right” in Baltimore.

Kate Warne took her leave of Lincoln while the train idled at the station, as she was no longer needed to pose as the sister of the “invalid traveler.” She followed Pinkerton out of the car and set off for her hotel “for the purpose of ascertaining what the feelings of the people were in the city.” Mrs. Warne likely carried instructions for Harry Davies and the others to watch for signs of fresh activity among the plotters once the news of Lincoln’s “secret maneuver” became known. It has also been suggested that her departure was a nod to decorum, as it might be taken amiss if Lincoln were to arrive in Washington in the company of a woman who was not his wife. In any case, one hopes that Pinkerton permitted her an hour or two of sleep before resuming her duties.