by Chris Enss
Pinkerton required his operatives to memorize the letter he had received from the master mechanic of the PW&B Railroad about the plans to take the president-elect’s life. “I am informed that a son of a distinguished citizen of Maryland said he had taken an oath with others to assassinate Mr. Lincoln before he gets to Washington,” the railroad contact’s letter read. “They may attempt to do it while he is passing over our road. Take every precaution.”
It would take courage and skill to save the life of Mr. Lincoln and prevent the revolution that would inevitably follow his violent death. Like Pinkerton, Kate believed it could be accomplished, and she wouldn’t allow herself a moment’s peace until the job was done.46
Notes
1. Wilson, History of the Pennsylvania Railroad Department of the Young Men’s Christian Association of Pennsylvania, pp. 14–17.
2. Ibid.
3. Recko, A Spy for the Union, pp. 51–54.
4. Ibid.
5. Horan, The Pinkertons, pp. 55–57.
6. Ibid.
7. San Antonio Light, March 2, 1919.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Moran, The Eye That Never Sleeps, pp. 39–41; Horan, The Pinkertons, pp. 57–58.
11. Stashower, The Hour of Peril, p. 195.
12. Ibid., pp. 104, 195–96.
13. Horan, The Pinkertons, pp. 53–59.
14. Horan, The Pinkertons, pp. 53–59; San Antonio Light, March 2, 1919.
15. Horan, The Pinkertons, pp. 53–59; Stashower, The Hour of Peril, pp. 142–43, 204–08.
16. Horan, The Pinkertons, pp. 53–59.
17. Stashower, The Hour of Peril, pp. 204–08.
18. Ibid.
19. Stashower, The Hour of Peril, pp. 204–08; Moran, The Eye That Never Sleeps, pp. 39–41.
20. Stashower, The Hour of Peril, pp. 204–08; Horan, The Pinkertons, pp. 53–59.
21. Stashower, The Hour of Peril, pp. 204–08.
22. Stashower, The Hour of Peril, pp. 204–08; Horan, The Pinkertons, pp. 53–59.
23. Harper’s Magazine, June 1868.
24. Ibid.
25. Harper’s Magazine, June 1868; Stashower, The Hour of Peril, pp. 250–53; Horan, The Pinkertons, pp. 53–59.
26. Harper’s Magazine, June 1868; Stashower, The Hour of Peril, pp. 247–48.
27. Stashower, The Hour of Peril, pp. 247–48.
28. National Archives, Lincoln’s Address in Independence Hall, February 1861.
29. Ibid.
30. Stashower, The Hour of Peril, pp. 239–40.
31. Indiana State Guard, March 2, 1861.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid.
35. Stashower, The Hour of Peril, pp. 245–47.
36. Stashower, The Hour of Peril, pp. 245–47; Horan, The Pinkertons, 53–59.
37. Horan, The Pinkertons, 53–59.
38. Stashower, The Hour of Peril, pp. 245–47; Horan, The Pinkertons, 53–59; Warren Mail, February 22, 1861.
39. Warren Mail, February 22, 1861.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid.
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid.
44. Ibid.
45. Pinkerton, Spy of the Rebellion, pp. 54–57.
46. Pinkerton, Spy of the Rebellion, pp. 54–57; Horan, The Pinkertons, pp. 53–59.
Chapter Five
Operative Barkley in Washington
President-elect Abraham Lincoln showed no sign of being nervous or apprehensive about the late-night ride Pinkerton operatives arranged for him to take on February 23, 1861. Kate Warne noted in her records of the events surrounding Mr. Lincoln leaving Pennsylvania that he was cooperative and congenial.1
When the politician arrived at the depot in Baltimore with his colleagues and confidants, Ward Hill Lamon and Allan Pinkerton, he was focused and quiet. He was stooped over and leaning on Pinkerton’s arm. The posture helped to disguise his height, and when Kate greeted him with a slight hug and called him “Brother,” no one outside the small group thought anything of the exchange. For all anyone knew, Kate and Mr. Lincoln were siblings embarking on a trip together. Neither the porter nor the train’s brakeman recognized Mr. Lincoln as the president-elect. Kate made it clear to the limited railroad staff on board that her brother was not well and in need of solitude.2
It took a mere two minutes from the time the distinguished orator reached the depot until he and his companions were comfortably on board the special train. The conductor was instructed to leave the station only after he was handed a package Pinkerton had told him to expect. The conductor was informed that the package contained important government documents that needed to be kept secret and delivered to Washington with “great haste.” In truth the documents were a bundle of newspapers wrapped and sealed.3
The bell on the engine clanged, and the train lurched forward. The gas lamps in the sleeping berths in Mr. Lincoln’s car were not lit, and the shades were pulled. Kate and Pinkerton agreed it would be best to prevent curious passengers waiting at various stops from seeing in and possibly identifying the president-elect. No one spoke as the train slowly pulled away from the station. All hoped the journey would be uneventful, and were hesitant to make a sound for fear any conversation might jeopardize what had been done to get Mr. Lincoln to this point. It was Mr. Lincoln who broke the silence with an amusing story he had shared with Pennsylvania governor Andrew Curtain the previous evening.4
“I used to know an old farmer out in Illinois,” Mr. Lincoln told the three around him. “He took it into his head to venture into raising hogs. So he sent out to Europe and imported the finest breed of hogs that he could buy. The prize hog was put in a pen and the farmer’s two mischievous boys, James and John, were told to be sure not to let it out. But James let the brute out the very next day. The hog went straight for the boys and drove John up a tree. Then it went for the seat of James’s trousers, and the only way the boy could save himself was by holding on to the porker’s tail. The hog would not give up his hunt or the boy his hold. After they had made a good many circles around the tree, the boy’s courage began to give out, and he shouted to his brother: “ ‘I say, John, come down quick and help me let go of this hog.’ ”5
Mr. Lincoln’s traveling companions smiled politely and stifled a chuckle. Had the circumstances been different, perhaps they would have laughed aloud. Undaunted by the trio’s subdued response, the president-elect continued to regale them with amusing tales of the people he’d met and experiences they’d shared. The train gained speed, and soon Philadelphia was disappearing behind them.6
After a while, Kate and her fellow passengers retired to their sleeping berths. As she closed the drapes hanging in front of the president-elect’s berth, she suggested he stay out of sight until they reached their destination. In Kate’s report she noted that Mr. Lincoln was “so very tall that he could not lay straight in his berth.” She proceeded to the bunk where Pinkerton was tucked inside and presented to him the reports George Dunn had compiled about the assassination plot. Pinkerton had barely had a chance to review the material when the conductor, making his rounds, approached, requesting tickets. Kate, wearing a tearful expression, intercepted the conductor. She quickly handed her and Mr. Lincoln’s tickets to him. “My brother is a sick man,” she explained to the conductor, “and has already retired.” The conductor nodded sympathetically and took the tickets from her. Pinkerton surrendered his ticket and Ward Hill Lamon’s ticket at the same time. The conductor carried on without question.7
Lamon checked his watch as Kate and Pinkerton climbed into their individual berths. Not only was he anxious about what might happen during the four-and-a-half-hour journey to Washington, but he was also frustrated with Pinkerton. Prior to boarding the train, Lamon had offered his bowie knife to Mr. Lincoln to carry with him, in case he was attacked.
Pinkerton objected to the idea. “I would not for the world have it said that Mr. Lincoln had to enter the capital armed,” Pinkerton wrote in his report about the exchange. “If fighting has to be done, it must be done by others than Mr. Lincoln.”8
None of the four slept. The president-elect talked softly to his tense, fellow passengers from behind the closed curtain of his berth. “He talked very friendly for some time,” Kate recalled in her notes about the trip. “The excitement seemed to keep us all awake.”9
The most worrisome part of the journey was yet to come. All the members of the party were preoccupied thinking of it. Pinkerton couldn’t stay still. He would alternate between sitting for a few moments, lying back in his berth, pacing, and walking to the rear door of the car to keep watch from the back platform. Pinkerton arranged for his operatives to leave a series of signals along the route should assassins plot to destroy the tracks and derail the train. Pinkerton had watchmen placed at various intervals along the track. They waved lanterns to show that the coast was clear.10
As the train approached Perrymansville, a critical point of the trip, it slowed to a crawl as it neared the Susquehanna River. Here, the cars of the train had to be uncoupled and ferried across the water. Pinkerton feared that if Mr. Lincoln had been spotted leaving Pennsylvania and assassins had tracked him to the slowing train, it would provide a perfect opportunity to kill him. Rebels could set the ferry on fire, and any attempt to rescue the president-elect from the blaze and get him to shore could be met with gunfire.11
Just before Lincoln’s car was set to be shuttled across the river, Kate crawled out of her berth and sat in a chair next to Mr. Lincoln’s berth. She did not move from his side for the duration of the trip. According to Kate’s report,
There was no doubt Mr. Lincoln was uneasy about this part of the trip. The echo of his own words at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, when he declared he would “rather be assassinated on the spot” than abandon his ideas of independence and equality for all, rang in his head. His spirits were bolstered by the fact that Pinkerton had “taken every precaution to protect him from insult and annoyance, and to do honor to him as the president-elect, if not to the man.12
In addition to the possibility of the ferry being attacked was the danger inherent with transporting railcars across the river by boat. Train carriages were difficult to secure; they had to be tightly strapped lest they break away and roll around. A significant amount of water could destabilize the ferry and cause the carriages to tip. The entire process of loading the railcars onto the ferry, sending them across the river, unloading the railcars, and coupling them together again took more than forty minutes. When the last car was placed back on the track and the train’s engine was once again started, Pinkerton and Kate breathed a collective sigh of relief. “We are getting along very well,” Pinkerton reported Mr. Lincoln as saying. “I think we are on time,” he added. “I cannot realize how any man situated as he was could have shown more calmness or firmness,” Pinkerton recalled of the president-elect.13
Without mishap the train pressed on, running through the very stronghold of Lincoln’s angriest border opponents. The train reached Baltimore at 3:30 in the morning. Kate peered out at a city she knew would be aboil with plots of disunion.14
Like all pioneer railroads, the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore cars bound for the capital had to be drawn through the city thoroughfares by horses to the station of the Washington line. The party moved surreptitiously through the streets to meet the train that would take Mr. Lincoln into Washington.15
Despite the late hour, numerous people had congregated in that quarter of the city and were singing and celebrating. The connecting train Mr. Lincoln’s entourage was to meet was late, and several tense moments passed before news of its impending arrival was made known to Pinkerton. Once or twice Kate felt the partisan revelers milling dangerously close. “Perhaps at this moment the reckless conspirators were astir perfecting their plans for a tragedy as infamous as any which has ever disgraced a free country,” Pinkerton wrote about that stressful time the quartet spent contemplating their fate on the way to the next depot. “Perhaps even now the holders of the red ballots were nerving themselves for their part in the dreadful work, or were tossing restlessly upon sleepless couches.”16
Kate, Pinkerton, Lamon, and Mr. Lincoln would have to wait two hours for the connecting train to pull into the depot. All the while, the president-elect remained in his berth, joking with those around him. Occasionally, when all was silent inside the car, choruses of the songs “My Maryland” and “Dixie” could be heard coming from the waiting passengers. After one obviously intoxicated individual belted out the last stanza of “Dixie,” Mr. Lincoln peered out the curtains of his berth and smiled. “No doubt there will be a great time in Dixie by and by,” he told his protectors.17
At 5:35 in the morning, two Pinkerton operatives who were also employed to keep the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore line safe and secure entered the rear of the compartment. Pinkerton greeted the men, and one of them announced to the detective that “All was right.” Pinkerton thanked the men for their diligence and escorted them out of the car. Kate followed along behind them. While Pinkerton was giving the two operatives instructions for the final leg of the journey, Kate strode off into the night. Her job was done. She’d provided the necessary cover Mr. Lincoln required to get him to Baltimore, and in a short time he would be at the nation’s capital. It would not have been looked upon favorably to have the president-elect arrive with a woman who was not his wife. Even if that woman was a detective, the uninformed would talk.18
Kate heard the car carrying Mr. Lincoln being coupled to the train that would transport him to Washington. Pinkerton climbed back on board, and the train whistle blew. Kate paused a moment to listen to the engine firing and beginning to pull its load away from the depot. Once the train was on its way, she hailed a carriage to take her into the city where the next job she was to handle would be awaiting her.19
Nothing occurred to delay or interrupt the remainder of the president-elect’s trip. Pinkerton, Lamon, and Mr. Lincoln arrived in Washington at 6:00 in the morning of February 23. Mr. Lincoln exited the car wrapped in his traveling shawl. A great many people had gathered at the depot, but Mr. Lincoln made it through the crowd without anyone recognizing him. Just as the president-elect was about to leave the depot area, Elihu B. Washburne—a member of Lincoln’s security detail, and one of the men who personally severed the telegraph wires to keep information from being transferred back and forth from Baltimore and Washington—extended his arm and attempted to shake the president-elect’s hand. “How are you, Mr. Lincoln?” Washburne asked. Pinkerton was taken aback by Washburne’s boldness, and fearing Mr. Lincoln’s cover might be compromised, punched Washburne in the face before he could utter another word. Lincoln broke in and stopped Pinkerton from striking the man again. The detective quickly realized his error, and the overreaction was attributed to the stressful circumstances surrounding the efforts to get the president-elect safely to the capital.20
Within twenty-four hours of arriving in Washington, Mr. Lincoln asked the detectives that had played a part in making sure he was delivered unharmed to meet him at the home where he was staying, situated across from the White House. Kate was absent from the gathering, but the president-elect made sure to list “his sister” as one of the many to thank for her help.21
Crowd at the first inauguration of President Abraham Lincoln Courtesy of the Library of Congress
On the afternoon of February 24, 1861, Kate Warne as Mrs. Barkley met with fellow operative Harry Davies at Barnum’s Hotel in Baltimore. News that Mr. Lincoln had passed through the city unnoticed and unannounced had created quite a stir among citizens. Some residents were disappointed that they’d missed seeing the president-elect on his inaugural trip, and others were insulted that he chose to bypass their town. Kate, Davies, and other Pinkerton detectives
in Baltimore had encountered angry citizens who believed they had been slighted intentionally by the government. The detectives anticipated those who had plotted against Mr. Lincoln would band together to mull over their thwarted assassination plan. Pinkerton had asked his agents to gather any information about renewed efforts to kill Mr. Lincoln.22
The February 25, 1861, edition of the New York Times reported the mood in Baltimore and tried to explain to readers why Mr. Lincoln decided not to stop over in the city:
Mr. Lincoln’s coup d’état and rapid passage through the city have been condemned here by some who do not know the facts. A set of unscrupulous political knaves . . . who had determined to turn Mr. Lincoln’s visit there to their own account, arranged for a procession from the depot to his hotel. Protection was asked by these rowdies of Marshal Kane [Baltimore’s police marshal], who advised against such a proceeding. He said Mr. Lincoln would be treated with all respect due him personally and his high official position, but so obnoxious were the parties proposing the demonstration that he could not ensure the same respect to them. If they were determined to brave the matter, it might result in some indignity being offered which would be mortifying to the President-elect and disgraceful to the City of Baltimore.23
Finding that these men were fixed in their purposes, the latter was advised by telegraph to pass on to Washington without stopping, which he did. This advice came from gentlemen who had the good name of Baltimore chiefly at heart.24
These advices [sic] from Baltimore had been anticipated by a special messenger sent hence to meet Mr. Lincoln at Philadelphia, with dispatches from the War Department, urging him to come through Baltimore unexpectedly, as they had specific information of hostile purposes against him there, in relation to which they could not be mistaken. This information was obtained through official secret agents.25
