It Happened Here -- A Man in the Shadows
By the end of November 1860 the votes had been counted, and the issue decided. Abraham Lincoln, a lawyer from Illinois would be the nation's next President. But in the South this news was greeted with outrage, anguish and alarm. The South's worst fears were realized. A "black Republican" -- a man on record for opposing the spread of slavery into the territories and widely suspected of being a closet abolitionist would be their next President unless the southern states did something about it. In several of these states that something was secession. States across the South held conventions to debate secession and as the inauguration drew near, several states, beginning with South Carolina voted to secede from the Union. In Maryland, the southern state that surrounded Washington on three sides that something would be obstruction, and probably -- murder.
Despite the unsubstantiated rumors of groups forming to prevent the President from being inaugurated, Republican party leaders organizing Lincoln's trip from his home in Springfield Illinois to the Capitol paid scant attention to the President-elect's personal security. The trip was designed to be something of victory processional with multiple opportunities for party faithful as well as the general public to meet and greet their new President along a route that led from Illinois, across Indiana and Ohio, across the breadth of New York State, to Albany, down to New York City, to Philadelphia, thence to Harrisburg, into Wilmington, Delaware, then Baltimore and finally Washington. Metropolitan police along the route were contacted to provide security and crowd control through cities in which Lincoln's entourage would stop. Their effectiveness varied. In Buffalo a joyous mob overcame the police, pressed in upon the President's party, nearly crushing the President and dislocating the shoulder of one of his aides. At Albany masses of police and the State's 25th Regiment prevented a similar incident. And in Baltimore the police marshal, George P. Kane (an ardent secessionist) declared the police would not be providing an escort for the President-elect, lamely maintaining that one would not be needed.
Throughout the trip, no body guard accompanied the President-elect, though several of the military men in the entourage, at the last minute, decided to arm themselves, offering a revolver to Lincoln, who declined it.
The first efforts to ferret out information about possible plots came not from the government, or from Lincoln's party at all, but from a railroad executive. Samuel Morse Felton of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad had begun hearing rumors of plots by secessionists to destroy rail lines into Washington in a bid to take over the Capital. He contacted Allan Pinkerton of Chicago, whose detective agency had previously done work for the railroads helping them catch thieves and embezzlers. Pinkerton immediately dispatched several operatives to Baltimore, setting himself up, posing as a southern securities broker in the city, while his men tried to get close to a group of plotters who called themselves the "National Volunteers".
About the same time a small group of young Republicans in Washington concerned about the rumors of plots swirling around the city organized themselves into an informal "committee of safety". One of them, Lucius Chittenden was secretly contacted by a group of Baltimore Republicans. They revealed to him details they had discovered of a plot to surround Lincoln's train car and kill him when it was in the process of being switched from one rail line to another in Baltimore. (Thru lines and central rail stations were not common at this time. Several times in his trip Lincoln had had to change trains, taking a carriage from one line's station to board another line's train in another part of town. In Baltimore a track connected the PW&B line to the railroad servicing Washington, but because of the fire hazard the wood burning engines posed to the downtown area, cars switching lines had to be pulled through the downtown area by teams of horses. It was here the plotters were planning to strike.)
A third group of investigators were set in motion by General Winfield Scott, who had been ordered to Washington from New York to oversee the security of the capital city. Scott asked New York Police Superintendent John A. Kennedy if he would send a couple detectives to Baltimore to see what they could find out about the troubling rumors emanating from there. A pair of New York city detectives,
Tom Sampson and Eli DeVoe were assigned and attempted to infiltrate a group hostile to Lincoln, using the aliases Thompson and Davis. Posing as two outgoing, outspoken southern businessmen from Augusta, Georgia and Mobile, Alabama(1) they worked to ingratiate themselves with Baltimore secessionists getting themselves accepted into a paramilitary group calling itself the "Southern Volunteers". As new members of the group they listening to fiery secessionist speeches, drilled with the organization and even took oaths to kill Lincoln, if the opportunity should present itself.
It was while they were first hanging around attempting to identify radical secessionist that they were spotted by Timothy Webster, one of Pinkerton's operatives. He recognized Tom Sampson from when he worked as a New York detective. Never fully accepted into the group, their "cover" was compromised when DeVoe's wife sent him a letter postmarked from New York. Though they were able to explain away the New York postmark they came under constant surveillance and began to fear for their lives. Abruptly they left their hotel, abandoning their bags and catching a train for Washington.
In Washington they checked into the famous Willard Hotel(3). Foolishly, perhaps from habit, they registered under the aliases they had used in Baltimore. After they settled into their room Sampson returned to the lobby only to be surprised by the sight of two men he recognized from the "Southern Volunteers" perusing the hotel registry. About the same time a third man sidled up to Sampson, whispering hoarsely to him "For God's sake, Tom, come out of this." They slipped outside by a side door and Sampson recognized the man as Timothy Webster. Webster explained he had been sent by a "most desperate Secession party" with twenty other men to kill DeVoe and Sampson on sight. He counseled him to leave immediately, taking a train at a station fifteen miles out of Washington, because the Washington train stations were all being watched.(4) Reaching the outlying station Samson and DeVoe boarded a train to Baltimore, only to discover to their horror three men they recognized from the "Volunteers" were sitting in the front of the car. They were joined by three more, and while the train sped along one of the men grinned at the others, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder at DeVoe and Thompson. They had clearly been spotted. With few options open to them the two detectives chose a desperate move. They casually walked to the rear of the car then jumped from the moving train. Both survived with many cuts and bruises. DeVoe sprained his ankle, badly. Hailing a horse drawn street car, then a hack they caught a train heading north. Once safely north of the Mason/Dixon line they made their report.
It is not certain if DeVoe and Sampson's report figured into Lincoln's decision to change his travel plans. When Samuel Felton received Pinkerton's information he immediately dispatched the Chicago detective to warn the President-elect. General Scott also acted on information from several sources-- Chittenden's, the report of another New York detective David Bookstaver, who was working undercover as a music agent to Washington and Baltimore society and perhaps Thompson and DeVoe's. Scott sent an urgent warning to the President using Frederick Seward, William H. Seward's son as a courier. When Lincoln got these dispatches, following Pinkerton's information, he determined these threats were probably real and directed his staff to devise an alternate plan.
The following day Lincoln returned to Philadelphia, was placed on an overnight coach to Washington and whisked through Baltimore to the Federal City, a full day before the conspirators expected him.
Did Thompson and DeVoe's efforts help frustrate a plot to kill Lincoln? Perhaps. At any rate, their discovery and the plotters efforts to kill them did provide an important distraction for the conspirators and allowed Pinkerton's men to get closer to the plotters, allowing them to get the information to present to President.
After the "Baltimore Plot" the name Eli DeVoe disappears from the historical record, except for one other incident. Following the second attempt on Lincoln's life, this one successful, DeVoe is named as one of the detectives involved in the arrest in 1865 of Mary Surrat, the boarding house owner convicted in John Wilkes Booth plot. Allan Pinkerton went on to create the Intelligence Service for the Army of the Potomac, soon to be known as the Union Intelligence Service. Did DeVoe join this agency? Did he continue on as a New York City detective? It certainly appears Police Superintendendent Kennedy had no compunctions about sending agents wherever he thought they were needed. In 1874 DeVoe died and was buried in Summit, New Jersey. For most of his life Eli DeVoe remained "a man in the shadows".
1DeVoe had lived in Mobile for several years.
2DeVoe was actually a member of the N.Y. Metropolitan Police. The U.S. Secret Service was not formed until July1865 and for many years dealt only with counterfeiting investigations. It was not until after McKinley's assassination in 1901 that Congress gave it the task of protecting the President.
3The Willard was the premier hotel in Washington (and also one of the few decent places to stay.)
Unbeknownst to the conspirators, Lincoln would stay there as well, until after the inauguration when he could move into the White House.
4Perhaps the conspirators decided to wait until DeVoe and Sampson left Baltimore for Washington because they would be more anonymous there, and less likely to be recognized by anyone.
Despite the unsubstantiated rumors of groups forming to prevent the President from being inaugurated, Republican party leaders organizing Lincoln's trip from his home in Springfield Illinois to the Capitol paid scant attention to the President-elect's personal security. The trip was designed to be something of victory processional with multiple opportunities for party faithful as well as the general public to meet and greet their new President along a route that led from Illinois, across Indiana and Ohio, across the breadth of New York State, to Albany, down to New York City, to Philadelphia, thence to Harrisburg, into Wilmington, Delaware, then Baltimore and finally Washington. Metropolitan police along the route were contacted to provide security and crowd control through cities in which Lincoln's entourage would stop. Their effectiveness varied. In Buffalo a joyous mob overcame the police, pressed in upon the President's party, nearly crushing the President and dislocating the shoulder of one of his aides. At Albany masses of police and the State's 25th Regiment prevented a similar incident. And in Baltimore the police marshal, George P. Kane (an ardent secessionist) declared the police would not be providing an escort for the President-elect, lamely maintaining that one would not be needed.
Lincoln in Albany
President-elect Abraham Lincoln was greeted
by a large, boisterous crowd
on
February 18, 1861, as he stopped in Albany
on his way to his
inauguration in
Washington, D.C.
--tablet/fiberglass marker on the east lawn of the
State Capitol (apparently removed for the winter)
Throughout the trip, no body guard accompanied the President-elect, though several of the military men in the entourage, at the last minute, decided to arm themselves, offering a revolver to Lincoln, who declined it.
The first efforts to ferret out information about possible plots came not from the government, or from Lincoln's party at all, but from a railroad executive. Samuel Morse Felton of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad had begun hearing rumors of plots by secessionists to destroy rail lines into Washington in a bid to take over the Capital. He contacted Allan Pinkerton of Chicago, whose detective agency had previously done work for the railroads helping them catch thieves and embezzlers. Pinkerton immediately dispatched several operatives to Baltimore, setting himself up, posing as a southern securities broker in the city, while his men tried to get close to a group of plotters who called themselves the "National Volunteers".
About the same time a small group of young Republicans in Washington concerned about the rumors of plots swirling around the city organized themselves into an informal "committee of safety". One of them, Lucius Chittenden was secretly contacted by a group of Baltimore Republicans. They revealed to him details they had discovered of a plot to surround Lincoln's train car and kill him when it was in the process of being switched from one rail line to another in Baltimore. (Thru lines and central rail stations were not common at this time. Several times in his trip Lincoln had had to change trains, taking a carriage from one line's station to board another line's train in another part of town. In Baltimore a track connected the PW&B line to the railroad servicing Washington, but because of the fire hazard the wood burning engines posed to the downtown area, cars switching lines had to be pulled through the downtown area by teams of horses. It was here the plotters were planning to strike.)
A third group of investigators were set in motion by General Winfield Scott, who had been ordered to Washington from New York to oversee the security of the capital city. Scott asked New York Police Superintendent John A. Kennedy if he would send a couple detectives to Baltimore to see what they could find out about the troubling rumors emanating from there. A pair of New York city detectives,
 |
| Cortland Co. Rte. 41, Homer, New York(2) |
It was while they were first hanging around attempting to identify radical secessionist that they were spotted by Timothy Webster, one of Pinkerton's operatives. He recognized Tom Sampson from when he worked as a New York detective. Never fully accepted into the group, their "cover" was compromised when DeVoe's wife sent him a letter postmarked from New York. Though they were able to explain away the New York postmark they came under constant surveillance and began to fear for their lives. Abruptly they left their hotel, abandoning their bags and catching a train for Washington.
In Washington they checked into the famous Willard Hotel(3). Foolishly, perhaps from habit, they registered under the aliases they had used in Baltimore. After they settled into their room Sampson returned to the lobby only to be surprised by the sight of two men he recognized from the "Southern Volunteers" perusing the hotel registry. About the same time a third man sidled up to Sampson, whispering hoarsely to him "For God's sake, Tom, come out of this." They slipped outside by a side door and Sampson recognized the man as Timothy Webster. Webster explained he had been sent by a "most desperate Secession party" with twenty other men to kill DeVoe and Sampson on sight. He counseled him to leave immediately, taking a train at a station fifteen miles out of Washington, because the Washington train stations were all being watched.(4) Reaching the outlying station Samson and DeVoe boarded a train to Baltimore, only to discover to their horror three men they recognized from the "Volunteers" were sitting in the front of the car. They were joined by three more, and while the train sped along one of the men grinned at the others, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder at DeVoe and Thompson. They had clearly been spotted. With few options open to them the two detectives chose a desperate move. They casually walked to the rear of the car then jumped from the moving train. Both survived with many cuts and bruises. DeVoe sprained his ankle, badly. Hailing a horse drawn street car, then a hack they caught a train heading north. Once safely north of the Mason/Dixon line they made their report.
It is not certain if DeVoe and Sampson's report figured into Lincoln's decision to change his travel plans. When Samuel Felton received Pinkerton's information he immediately dispatched the Chicago detective to warn the President-elect. General Scott also acted on information from several sources-- Chittenden's, the report of another New York detective David Bookstaver, who was working undercover as a music agent to Washington and Baltimore society and perhaps Thompson and DeVoe's. Scott sent an urgent warning to the President using Frederick Seward, William H. Seward's son as a courier. When Lincoln got these dispatches, following Pinkerton's information, he determined these threats were probably real and directed his staff to devise an alternate plan.
The following day Lincoln returned to Philadelphia, was placed on an overnight coach to Washington and whisked through Baltimore to the Federal City, a full day before the conspirators expected him.
Did Thompson and DeVoe's efforts help frustrate a plot to kill Lincoln? Perhaps. At any rate, their discovery and the plotters efforts to kill them did provide an important distraction for the conspirators and allowed Pinkerton's men to get closer to the plotters, allowing them to get the information to present to President.
After the "Baltimore Plot" the name Eli DeVoe disappears from the historical record, except for one other incident. Following the second attempt on Lincoln's life, this one successful, DeVoe is named as one of the detectives involved in the arrest in 1865 of Mary Surrat, the boarding house owner convicted in John Wilkes Booth plot. Allan Pinkerton went on to create the Intelligence Service for the Army of the Potomac, soon to be known as the Union Intelligence Service. Did DeVoe join this agency? Did he continue on as a New York City detective? It certainly appears Police Superintendendent Kennedy had no compunctions about sending agents wherever he thought they were needed. In 1874 DeVoe died and was buried in Summit, New Jersey. For most of his life Eli DeVoe remained "a man in the shadows".
1DeVoe had lived in Mobile for several years.
2DeVoe was actually a member of the N.Y. Metropolitan Police. The U.S. Secret Service was not formed until July1865 and for many years dealt only with counterfeiting investigations. It was not until after McKinley's assassination in 1901 that Congress gave it the task of protecting the President.
3The Willard was the premier hotel in Washington (and also one of the few decent places to stay.)
Unbeknownst to the conspirators, Lincoln would stay there as well, until after the inauguration when he could move into the White House.
4Perhaps the conspirators decided to wait until DeVoe and Sampson left Baltimore for Washington because they would be more anonymous there, and less likely to be recognized by anyone.
No comments:
Post a Comment