Start just about a halfhour to the north of the here in dundee, ill. It also features a lawyer by the name of Abraham Lincoln who i also understand came to prominence here in illinois. I will give you the plot in a nut shell. The year is 1861. Lincoln has been elected president and it turns out that there was a period in our nations history when president ial elections had a divisive and polarizing effect on the population. Very unlike the perfect harmony and stability of our present day. So over the period of 13 days as lincoln is making his way by train to his home in springfield, ill. Washington d. C. For his inauguration as president the air is filled with rumors of an assassination plot. In maryland where his train will pass below the masondixon line, there are rumors that he will be shot or stabbed to or his train will be blown up at a whistle stop appearance in baltimore. Allan pinkerton of the legendary Pinkerton Detective agency is on the scene, he is already there in baltimore and he has just under two weeks to uncover hard evidence of this link plot before time runs out. What makes the situation even more difficult and more dangerous is there is no good way to get from springfield to washington at this time. Americas railroads are expanding at a fantastic rate, there is no single direct railway line, no Transcontinental Railroad yet. The Railway System in 1861 looks as if you had taken a plate of spaghetti and throw it at a map and wherever it lands there is an independent, Regional Railway line. In all, lincoln took a route that zigzags, crisscrossed and doubled back on itself, covering a distance of 2,000 miles, 18 separate independent Railroad Lines as opposed to a journey of a few hundred miles. And out of the train, gives a little speech, waves into the crowd, and this is the whole point. By the time lincoln sets off for washington, seven states have seceded from the union and a lincoln hopes to use this train journey to give people a chance to hear him, to see him, to listen to his ideas, to 4 oil on troubled waters, give people a chance to get to know him a little bit and in the end he winds up giving over 100 speeches, trying to extend calling words to the north and offer an olive branch to the south. But baltimore is looming. Three of these independent Regional Railway lines converge in baltimore and it creates a choke point for all passenger and freight traffic moving from north to south, you cant get to washington without passing through baltimore and because the line doesnt go straight through, lincoln will have to get out of the train and wade through a have the crowd just as he has done at every other transfer point only this time it is in a slave Holding State and there are people in the crowd who have threatened to kill him. Here is how Allan Pinkerton believed it would play out when lincoln arrived at baltimores calvert street train station and this is complete, was a plot, diversion to draw any Police Escort away from lincolns side and the critical moment. Pinkerton wrote it had been fully determined that the assassination should take place at calvert st. When the train entered the depot and mr. Lincoln attempted to pass through the Narrow Passage leading to the street, a party already delegated work to engage in a conflict on the outside and then the policeman were to rush away and quelled the disturbance. At this moment, the police, being an entirely withdrawn, mr. Lincoln would find himself surrounded by a dense, excited and hostile crowd, all hustling and jamming the against him and then the fatal blow was to be struck. Many of you will be familiar with the baltimore plot as this episode came to be called. Very few of you know the story behind the story. That story begins with Allan Pinkerton. He is a tough nut. He is hard to get to know. That is scrappy, grizzled, quick to anger. He began his career in scotland. He got into trouble with the law in scotland. He came to america as a cooper, a barrelmaker. And he moved here to illinois. And it looks like he is going to go on quietly making barrels for the rest of his life in dundee, illinois and one day he is out cutting wood for barrel states, he comes across the remains of a campfire and something doesnt look right to demand pecan to understand what people were doing in this remote spot. Why they would have been there in the middle of the night. He spent a couple days investigating of, he waits around to see what happens. He discovers this Remote Island is being used by gang of counterfeiters. He comes back with the local sheriff, he leads a raid to that round the mall up and the next thing you know pinkerton is a lawman and soon after is that by slow degrees he works his way through the ranks and becomes something entirely new, a private detective. He sets up business for himself in chicago and his logo is this stern, unblinking eye, glaring out over the words we never sleep. And soon this logo, this unblinking eye brings a new phrase into the language, private eye. Pinkerton was the first. Americas first private eye, by no means the last and we think of the pinkertons as hard men with blazing guns and big fists. Remember the relentless posse of what men chasing butch and sundance. Paul newman says can you do that . I cant do that. Who are those guys . The guys shooting back at train robbers from inside the freight car, they are pinkertons and the guys knocking Heads Together at the strike, the steel mill those were pinkertons too. Sad to say, and this last thing this Union Busting has attached a great deal of infamy to the pinkerton name and a considerable amount of confusion about who Allan Pinkerton was, had a guy come up to me at the pta meeting of all things, jabs his finger into my chest and says Allan Pinkerton, smashed my grandfather over the head with a globe at homestead and put him in the hospital. Are you going to write about that in your book . Mr author . Two things. One, love it when people call me mr. Author. Bear that in mind for later. Two, the homestead strike of 1892 was a truly horrific episode. The clash between striking steelworkers and pinkerton men in homestead, pa. It was a terrible, bloody episode with casualties and blame on both sides but i can tell you for sure that Allan Pinkerton didnt smash anyones grandfather over the head that day. I hear you laughing. How can you be so sure . Because he was dead. He had died eight years earlier. It has been my experience, did men crack no skulls. My point is alan pinkertons story has gotten tangled up over the years with the darker aspects of his agencys legacy. Allan pinkerton, the founder of the agency, spent his youth marching for the rights of working men in his native scotland and came under fire literally for doing so. Allan pinkerton, founder of the agency, ran a station on the underground railroad in illinois, helping fugitive slaves on their way north to freedom. He was a friend of john brown, the fire and brimstone abolitionist, even though the assistance he gave to brown in the days leading up to Harpers Ferry put him on the wrong side of the law. He was a lawman by day, lawbreaker by night. And believe me, i am not putting him up for sainthood and i am not looking to apologize for some of the terrible things he did and that happened on his watch and especially later on. But there is based lori here that never gets told. It is the story of a barefoot cooper who becomes a world fame detective and makes his bone protecting americas railroads. His biggest client is the illinois central railroad. The illinois central also has a lawyer on retainer and his name is Abraham Lincoln and thereby hangs the tale. The bottom line is lincoln and pinkerton come to know of each other, and ten years on when lincoln is president elect of the United States and is being told that there are men waiting to kill him in baltimore, he trusts pinkerton. He is going to listen to pinkerton. Some of his advisers, a crushing display of military force. I got a squad of cavalry, and cut our way to washington. It was a pain to avoid any show of military posturing. Pinkertons plan if successful would sidestep the issue. Pinkerton says i will get you to washington but you will have to put yourself entirely in my hand, and in those of my most trusted operative and the most trusted operative as it turns out is not a pinkerton man, not a pinkerton man at all. About a pinkerton woman. I love this part. One day, five years earlier in 1856 pinkerton is sitting at his desk in chicago and theres a knock at the door. There is a young woman standing there and she introduces herself, cage warren, a young widow 22 or 23 years old, she is looking for work. Pinkerton doesnt know what she means. Have come to inquire as to whether you would hire me as a detective and pinkerton is god smacked which is a phrase my wife who is also scottish likes to use. Pinkerton is got smacked. 1856, susan b. Anthony is barely out of the starting gate. It will be decades before women can even vote but here is a young woman who says she once worked as a detective. To his credit pinkerton gives her a hearing. He says it is not the custom to employee women as detectives. How exactly do you propose to be of service . And she is ready for this. She says a female detective may go and learn secrets in ways that are impossible for male detectives. A man may hide all traces of his guilt from his fellow man but he will not hide it from his wife. What she proposes to do is strike up useful friendships with the wives of these suspected criminals, get them to spill the beans and then she will take that information back to pinkerton and that is what she did and much more besides. On the night in question, in the hour of peril, if you will, lincoln was accompanied not by a squad of cavalry, but by a resourceful young woman who is posing as his sister and traveling companion. But that was only part of pinkertons plan on that night. Earlier one of pinkertons men had insinuated himself into a meeting of the conspirators were in baltimore at which secret ballots were to be drawn. One ballot was marked in red to designate the assassin but no one was to know who drew this red ballot. In this way, the identity of the shows an assassin, the honored patriot as they called him, would be kept secret until the last possible moment. And it later emerged that the dice had been stacked. Instead of a single red ballot in this box there were eight. In this way, if one or two of the chosen men each of whom believed he was the sole assassin, one or two loses his nerve no problem, there are six more waiting. One of them is certain to strike a fatal blow. As pinkerton explained, this was a good plot. It was audaciously simple and efficient. It was a capital plan, and much better conceived than the one which finally succeeded four years after in destroying mr. Lincolns life. It is a good plan and it needs a better plan if it is going to be foiled and pinkerton had one. Pinkerton had a strategy that his many years of service as a Railroad Detective enabled him to divide and put into practice. For more than a week, lincoln had been tendered to a moment by moment timetable speeches and reception and the plans of the conspirators had been laid accordingly. They knew exactly where he would be at any given moment. Anybody would. All you had to do was look in the newspaper and you would know where lincoln would be at any given moment and in pinkertons view the only way of thwarting this plot was to get lincoln to break away from the wellpublicized itinerary and proceed directly to washington ahead of schedule under the detectives personal protection. If pinkerton could sneak the president elect through baltimore ahead of time, the assassins would be caught off guard. By the time they took their places for the scheduled arrival of lincolns train, of burlington himself would already be in washington. But pinkerton knew that what he was proposing was foolhardy and dangerous. Even if lincoln made his move ahead of schedule, the route to washington would pass through baltimore in any case. There simply wasnt any other feasible way of getting there. So if any hint of this change of plan gets out, lincolns position would be far more precarious. Instead of traveling openly and surrounded by friends and protectors, he would be alone, relatively exposed, with only one or two men at his side. It is tempting to say that pinkerton was throwing a hail mary pass. It was really a quarterback sneak. If it works, you will pick up the extra yardage and get a first down. If it doesnt work, you may lose your quarterback. This is where kate warrant, the female detective, has her moment of glory. On this particular night, it occurred to pinkerton, if anyone was on the lookout for lincoln for any unexpected movements and he believed all the train stations and hotels were being watched, they would expect to see the familiar, tall figure in the stovepipe hat traveling in the company of a large group of men. That being the case, they would likely pass over the young woman off to the side who was busily making arrangements for her ailing brother who she insisted would retiree immediately to his train compartment and was not to be disturbed on the journey. Lincoln, it seems, was charmed by this. And we are told that he had something to say when he was introduced to kate warren on that night. He is supposed to have said i believe it has not hitherto been one of the perquisites of the presidency to inquire in full bloom so charming and accomplished a female relation. The lovely phrase, i dont know if he actually said it, is recorded in the history books and i like to think so. As some of you will know, mine is not the first book to feature Abraham Lincoln. At the new Ford Theater Center in washington there is a winding, five story tower of books all about lincoln, 34 feet high. Not only have there been acres of very excellent books written by modern scholars, but you could build a bridge from here to springfield and back to washington and home again with volumes of reminiscences that were written at the time. Lincoln, as i knew him, books. No two of them can quite agree on what happened in baltimore. Sources conflict. Historical agendas collide. Nobody can even agreeing on what happened on the night in question. To try to unpack some of that baggage, to untangle the cross wires, to look past the highly charged politics of the moment and try to get at what really happened. I hear you ask why there should be any controversy about it. At the critical moment of the story, february 22nd, 1861, their brick two men at lincolns side, one to his right and one to his left and these two men came to haiti gender with a boiling action. One of the miss pinkerton, one is toward, lincolns friend and selfappointed bodyguard. Later on when the feud between the two of them had taken on a real heat, he accused pinkerton of having fabricated the entire episode in baltimore to burnish his own reputation. Most of the controversy about what happened involved what begins there. Because pinkertons operation was deeply flawed there was much to criticize. A great deal of the information pinkerton gleaned in baltimore was picked up in bar rooms and in brothels and another places where the telling of falsehoods and exaggeration renault unknown. If you were looking to pick apart the information he had gathered in the days leading up to this event it wasnt hard to do so, but it is ridiculous to say as many afterwards did that there was no danger of any kind in baltimore. Of course there was danger. Of course there was danger. When Abraham Lincoln, the abolitionist minded president elect of the United States, the man who said a house divided against itself cannot stand set forth in the slave Holding State with the first time, of course the Party Killers of the threat are legitimate subject for debate but the existence of a threat beyond dispute as the newspaper editor said at the time, there were 40 times the reason for shooting him in 1861 than there was in 65. At least 40 times as many intent on killing him or having him killed. Really, he was sitting behind lincoln when he delivered his first inaugural address and spoke of expecting at any moment to hear lincolns words arrested by the crack of a rifle but he said no shot was then fired for his power had not yet come. As for pinkerton, he came to regard this episode as the highlight of his career even if as he freely admitted to william herndon, lincolns law partner turned biographer that he had come upon the whole thing by a lucky chance. He said from my reports you will see how accidentally i discovered the flaw. I was looking for nothing of the kind, certainly not the slightest idea of it. But on his tombstone in ellen l. A. One finds the following inscription. In the hour of the nations peril, he conducted Abraham Lincoln safely through the ranks of treason to the scene of his first inauguration as president. I am guessing that many people who come to this story will know that Abraham Lincoln survived to become president of the United States and soon afterwards the nation was plunged into civil war. Why tell the story . Why now . There are three reasons. One, it is a barn burner of the story, reads like one of the yellowback adventure novels of the day that pinkerton himself loved to read. You have conspirators taking blood oaths at midnight, detectives jumping off of trains, the president elect of the United States stealing through town in disguise past the seat of danger as pinkerton calls it under the sable wing of night. The civil war is full of moments where the whole shooting match came down to a matter of inches, pickets charge. There stands jackson like a stone wall rallied behind the virginian. This is one of those moments. The final reason is this. With that i put on my reading glasses and reading short passage in a clear and pleasing baritone. The events of 1861 continue to capture our attention, not only for the drama of the plot and its detection but also because lincolns handling of the crisis and its fallout would mark a fateful early test of his presidency with many dark consequences. The stakes were enormous. Had mr. Lincoln fallen at that time . Road pinkerton . It is frightful to think what the consequences might have been. There is no question that pinkertons methods were highhanded and at times on lawful but many of the criticisms that were heaped upon him in 1861 would not be unexpressed or even considered today. Is now understood that there are dangers to be apprehended when a president moves freely through a vast crowd or rides in an open conveyance. Those apprehensions would not exist at the start of the lincoln presidency. As one new york newspaper noted that the time, fascination is not congenial to the american character. Perhaps not but it would soon become all too real. The events about to be related here have been for a long time shrouded in a veil of mystery, pinkerton wrote in a memoir published near the end of his life. Many are aware of plot existed at this time to assassinate the president elect to is contemplated journey to the capital but few have any knowledge of the mode by which the conspiracy was detected or the means employed to prevent the accomplishment of that murderous design. Strangely, these words are as true today as they were in pinkertons time and he was against the tide of criticism when he wrote them. The distinguished historian, john thomas sharp chronicling the history of his native maryland in 1879 insisted pinkertons actions had been an insult to the fair game of one of the chief cities of the country and expressed the hope that the matter would soon be settled once and for all. I myself am a resident of maryland and i am as partial to blue crabs and Black Eyed Susan as the next man. I believe it has possible to treat this episode without undue risk. It bears noting, our state song maryland by maryland, and builds to a final spirited rally in crying, he spurns the northerns come. Lincoln would likely have been amused. Tell us citizens, he wisely declared in a year earlier as of his presidency, we cannot escape history. I would be delighted by any questions you have. Thank you. Did you do any research . Sure. And the original documents was the fun of it. Much was destroyed in the fire and is in the library of congress and that was useful. It was terrific interesting to look through newspapers of the day, many of which were saying exactly the opposite things i said the previous day or worse at the same time in other newspapers, very interesting time. His advisers, the question is he was criticized at the time. He was more than criticized. His advisers would be ridiculed and accused and he was. They were characters showing in ringlets fleeing towards the capital like a frightened school dale, theres one showing him crouching in a freight car hissing match the site of a cat, all kinds of things. And the Baltimore Sun was absolutely furious at this perceived slight and wrote that if this light cannot be reasonably explained, the citizens of maryland will take umbrage and their exit from the union will be assured. That was the problem. Maryland was seriously take offense lincoln needed maryland to stay in the union. If maryland went confederate washington would be entirely him in by confederate territory and it seems likely that the Federal Capital would have to remove itself to philadelphia or new york. The stakes were huge. Anyone else . Was Mary Todd Lincoln on the train . Was she in danger as well . One of the very interesting things about the store. Was Mary Todd Lincoln on the train . Among the many reasons lincoln was criticized was that night, his family was on the train, the thinking was quite reasonably if you were in so much danger, why did you beat your wife and children on the train to face these dangers that you would not. And Mary Todd Lincoln, so there is to be some flock in the white house after rawl, if it is under a bodice. It was a fair criticism. But the truth is theres a great deal of evidence to suggest the superintendent of police in baltimore who came under a great deal of criticism from pinkerton had a plan to take the lincoln family off the train before it got to baltimore, have them to lunch at the home of a prominent citizen of baltimore and take them to the second train that would carry them the rest of the way to washington which would have might have sidestepped the issue as effectively as pinkertons plan did. So it is quite possible that she wasnt on the train any more than he was. But the perception that lincoln had left his family to face the perils that he himself would not also clung to him like glue. Anyone else . Maam . Couple quick things. I apologize if you already addressed this. First, what specific thing about this event that made you say i want to spend time researching exactly what happened in here . Was that process similar to what will happen or is already happening for your next book . How do you decide what you are going to pick for an area to explore in nonfiction . Thank you for that. For me it was as true for me today as it was in lincolns time that all roads lead to baltimore. I have always been interested in the subject. The official answer and it is true, that when i first got out of bread school i was working at timelife books. The series they had called the civil war. The joke around the office was it took us longer to do this year is that it took us to fight the civil war. It was there that i met some of the characters in this story for the first time including colonel ellsworth, the gallant little colonel who was at lincolns side through the whole journey and later became one of the first at the start of the war to fall. And pinkertons prize operative, timothy webster, who was hanged as early in the war as a union spy in richmond and i had begun to get the sentiment there. I am also lifelong Sherlock Holmes fan and have written early and often about Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes and in the valley of fear, one of the novels about Sherlock Holmes there are pinkerton men at the center of it. Is based on Molly Maguire ended a pinkerton man is deep in this business we are all destroyed. If i am honest my first exposure to it was in of friends tree house in cleveland in 1971. There was a stack of comic books that belonged to one of his uncles and i have it with me. It was called true comex and it told the story of this plot. It was not a great telling of the story. There was one line that went we need such as yourself, mr. Pinkerton now that crime seems to be on the increase. It got the job done and since the other reading in the tree house that day and called the girls in the big tent i think i made the right choice in terms of what to write a book about. To answer your question of how one picks a book topic, strange to say it can be as serendipitous as that but you have to dig deeply enough to make sure that the bones of the story are there, that it is going to support the full telling of a story and that is the part of it that i love. I like to be up to my neck in research. Thank you. Anyone else . I have heard say that this book has been nominated for an edgar award and an address of award recently. I am sorry. Yes, it has. I am flattered by that. And the check is in the mail. If there are no other questions, are there any other questions . I thank you for your kind attention and i will be happy to talk with you, your copies and continue on on this snow in night. Thank you for coming. My interest ending was lincoln was he was oh yes. No. But lincoln was a security nightmare. He was an open door president. It went against his instincts to take protective measures which took his friends and would be protectors. But you cant do that open it up to the signing line. If anybody has a book to be signed please sign up. Sign that up. For more information visit the authors web site, daniel stashower. Com. Welcome to booktv, 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books every weekend on cspan2. Here are some of the programs you will see this weekend on booktv. Steven jimenez argues the killing of Matthew Sheppard was not an antigay hate crime but the results of a drugrelated robbery gone wrong. Phyllis cit led describes her experiences as a jewish woman in afghanistan married to a muslim fundamentalist. Rich benjamin talks about his book down to the crossroads, civil rights, black power and the march against fear on
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