Presented:
October 11, 2014
The Plot in
Baltimore to Assassinate Abraham Lincoln
- Fact or Fiction -
Implications for
History
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| The Republican Ticket |
In November
1860 Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States. He was winner
due to the division of the Democratic Party into Northern and Southern wings,
which predicted the war soon to follow. Lincoln failed to win a majority of the
popular votes, and indeed, failed to win any votes in the Deep South where he
was not even placed on the ballots.
The election
of this minority and sectional candidate was the spark that lit the fuse of
Secession, first of South Carolina, followed by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama,
Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. On the 4th of February of 1861 delegates from
these states (Texas excepted) met in Montgomery, Alabama to form their own new
political entity: the Confederate States of America. Meeting behind closed
doors the delegates adopted a provisional constitution by the 8th, and a provisional
President on the 9th.
 |
| Jefferson Davis |
The day after
he was notified of his selection, Jefferson Davis left his home in Brierfield
Mississippi and arrived, sternly triumphant, in Montgomery on the 16th, was
sworn in on the 18th and started his Presidency. This pace of
accomplishment in American political life has not been matched before or since.
It was said, with grim justification that “The man and the hour have met.”
In contrast
to the largely popular and uncontested travels of Davis, Lincoln also had to
make his way to Washington City to take command of what remained of the United
States.
Lincoln left Springfield
on February 11th, crossing over into Indiana, then Ohio, followed by Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey, again entering Pennsylvania and the city of
Philadelphia on the 21st. Along the route he was greeted by both supporters and
the merely curious, was officially declared the winner of the Presidential
Election by the Electoral College on the 12th,
was feted by civic banquets and receptions, and was guarded by an
informal company of friends, political cronies, and a few military officers
loosely managed by William S. Wood. This was an altogether inadequate
arrangement.
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| Presidential Train |
The last leg
of the journey required Lincoln to pass from Philadelphia through Baltimore,
change trains-a journey of approximately a mile - and then go on to Washington
City. Changing trains in cities was reflective of the state of the art of
railroading in the 1860s, due not only to the danger of fires and explosions,
but also the multiple small distance lines that completed with one another.
Baltimore was unique in many ways as a stop in the Lincoln itinerary, it was
part of Maryland – the only slave state on the tour, it was the only city that
did not plan an official welcome to the Lincoln, which in the other cities was
made part of the change of trains procession, and, most ominously, had made no
security arrangements for the President Elect’s party. This last omission was
not easily excused given that the President elect had daily received threats of
death by gun knife poisoned ink and even a spider filled dumpling. The pro
Southern sympathies of Baltimore Mayor George William Brown, Baltimore Chief of
Police Marshal George Proctor Kane and Maryland Governor Thomas Holliday Hicks
were instrumental in contributing to this lack of security.
 |
| Samuel Morse Felton |
In
Philadelphia railway executive Samuel Morse Felton, president of the
Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad was alerted by an employee,
George Stearns that a plot was forming in Baltimore. Felton believed that the
president-elect and those surrounding him had failed to grasp the seriousness
of his position. Rumors had reached Felton that secessionists might be mounting
a “deep-laid conspiracy to capture Washington, destroy all the avenues leading
to it from the North, East, and West, and thus prevent the inauguration of Mr.
Lincoln in the Capitol of the country.” For Felton, whose track formed a
crucial link between Washington and the North, the threat against Lincoln and
his government also constituted a danger to his railroad.
“I then
determined,” Felton recalled later, “to investigate the matter in my own way.”
By the end of January, with barely two weeks remaining before Lincoln was to
depart Springfield, Detective Allan Pinkerton was on the case.
 |
| Allan Pinkerton |
History has
not been kind to Pinkerton’s role in the Civil War. His wildly exaggerated
estimations of the Confederate forces facing the ever cautious General
McClellan in the Peninsular Campaign in 1862 left the reputations of both men
in doubt. In 1861 however he was considered to be a brilliant and skilled
operator. He and his associates, both male and female, soon discovered what
they claimed to have been a determined plot to assassinate Lincoln while he was
in transit in or near Baltimore.
Historians
disagree on the validity of the existence of the plot, but Pinkerton was
convinced that members of the Knights of the Golden Circle and other societies
of Southern sympathizers such as the paramilitary National Volunteers
(officially the Breckinridge and Lane Club) were in active conspiracy.
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| Knights of Golden Circle Broadside |
He befriended Otis K. Hillard, a known
Southern loyalist, who introduced him to William H.H. Turner, clerk of the
Baltimore Circuit Court, Cypriano Ferrandini, a barber in Barnum’s Hotel, a
known hangout for Southern Partisans, quoting Ferrandini as saying “If I alone
must do it, I shall- Lincoln shall die in this city. Unknown to him and acting
independently on the orders of General Winfield Scott, were detectives from New
York City, sent by Superintendent John Kennedy, who were also investigating
possible plots.
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| Inauguration of President Abraham Lincoln |
Presented: Brother Gerard Devine MD, Patriotic Instructor
Major General Thomas H. Ruger Camp #1
