The Lincoln Conspiracy summary

At the beginning of 1861, the United States was plagued by division, hatred, and doubt. Northern states, like Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, and Southern states, like Georgia and South Carolina, had never been more different – socially, economically, and politically. At the heart of the schism was the fate of over three million enslaved people who lived in the South at the time. Their labor upheld the Southern way of life that the aristocratic planter class was committed to protecting. The storm of civil war was gathering, and when it eventually broke it would kill more Americans than all wars from the American Revolution to World War II combined.

The election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860 was a catalyst for the splintering of the United States. An avowed abolitionist, Lincoln was universally abhorred in the South. Southern politicians, scions of business, and members of shadowy, armed militias that would eventually give rise to the Ku Klux Klan – vowed to die trying to prevent Lincoln from taking office.

Lincoln would have to pass through the rabidly secessionist city of Baltimore on his way to his inauguration in Washington, D.C. For those who wished Lincoln ill, this would be their best chance.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

• how an impulsive cash gift helped save Lincoln’s life;
• why someone threatened to put a “spider in Lincoln’s dumpling;” and
• Lincoln’s highly inappropriate code-name during the midnight run to Washington

In the South, the reaction to Lincoln’s nomination was extreme. As news spread that the Republican presidential nominee was a Northern abolitionist, a group of men gathered in a Baltimore barber shop owned by Cypriano Ferrandini, an immigrant from Corsica who had found an ideological home in the radical politics of the South. Ferrandini’s barber shop had become a meeting point for Baltimore’s elite white supremacists. For them, as for many in the South, this was the last straw.

Support for the abolition of slavery was growing in the North. The Southern planter class increasingly felt their way of life, which depended on slave labor, was under attack by a government that no longer represented them. Violence was on the rise, even in Washington’s halls of power. In 1856, an abolitionist Massachusetts senator was beaten almost to death on the floor of the US Congress by a South Carolina congressman.

The key message here is: Political chaos in the South helped accomplish what for many was a nightmare outcome: President-elect Lincoln.

In the years leading up to the 1860 election, membership had surged in the Knights of the Golden Circle, a shadowy group dedicated to upholding white Southern rights, by force if necessary. Knights, including Ferrandini and his friends, were armed at all times with loaded revolvers and Bowie knives. By 1860, the organization had an estimated 40,000 members.

But not all Southerners were violent secessionists. At the time, the Democratic party was fractured between secessionists and moderate Democrats. The 1860 Democratic National Convention revealed just how splintered the party was on the issue of secession. Not only were the debates unusually hostile, they were often punctuated by fistfights. Ultimately, compromise was impossible. The convention split, offering two competing nominees for president.

With no unified opposition, Lincoln was favored to win the presidency. In the South, this was considered an apocalyptic scenario. For the first time, the president might seriously threaten the institution of slavery. The language of revolt was increasingly used in Southern newspapers: “we must not submit,” declared Alabama’s Montgomery Weekly Mail.

On Election Day, November 6, Lincoln stayed up late, calculating probabilities for each state and watching the results come in. He won easily, and spent the night celebrating and thanking supporters.

By 3:00 a.m., he was finally alone. Haunted by a profound sense of foreboding, he couldn’t sleep. Looking up from his chair in a darkened room, he caught sight of himself in a mirror. There, with a start, he saw a ghostly double vision of his face.

In the weeks to come, he and his wife endlessly brooded over the vision. Ultimately, they decided, the omen was not a good one. It spelled untimely death.

During the election campaign, Lincoln had said he had no intention to abolish slavery where it already existed. He would only prevent slavery from being adopted by new US territories. Nevertheless, Southerners viewed his election as a kind of apocalypse. To them, it calcified the growing schism between themselves and the North. Lincoln had been elected president by the North, not the South.

Southerners didn’t hesitate to act, both individually and en masse.

Lincoln soon began getting about 70 letters per day. Not all were from well-wishers. There were a surprising number of death threats and rambling vows of eternal hatred, as many as a dozen per day. One read: “Old Abe Lincoln, God damn your god damned old Hellfired god damned soul to hell…” and so on. Another threatened to “put a spider in your dumpling.”

The key message here is: As Lincoln prepared to assume the presidency, the South responded to his election in ominous ways.

It wasn’t just eccentric arachnophiles who reacted strongly to Lincoln’s election. In December, the South Carolina state assembly followed through on a threat it had made just three days after the election: it voted to secede from the United States. South Carolina was followed in short order by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, and Georgia.

The South was jubilant. The North was stunned. Lincoln’s election had been the catalyst for secession, so now everyone looked to him for a response. In those days, though, a president-elect was expected to keep quiet before he began his term, as a show of respect for the outgoing administration. Lincoln kept quiet save for some letters to party leaders which stressed his abhorrence of slavery.

In any case, he and his newly hired team had plenty of administrative tasks to take care of. He not only had a new job to prepare for, but a cross-country move to organize. What’s more, he was now the most famous and sought-after man in the country.

He would give the people what they wanted: a publicity tour from Springfield, Illinois to Washington, D.C. It would be a complex journey, tickets with different railroad companies and regional segments, timed stops, and meetings with local politicians. Not to mention reservations for overnight stays and secure baggage transfer. With so many moving parts, there would be ample opportunity for something to go wrong.

Lincoln’s security team was most worried about one thing: the final stretch of the journey would take the president-elect deep into hostile territory.

In Washington, rumors began swirling. There were whispers of secret organizations bent on preventing Lincoln from taking office and even an invasion of Southern militias, aided by sleeper agents already in the capital. The city was in a precarious position, sandwiched between Virginia and Maryland, both slave states. If a Southern militia were to invade, it would be cut off from government support.

Rumors were also traveling north, to the Philadelphia office of railroad magnate Samuel Felton. Word reached him that a secretive cabal was planning to blow up his railroad lines between Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington so as to prevent Lincoln from reaching the capital.

Even more concerning, when Felton approached George Kane, the Baltimore Police Marshal, with what he had learned, Kane dismissed him casually. The fact that Kane was an avowed secessionist was not lost on Felton.

The key message here is: Threats were seemingly everywhere. Luckily, Felton called the one man who could connect the dots.

Felton knew just the man for the job, someone who had helped him out of a bind in the past. On January 19, he sent urgent word to Allan Pinkerton in Chicago.

Pinkerton was America’s first private detective, a pioneer in the field. He was smart, creative, and not prone to giving up easily. Specialized in bank robberies and counterfeit operations, he had brought down some of the most infamous crooks in Chicago history. He’d made plenty of enemies too, and had survived at least one assassination attempt.

By the time Felton’s telegram reached him, Pinkerton was in charge of a bustling operation with dozens of staff on his payroll. Among them was Kate Warne, the first female detective in the US.

Pinkerton was also a man of fierce principle. He was a fervent abolitionist, and an admirer of Lincoln, Illinois’s hometown hero. His Chicago home was a well-visited stop for people fleeing from slavery, heading for Canada.

Alarmed by Felton’s message, Pinkerton rushed to Philadelphia. After meeting with the railroad magnate, he came to an even more chilling realization. The rumors of armed secessionists, secret political cabals of white supremacists, and railroad saboteurs were scary enough. But now, the president-elect had made the schedule of his publicity tour public. Those who wished him ill would have the opportunity to do so at home in the South, according to the planned schedule. 

Worst of all, Pinkerton only had a few days to develop a plan, to protect the best hope America had ever had to put an end to slavery.

A few days later, Pinkerton was on his way to Baltimore, along with his best agents. They’d only had a few days to prepare, practicing their Southern accents, developing false identities, and gathering accessories for their disguises. Their plan was shockingly audacious: to infiltrate the groups of white supremacist secessionists in Baltimore, learn their plans, and foil them, ensuring that Lincoln made it to his inauguration.

When they reached Baltimore, they found a city seething with anger, self-righteousness, and hostility directed toward one target: Lincoln. It was only a matter of time, Pinkerton thought, before there was open revolt.

On February 11, Pinkerton assumed his new identity. He was now John Hutcheson, an Alabama stockbroker. The locale of Hutcheson’s office was no accident. In the same building were the offices of Thomas Luckett, a stockbroker and avowed secessionist.

The key message here is: Pinkerton’s detectives went undercover in Baltimore, to sniff out – and stop – any plot against the president-elect.

Pinkerton’s other operatives were also making their debuts into white supremacist Baltimore society. Harry Davies was a young and handsome man, with a genteel New Orleans accent that suited him well to the task. His mark was Otis Hillard, a none-too-bright Baltimore socialite. After several nights of carousing in bars, restaurants, and brothels, Davies learned that Hillard spoke more freely once he’d had a few drinks.

Hillard had hinted about a large-scale action planned against Lincoln, but it took a few more raucous evenings peppered with pro-secessionist rhetoric for Hillard to be convinced of Davies’s commitment to the cause. Eventually, Hillard brought Davies to Cypriano Ferrandini’s barber shop, ground zero for wealthy Baltimore white supremacists, to meet the architect of the plot. But they’d just missed him.

Meanwhile, Pinkerton had been ingratiating himself with Thomas Luckett, bitterly cursing Lincoln. On February 14, Luckett was especially angry, incensed by the fawning coverage Lincoln was getting in the Northern press. He revealed his involvement in an organization powerful enough to defy Lincoln, and their secret stockpiles of guns and ammunition. Sensing an opportunity, Pinkerton handed Luckett the equivalent of $750 in today’s money as a contribution. Impressed, Luckett offered to introduce Pinkerton to the organization’s leader that very night.

It was the barber, Ferrandini. Over drinks, Ferrandini became increasingly agitated – and convincing. He said “murder of any kind is justifiable and right to save the rights of Southern people.” Pinkerton had a shocking realization: Ferrandini was planning to kill Lincoln, right there in Baltimore.

Lincoln’s procession departed Springfield on February 11, 1861. Against the advice of friends concerned about the disturbing, persistent rumors, Lincoln embarked without a military escort. He did have a few bodyguards though, beefy barroom brawlers and former soldiers who knew how to handle themselves.

At every stop, crowds were gathered to cheer on the president-elect’s train. At every stop, Lincoln was ready with an easy smile and a folksy joke. As word of Lincoln’s charming manner spread, the crowds grew even larger. The trip’s planners had clearly underestimated the public’s curiosity in the gangly man who was about to become their leader.

Cincinnati, Ohio was the largest city yet on their trip. The crowd was immense, and on the way from the station to their hotel the Lincolns were mobbed by well-wishers. The fact is, Lincoln was vulnerable. Anybody could have taken a shot during his speeches, meet and greets, or meals.

The key message here is: As Lincoln began his publicity tour, his popularity – and the safety risks – proved greater than anticipated.

As Lincoln was settling in for the night at his Cincinnati hotel, a stranger, who wouldn’t take no for an answer, showed up at reception. He demanded to see Norman Judd, a member of the president-elect’s party. The messenger had just come from Chicago, to hand deliver a letter from Pinkerton. Pinkerton knew Judd from Chicago; he knew Judd could be trusted with the inflammatory information the letter contained: that there was a plot on Lincoln’s life.

Judd hesitated. There had already been plenty of threats, he reasoned. Why would this one be any different? He sent a letter to Pinkerton in Baltimore, asking the detective to keep him closely apprised of the situation. He would maintain vigilance but not take any special action. 

But Lincoln’s publicity tour was about to get even more chaotic and unpredictable.

When the train pulled into Buffalo, New York station on February 16, there was chaos. As former president Millard Fillmore came forward to greet Lincoln, the crowd became uncontrollable. Lincoln’s security detail was overwhelmed. One of Lincoln’s bodyguards dislocated his shoulder. The pressure on crowd members caused some to pass out. Lincoln himself was crushed, but uninjured.

The risk seemed to be increasing by the day, and they were still in staunchly Republican anti-slavery country.

In only seven days, though, Lincoln was scheduled to pull into Baltimore. Neither he nor his team had any idea what was in store for him there.

The insistent stranger in Lincoln’s Cincinnati hotel wasn’t Pinkerton’s only agent in the field. Warne was speeding through the night, on a train from Baltimore to New York. Pinkerton had entrusted her with another critical message for Norman Judd.

They would use code names until the mission was complete. Lincoln’s was slightly unbefitting for a man destined for the highest office in the land. From then on, the president-elect would be known as Nuts.

When Judd arrived in New York, he was faced with a successive series of surprises. First, the agent Pinkerton sent to meet with him was a woman. What’s more, she carried a letter with even more evidence of a plot against Lincoln’s life, to be carried out on February 23 in the city of Baltimore. Finally, when Judd demanded more details, the obstinate woman had the temerity to refuse.

The key message here is: With only days to go before Lincoln would pass through Baltimore, Pinkerton convinced his security detail of the danger.

Warne asked Judd to come to Philadelphia to meet with Felton the railroad scion and Pinkerton himself. They would fully brief each other, and develop a plan of action together. After this meeting, on February 21, Judd was finally convinced enough of the danger to tell his boss.

But how would they accomplish the task of getting Lincoln from Philadelphia to Washington without passing through Baltimore? They wouldn’t. Pinkerton’s plan was to sneak Lincoln through Baltimore on an overnight train before the announced schedule, passing through the city before anyone knew he had been there.

It was finally time to tell Lincoln about the plot against him. After much wrangling with crowds and handlers, at last they sat down with Lincoln in a hotel room. As Judd and Pinkerton lay down the wild series of events that had led them there, the angry mood in Baltimore, and the mindset of the secessionists he had encountered, Lincoln didn’t say a word. Pinkerton concluded by revealing that if the plans weren’t changed, there would be an attempt on his life in Baltimore.

If they moved right now, Pinkerton said, they could catch the late train to Washington.

After a beat, Lincoln said no. He would fulfill his obligations the next day, and then would go along with whatever they thought best.

Meanwhile, back in Baltimore, Harry Davies had been invited to a meeting of the secret group conspiring against Lincoln. In a complicated ceremony, he was sworn in by Ferrandini, dressed all in black, who laid out the plan: to shoot Lincoln, on Saturday, February 23, shortly after 1:00 p.m., as the president-elect was transferring between Baltimore’s train stations. That left less than three days to act.

George Kane, Baltimore’s Police Marshal, was in on the plan. He would make sure Lincoln didn’t have a proper police escort.

The purpose of the meeting was to determine who among them would actually deliver the fatal shot. They would draw ballots, and whoever drew the red one would have the job. The identity of who had drawn the red ballot would not be revealed until the shot was fired.

The key message here is: As Lincoln’s enemies finalized their plans, Pinkerton, Warne, and Lincoln set out on a desperate overnight flight.

Warne and Pinkerton were in Philadelphia, making last minute arrangements for a secret, desperate journey. Maintaining secrecy wouldn’t be easy. Lincoln was incredibly tall, with a famously distinctive face. The journey would be on public trains, where anyone could see him. They would need to keep him concealed through four major cities, three railroad lines, six train stations, and several carriages.

At 6:00 p.m. on February 22, the plan that would determine the fate of a nation was underway. Lincoln, disguised in a soft felt cap instead of his usual iconic top hat, boarded a private chartered train from Harrisburg to Philadelphia, accompanied only by Judd and one burly bodyguard. Warne and Pinkerton met the party in Philadelphia, where Warne had booked him passage on a public sleeper. Lincoln was listed on the passenger manifest as Warne’s invalid brother.

Lincoln’s carriage pulled up to the Philadelphia station on a darkened side street. Pinkerton and Lincoln walked quickly to the train, entered through the rear door, and came face-to-face with Warne. After settling their ‘invalid brother’ into the sleeper berth, each sank into their seat for an anxious night.

At around 3:30 a.m., they pulled into Baltimore, a city of enemies. Lincoln and his chaperones stayed seated, while station workers detached the engine from the carriage and affixed it to horses which would pull it to the other station in Baltimore. This was the moment of greatest vulnerability. The party would pass within four blocks of Ferrandini’s barber shop.

They made it to the other station, and waited while workers attached the carriage to the train to Washington. It departed at around 4:30 a.m. Ferrandini and his conspirators were too late.

When Lincoln and Pinkerton arrived in Washington, neither had slept for close to 48 hours. But the mission wasn’t over yet. Pinkerton still needed to conceal Lincoln’s identity as they made their way through the Washington station. He failed: a middle-aged man jumped out, grabbing at Lincoln and shouting his name. Pinkerton lunged.

“Don’t strike him! That is my friend,” Lincoln yelled. Pinkerton sheepishly released the man’s lapels. Lincoln chuckled, introducing him to his old friend, a congressman from Illinois.

The three got in a carriage headed for a hotel where Lincoln could get some rest. Pinkerton began to relax too. For the first time in as long as he could remember, Lincoln’s well-being was not his responsibility. The secret plot had been thwarted and the president-elect was safe.

The key message here is: The plot was foiled, but Lincoln only had hardship ahead of him – and everlasting posthumous glory.

As news spread through the capital that Lincoln had been smuggled into Washington to avoid an assassination attempt in Baltimore, it became the talk of the town. The press had a field day: Lincoln was caricatured, and accused of cowardice unbecoming of a president. The furor over Lincoln’s journey, however, would soon be overshadowed by other events.

Thirty-nine days after Lincoln was inaugurated as president, on April 12, the Confederate army opened fire on Fort Sumter, a Union base in South Carolina. These were the first shots fired in the Civil War.

Death would haunt Lincoln throughout his presidency. Ultimately, more Americans died during Lincoln’s presidency than were killed in every other war from the American Revolution to WWII combined. His young son Willie also died while he was in office.

To this day, some aspects of the Baltimore Plot remain shrouded in mystery. None of the conspirators were ever revealed for certain. While many of the alleged plotters were involved in the Knights of the Golden Circle, they probably acted independently of the formal organization.

The Knights of the Golden Circle remained active through the 1860s. Many members enlisted in the Confederate Army. Many notable people found their own ways of spreading its white supremacist, secessionist message, including a young actor named John Wilkes Booth. On April 15, 1865, Booth shot Lincoln in the head at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, killing him.

But even given his untimely death, what Lincoln accomplished during his presidency changed the country forever. Had the Baltimore Plot succeeded, Lincoln would never have issued the Emancipation Proclamation, probably the most radical and far-reaching political document since the Declaration of Independence. In a single stroke, on January 1, 1863, over three million enslaved people in the US were freed.