With Felton’s permission Pinkerton turned his focus to the plot to assassinate Lincoln. In a few days he had enough information to send Kate Warne to Lincoln advisor Norman B. Judd, who was with Lincoln as he traveled to Washington. On February 21, Lincoln and his party arrived in Philadelphia and checked into the Continental Hotel. Judd, after hearing the details of the plot from Mrs. Warne, arranged a conference between Lincoln and Pinkerton in Judd’s room. Pinkerton repeated to Lincoln what he had previously told Judd, and recommended that Lincoln change his travel schedule. Lincoln asked many probing questions, but flatly refused to leave Philadelphia for Washington that night. He had promised to raise the flag at Independence Hall the next morning and to address the Pennsylvania legislature at Harrisburg in the afternoon. He was unwilling to break these promises. Lincoln did agree to think over Pinkerton’s suggestion to alter his schedule but only after keeping his commitments in Philadelphia and Harrisburg.
But Pinkerton and his detectives were not the only ones investigating a plot in Baltimore. At the request of Lincoln friends in Washington, the superintendent of New York City police, John A. Kennedy, had sent three of his own detectives to Baltimore. Kennedy’s detectives were instructed to report secretly to Colonel Charles P. Stone, an aide to General Winfield Scott.
On the way back to his room, Lincoln bumped into Ward Hill Lamon. Lamon and Lincoln had ridden the Illinois Eighth Judicial Circuit together as lawyers and had become close friends. Lamon had worked hard in Lincoln’s senatorial and presidential campaigns and was asked by Lincoln to accompany him on his inaugural trip to Washington. Lamon informed Lincoln that Frederick Seward had just arrived from Washington with an urgent message from Seward’s father, Senator William H. Seward. Lincoln agreed to meet with Frederick Seward. After the usual courtesies, Seward handed Lincoln a letter from his father that read:
Washington Feb. 21st
My dear Sir.
My son goes express to you—He will show you a report made by our detective to General Scott—and by him communicated to me this morning. I deem it so important as to dispatch my son to meet with you wherever he may find you—I concur with Genl Scott in thinking it best for you to reconsider your arrangements. No one here but Genl Scott, myself & the bearer is aware of this communication.
I should have gone with it myself but for the peculiar sensitiveness about my attendance in the Senate at this crisis.
Very truly yours
William H. Seward
The Honorable
Abraham Lincoln11
Lincoln then read the report Seward sent with his letter:
Feb. 21st/61
A New York detective officer who has been on duty in Baltimore for three weeks past reports this morning that there is serious danger of violence to and the assassination of Mr. Lincoln in his passage through that city should the time of that passage be known—He states that there are banded rowdies holding secret meetings, and that he has heard threats of mobbing and violence, and has himself heard men declare that if Mr. Lincoln was to be assassinated they would like to be the men—He states farther that it is only within the past few days that he has considered there was any danger, but he now deems it imminent—He deems the danger one which the authorities & people in Balt—cannot guard against—All risk might be easily avoided by a change in the traveling arrangements which would bring Mr. Lincoln & a portion of his party through Baltimore by a night train without previous notice—12
With his usual logic, Lincoln went straight to the heart of the problem. Were Pinkerton and Seward referring to the same investigation in Baltimore, or were there two separate investigations? After questioning Seward, Lincoln became convinced that Pinkerton’s investigation and that of the New York detectives were completely independent. Lincoln explained the situation in an 1864 interview with historian Benjamin J. Lossing: “He [Frederick Seward] told me that he had been sent at the insistence of his father and General Scott to inform me that their detectives in Baltimore had discovered a plot there to assassinate me. They knew nothing of Pinkerton’s movements. I now believed such a plot to be in existence” (emphasis added).13
Lincoln closed the conference by telling Seward that he would sleep on it and let him know his decision in the morning. The next morning he told Seward that he would change his travel plans as Pinkerton had advised. Frederick Seward immediately informed his father of Lincoln’s decision. Pinkerton was now free to revise Lincoln’s schedule and provide the necessary security to take him to Washington safely.
Reluctantly, Lincoln changed his travel plans so as to pass through Baltimore several hours ahead of schedule. The original plan had Lincoln leaving Harrisburg at 9 A.M. and traveling directly to Baltimore, arriving at 12:30 P.M. Following the special luncheon in his honor, Lincoln was scheduled to leave Baltimore at 3:00 P.M., arriving in Washington at 4:30 P.M. Instead, Lincoln left Harrisburg fifteen hours ahead of schedule and returned to Philadelphia on a special train provided by the Pennsylvania Railroad. In Philadelphia he transferred to the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Rail Road and arrived in Baltimore at 3:30 A.M. Lincoln then transferred to the Baltimore & Ohio train, arriving in Washington at 6:00 A.M., a full nine hours ahead of schedule. Lincoln was met in Washington by Illinois congressman Elihu B. Washburne, who had been tipped off to the schedule change by Senator Seward. The two men took a carriage up to the Willard Hotel where a special suite had been set aside for the president elect and his family. Later that morning, Pinkerton wired a cryptic message to his chief clerk back at his Chicago headquarters: “Plums [Pinkerton] has Nuts [Lincoln]—arri’d at Barley [Washington]—all right.”14
Thanks to Pinkerton, Lincoln was safely ensconced in Washington, but it was not without cost. The Baltimore newspapers portrayed a cowardly president elect sneaking into the capital afraid for his life. The Baltimore Sun dubbed Lincoln’s trip through the city “The ‘Underground Railroad’ Journey.”15 The Baltimore American was more brutal in its criticism: “The whole nation is humiliated, degraded by this wretched and cowardly conduct of the President-elect. Had General [Andrew] Jackson been told that he was threatened by conspirators, he would have crushed the conspiracy by meeting it like a man.”16
An inventive New York Times reporter, Joseph Howard Jr., filed a story describing Lincoln as having skulked into the capital in disguise wearing “a Scotch plaid cap and very long military cloak.”17 The derisive description was repeated so often that it soon became a part of history. The fact is that Lincoln wore neither a Scotch plaid cap nor a long military cloak. Howard simply made this up to embellish his account. Elihu Washburne described Lincoln’s appearance this way: “He had on a soft, low-crowned hat, a muffler around his neck, and a short bob-tailed overcoat.”18
In his 1864 interview with Lossing, Lincoln explained what happened: “In New York some friend had given me a new beaver hat in a box, and in it had placed a soft wool hat. I had never worn one of the latter in my life. I had this box in my room. Having informed a very few friends of the secret of my new movements, and the cause, I put on an old overcoat that I had with me, and putting the soft hat in my pocket, I walked out of the house at a back door, bareheaded, without exciting any special curiosity. Then I put on the soft hat and joined my friends without being recognized by strangers, for I was not the same man.”19
The damage had been done, however. Lincoln’s enemies depicted him as a coward, sneaking into Washington in the dead of night, fearful of nonexistent dangers. The cartoonists had a field day. In a famous cartoon by Baltimorean Adalbert Volck, Lincoln is portrayed as arriving in Washington in a boxcar marked “freight bones.” He is shown wearing the Scotch plaid cap and long military cloak referred to in Howard’s newspaper article, peering out of a partly opened boxcar door in astonishment at an outraged tomcat.20
Certainly Lincoln was sensitive to the criticism and often responded in a defensive manner. One can only speculate on how much this criticism contributed to his well-known aversion to the trapp
ings of a bodyguard—or to the lack of attention to security details at Ford’s Theatre on the night of April 14, 1865.
Although threats to Lincoln’s life continued to be received after the inauguration, he still resisted the appointment of a bodyguard, much to the concern of his old friend Ward Hill Lamon, whom Lincoln appointed United States marshal for the District of Columbia. Convinced that the Baltimore plot was real, Lamon rode in Lincoln’s coach and the sleeping car on the night trip to Washington. He remembered the playful words of his friends back in Springfield: “We intrust the sacred life of Mr. Lincoln to your keeping; and if you don’t protect it, never return to Illinois, for we will murder you on the spot.”21 The words seemed less playful after the harrowing threat in Baltimore.
Lamon had been concerned for Lincoln’s safety from the outset of his presidency. He constantly urged Lincoln to accept some form of official protection. Seven years after Lincoln’s death Lamon wrote: “In the spring and early summer of 1862 I persistently urged upon Mr. Lincoln the necessity of a military escort to accompany him to and from his residence and place of business, and he as persistently opposed my proposition, always saying, when the subject was referred to, that there was not the slightest occasion for such precaution.”22
Despite Lincoln’s negative attitude toward protection, Company K of the 150th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry was assigned to the White House as “bodyguard” in the fall of 1862. Despite its designation as bodyguard, this unit appears to have functioned as little more than providing guard duty over the grounds of the White House and the president’s summer retreat at Soldiers’ Home. It did not appear to provide personal protection to the president as he moved about the area. Included among their unofficial duties was caring for young Tad Lincoln’s goats, a duty they must have relished more than fighting Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.23 On November 1, 1862, Lincoln penned a brief letter addressed “To Whom it may concern,” in which he commended Captain David D. Derickson and the men of Company K for their service as guards at the White House and Soldiers’ Home.24 Captain Derickson (Company K, 150th Pennsylvania Volunteers) gained a certain notoriety for sharing Lincoln’s bed at Soldiers’ Home when Mary Lincoln was away.25
Dissatisfied with Lincoln’s safety, Secretary of War Stanton, in December of 1863, ordered a cavalry detail assigned to the White House to specifically guard the president when he traveled about the area. Unlike Lamon, Stanton didn’t seek Lincoln’s approval but moved ahead on his own. Governor David Todd of Ohio had a special unit raised specifically to guard Lincoln. This unit, known as the Union Light Guard, was stationed near the White House on a piece of land known as the White Lot that adjoined the Treasury Department just to the southeast of the White House stables. The unit was meant to serve as a mounted escort to Lincoln as he traveled about the area.26 Beginning in the spring of 1864, troopers from this unit accompanied Lincoln when he traveled between the White House and his summer residence at Soldiers’ Home. In keeping with his fatalistic nature, Lincoln disliked the guard, feeling it unnecessary and intrusive, and would slip off failing to inform his guards or aides that he was leaving. It was during these trips that Lincoln was at greatest risk of being harmed.
In October 1864, Lincoln finally acquiesced to Lamon’s and Stanton’s urging for police protection. Lamon requested the District’s police superintendent William Webb to supply four men from the Metropolitan Police force for assignment to the White House. Webb agreed, and on November 3, sent Sergeant J.R. Cronin and patrolmen A.T. Donn, T.F. Pendel, and A.C. Smith to Lamon. Subsequently, seven other members of the police force were assigned to the White House detail: W.H. Crook, Joseph Sheldon, W.S. Lewis, G.W. McElfresh, T.T. Hurdle, D. Hopkins, and John F. Parker.27While a total of eleven members of the police force eventually served as special bodyguards, there were never more than five members assigned to the detail at any given time.28
Police protection was afforded around the clock at the White House. On a hit-or-miss basis at least one officer accompanied Lincoln when he moved about the city visiting various sites—provided he did not evade such protection or forget to notify the guards. There is no known record that describes the duties and responsibilities of these bodyguards, and it remains unclear just what their precise duties were. From sketchy descriptions it seems their principal responsibility was to accompany the president while traveling to and from various sites, but not attend the president while inside these sites.
These forms of protection, however, were limited at best. While discouraging some would-be assassins, they could not have prevented a well-planned attack against Lincoln, and he knew it. Lincoln found such protection more of a discomfort than a help. He acquiesced to bodyguards and cavalry escorts only to mollify Stanton and Lamon. More in jest than seriousness, Lincoln is reported to have stated, “Some of [the cavalrymen] appear to be new hands and very awkward, so that I am more afraid of being shot by the accidental discharge of a carbine or revolver, than of any attempt upon my life by a roving squad of ‘Jeb’ Stuart’s cavalry.”29
Lamon and others thought Lincoln was especially vulnerable to would-be assassins as he traveled between the White House and his summer residence located in an idyllic rural setting three miles north of the White House. During the spring and summer months, beginning in 1862, Lincoln moved his family to a large two-story “cottage” located on the grounds of the Soldiers’ Home. It afforded the Lincolns a respite from the heat and humidity of the city, and reduced their exposure to the numerous diseases that flared up during the hot summer months as a result of an inadequate sewage and sanitation system. Outbreaks of dysentery and typhus were regular events during the hot Washington summers.
Established by an act of Congress on March 5, 1851, the property was purchased with funds obtained by a levy on the officials of Mexico City as payment in lieu of pillage during the Mexican War. General Winfield Scott received $150,000 from the Mexican government that he used to establish a home for old soldiers. The original property consisted of a large, two-story farmhouse and two hundred acres of land that was owned by the wealthy Washington banker George Washington Riggs. A main administration building and two smaller cottages that became the residences of the establishment’s administrators soon joined the Riggs farmhouse.
In 1858 President James Buchanan and his secretary of war, John B. Floyd, accepted an invitation to spend the summer months at the Home. In 1862, Lincoln, along with Secretary of War Stanton, followed Buchanan’s lead and moved their families to the Home. The Lincolns occupied the Riggs farmhouse while the Stantons moved into a second cottage that had been used by Buchanan in the last year of his presidency. For three summers the Lincoln and Stanton families enjoyed the peaceful surroundings of the rural setting. It was both a retreat from the city and from the continuous stream of office seekers that seemed to harass the president daily.
While living at the Soldiers’ Home, Lincoln would travel back and forth between the White House and the Home often alone and on horseback. Because of its remoteness and Lincoln’s habit of riding alone, it proved to be the most vulnerable time during his presidency. It also proved to be a problem because of Lincoln’s habit of occasionally failing to notify his staff of his movements. Lamon noted that Lincoln would frequently disappear “and before his absence could be noted he would be well on his way to his summer residence, alone, and many times at night.”30 It proved to be a troublesome habit that caused those concerned for his safety considerable anxiety.
On one of these occasions, Lincoln told Lamon of being “suddenly aroused … by the report of a rifle” as he approached the main gate leading onto the grounds of the Home. Someone had fired a rifle in the direction of the president. Lincoln spoke lightly of the incident, disturbed only by the fact that he had been “unceremoniously separated from his eight-dollar plug-hat.”31 Lincoln downplayed the incident, telling Lamon, “I can’t bring myself to believe that any one has shot or will deliberately shoot at me with the purpose of killing me.”32
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While Lincoln showed little concern for his personal safety, he nonetheless, expressed a belief “that his career would be cut short by violence.”33 Lincoln’s fatalistic views led him to believe that little could be done to prevent a determined assassin from carrying out a deadly attack, especially if the assassin were willing to risk his own life in the process. The trips to Soldiers’ Home were clearly Lincoln’s Achilles’ heel that soon became obvious to anyone who took the time to reconnoiter the president as he traveled about. Among those who did observe his peculiar travel habits was a young Confederate officer by the name of Joseph Walker Taylor.
Taylor, known as Walker by his family, had served at Fort Donelson in the west where he escaped capture following the surrender of that fort in February 1862. Wounded just prior to his escape, Taylor made his way to Washington where he convalesced in the home of his uncle, Union Brigadier General Joseph Taylor, the brother of Zachary Taylor. Like many families during the war, the Taylors had members on both sides of the conflict.34Young Taylor knew his uncle would not betray him. While recovering from his wound, Taylor became aware of Lincoln’s habit of traveling between the White House and the Soldiers’ Home.
Fully recovered from his wound, Taylor headed for Richmond, somehow passing through Union lines. On reaching Richmond, Taylor requested an audience with Jefferson Davis. As the nephew of former President Zachary Taylor, young Taylor was closely connected to Davis through Taylor’s cousin Sarah Knox Taylor, daughter of Zachary Taylor and first wife of Davis. Taylor was always welcome in the Confederate White House and could expect a warm reception almost anytime he was in Richmond.
After arriving in Richmond, Taylor made his way to the Confederate White House where Davis invited him to join him for breakfast. Joining the two men would be Colonel William Preston Johnston, son of Albert Sidney Johnston and Davis’s top aide. Taylor told Davis that he had a plan that could change the entire complexion of the war. He proposed to capture Lincoln and bring him to Richmond. The audacity of the young officer’s proposal did not appear to take Davis by surprise. He asked Taylor to explain:
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