by Chris Enss
Pinkerton chose Kate Warne as the operative to travel to New York to intercept Lincoln’s entourage and deliver to Norman Judd the news Howard had uncovered. Posing as Mrs. M. Barkley, Pinkerton would find Kate sitting in the lobby of a prominent Baltimore hotel, chatting with guests as she worked on a piece of needlework. “Mrs. Warne displayed upon her breast, as did many of the ladies in Baltimore, the black and white cockade, ‘which had been temporarily adopted as the emblem of secession,’” Pinkerton noted in the case file. In between special assignments, Kate’s job was to gently insinuate herself into conversations between Southern female patrons at various eateries and hotel lobbies.11
“She had an ease of manner that was quite captivating,” Pinkerton bragged of his protégé. Because Kate was so amiable, she was able to acquire a great deal of information about the location of Confederate troops, subversives, and their plans of attack. “She made remarkable progress in cultivating the acquaintances of wives and daughters of the conspirators,” Pinkerton shared years later about Kate. “She was a brilliant conversationalist when so disposed, and could be quite vivacious, but she also understood that rarer quality in womankind, the art of silence.”12
Kate was surprised to see Allan Pinkerton across the lobby of the hotel where she was working. The protocol was that operatives kept a fair distance from one another so as not to arouse suspicions or risk jeopardizing their cover. The morning of February 7, 1861, Pinkerton was not interested in protocol. He needed to speak to Kate, and when he caught her eye he motioned for her to meet him. Ever so discreetly, she collected her sewing, made excuses to the ladies to whom she had been talking, and headed to her room. Pinkerton followed a safe distance behind, and once inside her private quarters, closed the door behind them.13
Quickly and succinctly Pinkerton explained Kate’s mission to her. Not only must she deliver the message into Judd’s hands, but she also must convince Judd that if Mr. Lincoln passed through Baltimore as planned, his safety could not be guaranteed. She agreed to leave immediately. Pinkerton disappeared from her presence as secretively as he had appeared. Kate wasted no time packing for the trip. She took only the basic essentials, including the message she was to deliver to the president-elect’s head of security.14
Kate made the trip from Baltimore to New York, continuing to use the alias Mrs. M. Barkley. Letters had been sent ahead of her travels to E. S. Sanford, vice president of the Adams Express Company, and to the president of the American Telegraph Company, with instructions to assist Kate when and if she needed it. The competent operative left Maryland on Monday, February 18, 1861, at 5:16 p.m. She arrived in New York at 4:00 a.m. on Tuesday, February 19, 1861, and checked into the luxury hotel, the Astor House. Arrangements had been made for president-elect Lincoln and his staff to also stay at the hotel. Between six and seven in the morning, Kate left word for Norman Judd to contact her as soon as he arrived. She was exhausted and tried to sleep for a little while, but found she was too anxious to rest. At 7:30 a.m. she adjourned to the dining hall at the establishment for breakfast.15
Once Kate finished breakfast, she retired to her room and sat by the window to wait for her party. At roughly three in the afternoon, Mr. Lincoln and his associates arrived via carriage. They were deposited in front of the building. From the hallway outside her room, Kate watched the president-elect’s staff file into the lobby. “Lincoln looked very pale and fatigued,” Kate noted in her field report. “He was standing in his carriage bowing when I first saw him. From the carriage he went directly into the hotel.” A crowd pressed around him as he entered, asking that he deliver an impromptu speech. Kate remembered Lincoln telling the group that he had “nothing to say just now worth your hearing.” At the audience’s persistence, he offered a few remarks, but according to Kate “there was such a noise it was impossible to hear.”16
There had been no response from Judd as yet, so Kate sent a second message. At 3:30 p.m. one of Judd’s associates contacted the detective and let her know she could send any information she had through him, and he would make sure Judd received it. Kate refused to divulge anything to a second party. She was adamant that only Judd would do, and firmly announced that she would wait to hear from him, but only for a short time.17
Norman Judd finally arrived at the Astor House at 7:00 in the evening, when Kate’s message was promptly delivered to him. He had missed the Lincoln Special when the train departed ahead of schedule from its last stop. Judd later admitted that he had “never felt so mortified in all his life.”18
As instructed, he proceeded to Kate’s room. The letter the operative handed directly to Lincoln’s head of security included a short, initial sentence introducing Kate as the lady superintendent of the Pinkerton Agency. Pinkerton had sent her to New York because he “did not like to trust the mail in so important a matter.” Kate informed Judd not to communicate by mail for the same reason. After giving Judd an opportunity to digest the gravity of Pinkerton’s note of “importance,” Kate offered a brief overview of the situation. “All that needs to be done is to protect Mr. Lincoln,” she instructed Judd.19
Judd was worried and frustrated. He had numerous questions about Pinkerton’s warning, but Kate strongly suggested that he reserve his queries for Pinkerton. Judd didn’t seem to find comfort in the idea of waiting. “He said he was much too alarmed and would show the letter I had given him to some of Lincoln’s entourage, and also consult with the New York police about it,” Kate wrote in her field report. “I told him he was to do no such thing and advised him to keep cool until the meeting with Pinkerton.”20
Judd lit a cigar and paced the room while Kate continued to reason with him. She briefly contemplated the idea that Pinkerton might have misjudged Judd’s ability to keep such a confidence. When the security officer left Kate’s room, he was still noncommittal about whether he would stay quiet as Pinkerton directed.
Shortly after Judd excused himself and made his way to his suite, a courier arrived with a telegram for Kate. She immediately requested that Judd return to her room. He was wearing a worried expression when she invited him in and passed the telegram off to him. He quickly opened the message, which read: “Tell Judd I meant all I said, and that today they offer ten for one, and twenty for two.” Both Kate and Judd knew what the note meant. Pinkerton was relaying the news from the streets of Baltimore. Sporting men in the city were setting odds that Mr. Lincoln would not pass through the area with his life.21
On February 20, 1861, Kate headed back to Baltimore to report to Pinkerton. She was exhausted and preoccupied with the conversation she’d had with Judd the night before. Pinkerton’s message not only served to impress upon him the serious threat against Mr. Lincoln’s life, but it also instilled a sense of panic. Pinkerton instructed Kate to make arrangements for him to meet Mr. Lincoln in Philadelphia, the next stop on the tour. He wanted to be in the carriage with the president-elect as he rode down the streets of the city, greeting the citizens.22
Kate delivered the note to Judd and accompanied the presidential entourage to Philadelphia, where Pinkerton and his advisors met the train. Between the time Kate had returned to New York and Pinkerton boarded the train in Philadelphia, Joseph Howard had uncovered more details about the murder plot. To determine who exactly would deliver the fatal shot, members of Captain Ferrandini’s secessionist group placed ballots in a box, declaring that the person who drew a red ballot should perform the assassination. To ensure that no one should know who had drawn the fatal ballot, except the one who did so, the room was made dark, and everyone was pledged to secrecy as to the color of the ballot he drew.
“He [Lincoln] seemed loath to credit the statements and could scarcely believe that such a conspiracy could exist,” Pinkerton later wrote about the meeting he had with the president-elect. “Slowly he went over the points presented, questioning me at length, [and] finding it impossible to discredit the truthfulness of what I stated to him, he yielded a reluctant cre
dence to the facts.”23
“Will you, upon any statement which can be made, consent to leave for Washington on tonight’s train?” Judd implored the president-elect.
“No, I can’t consent to do this,” Mr. Lincoln told him. “I shall hoist the flag on Independence Hall tomorrow morning, and go to Harrisburg tomorrow, and meet the legislature of Pennsylvania; then I shall have fulfilled all my engagements. After this, if you and Mr. Pinkerton think there is still positive danger in my attempting to go through Baltimore openly, according to the published program, if you can arrange any way to carry out your purposes, I will place myself in your hands.” Neither Judd nor Pinkerton responded. “Mr. Lincoln had made his position with a tone and manner so decisive,” Pinkerton later wrote, “we saw that no more was to be said.”24
It was finally arranged between Judd, Pinkerton, and the officers of the railroad that a special train should leave Harrisburg at 6:00 p.m. and take Mr. Lincoln to Philadelphia in time to catch the 11:00 p.m. train going through Baltimore to Washington, on the night of February 22. With the help of Kate Warne, this train was to be detained until Mr. Lincoln arrived; every contingency, in regard to the connection of the trains and possible delays, was most skillfully planned, to secure connections and the certainty of going through on time.25
Meanwhile, to prevent this change being telegraphed to Baltimore by a Confederate, or information of this change of route being known and getting out in any way, the superintendent of the telegraph company, at the insistence of Mr. Pinkerton, sent a practical telegraph climber to isolate Harrisburg from telegraphic communication with all the world until Mr. Lincoln should reach Washington.26
On the morning of February 22, Mr. Lincoln visited Independence Hall and with his own hand raised the flag over it. His speech on this occasion was the most impressive and characteristic of any that he made on his journey to the capital.27
“I am filled with deep emotion,” president-elect Lincoln told the people who had gathered at Independence Hall, “at finding myself standing in this place where were collected together the wisdom, patriotism, the devotion to principle, from which sprang the institutions 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, 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 . . .28
“Liberty as a hope to all the world for all future time was the sentiment which guided those who met here. If this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle, I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it.”29
The same night Pinkerton disclosed the sinister plan Mr. Lincoln’s enemies had conjured, F. W. Seward, Esq., arrived at Philadelphia. He had been sent to Pennsylvania by his father, Secretary of State William Seward, to warn the president-elect of the danger which was awaiting him at Baltimore. Facts had come to the knowledge of Secretary Seward corroborating the evidence which had been accumulated by Mr. Pinkerton of the existence of the conspiracy. This circumstance rendered Mr. Lincoln less reluctant than he had been to consent to the arrangements for his passage through Baltimore on the night of February 22.30
From the time the president-elect arrived in Philadelphia, Kate Warne had been working on plans to secret him out of Pennsylvania and into Washington in time for the inauguration. She organized transportation, disguises, and protection. The speech Mr. Lincoln had delivered the day before had created unusual excitement in Baltimore and throughout the South. According to the March 2, 1861, edition of the Indiana State Guard, Mr. Lincoln’s presentation “embodied sentiments of negro [sic] equality which sparked further resentment of the president-elect.”31
The article continued:
“This indiscreet remark” as Mr. Lincoln himself called it, about lifting the weight from the shoulders of all men, and thus making negros, [sic] as well as whites, free and independent, was really so startling that he seemed to recoil from it, himself, almost before it escaped from his lips, although he declared, a moment or two previously, that he would “rather be assassinated than surrender it.”32
He was evidently frightened by his own territory, if not by his own shadow, when he reflected that the sentiment of his heart had taken wings, and that the next moment it would reach Baltimore, where it could not fail to excite, to the highest pitch, the population of that slave city. It is to be wondered that he instantly took the cars and hastened off to Harrisburg, shut himself up in his room, and suffered the apprehension of “assassination” to overcome him to such an extent, that he was afraid to receive company after nightfall.33
But the idea of “assassination,” which took such fearful possession of his mind, was not seriously thought of by anyone else. It was merely the echo of his own words. Secretary Seward, it is true, when he heard of his “indiscreet” speech, and saw its effect, politically, upon the country, concluded that the sooner he took him in charge, the better for the interests of the incoming administration. But the idea of “assassination” if it entered the mind of the Premier, was only in the shape of another “good enough, Morgan,” which would answer his purpose until after the inauguration, or, at all events, until he had secured the seals of the State Department.34
The tension surrounding the president-elect taking office was palpable. The Indiana State Guard article echoed the sentiments many Southern sympathizers embraced.
At 3:00 a.m. on February 23, 1861, Pinkerton met Kate in her room to go over the final details of the plan to get Lincoln out of the city without anyone knowing. The report Kate wrote regarding the particulars of the plan noted that Pinkerton appeared “sick and tired out.” Prior to the serious threats made on his life, Mr. Lincoln and his staff were to travel from Philadelphia to Harrisburg, then to Baltimore via the Northern Central Railroad. Only a handful of people were aware that slight alterations had been made to the schedule and passenger list. The Northern Central train Mr. Lincoln was initially set to board, transporting him to Baltimore and on to Washington, would leave as planned. Those awaiting the president-elect’s arrival had no idea he wouldn’t be on the vehicle. Mr. Lincoln would make the anticipated stop in Harrisburg and then secretly change trains there. The Northern Central would continue on as though Mr. Lincoln were on board.35
Mr. Lincoln’s itinerary in Harrisburg was filled with meetings, speeches, and meals with supporters and politicians. His evening ended at 5:45 p.m. on February 23, after dining with the governor of Pennsylvania. Mr. Lincoln retired to his room, ostensibly to go to bed early because he was exhausted. What he did instead was change his clothing in preparation to leave the city. When he was ushered out the back door of the house, he was wearing an old overcoat and carrying a soft, wool hat. He had left behind his usual beaver, stovepipe hat and walked outside bareheaded, unrecognized by strangers.36
President-elect Lincoln was committed to following through with the Pinkerton Detective Agency’s plan, but questioned the opinion his constituents would have regarding his actions. “What would the nation think of its president stealing into the capital like a thief in the night?” Pennsylvania senator Alexander K. McClure later recalled Mr. Lincoln sharing with him.37
Dressed in black taffeta, Kate Warne waited in the shadows of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad depot for Mr. Lincoln. She was confident she and the other Pinkerton operatives on the case had done all that was necessary to ensure the president-elect’s safety, but in the dark, contemplating all that could happen, it seemed the whole world was against Lincoln. An article in the February 22, 1861, edition of the Warren Mail reported that the public was being unfair to the incoming president, and that such harsh criticism of him could “bring down the government and destroy the future of the country.”38 The article continued:
Never since the days of Washington has a candidate b
een less the object of personal crimination and slander than Abraham Lincoln! So perfectly faultless has been his private life and character that his enemies could not truly discover the semblance of a flow upon which they might seize, and distort into something out of which to manufacture their political capitol.39
If then there is nothing in the man or the principles he represents to justify the spirit of revolution which pervades the entire South, what is the real cause of the discontent . . . ?40
A portion of the States have revolted and are now in open rebellion against the Federal authorities. . . .41
Mr. Lincoln is now on his way to the Capital. He will call to his aid the best talent the country can produce. The rights of all sections of the country will be respected and enforced, as well as those of the general government.42
To those who oppose the shedding of blood to perpetuate the Union, we would say, our fathers obtained the liberty we enjoy at the expense of the seven-year war; and by the grace of God we will continue to defend and protect it, peacefully if we can, forcibly if we must . . .43
We trust the spirit of patriotism which enabled the founders of our Republic to safely launch the Ship of State will also enable incoming administrations to preserve intact her massive timbers in the storm through which she is now passing, and to see the new leader safely to office.44
Kate Warne and the other members of the Pinkerton Detective Agency on assignment to watch over Mr. Lincoln would go to great lengths to make sure the new leader was delivered safely to office. Until the time Mr. Lincoln took the oath of office, Kate would be on guard for anyone who suspected the president-elect had deviated from the original touring schedule. Pinkerton had warned all of his operatives to remember that the rebellion was just as dedicated to doing away with Mr. Lincoln as they were to keeping him from harm.45
