The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War (53 page)

Dorothy Lamon, perhaps looking to dispel her father’s old rancor, made a small but telling alteration: “It is now an acknowledged fact that there never was a moment from the day he crossed the Maryland line, up to the time of the assassination, that he was not in danger of death by violence.…”

*   *   *

PINKERTON DID NOT LIVE TO READ
these words. He died more than a decade earlier, on July 1, 1884, a few days short of his sixty-fifth birthday. The man who had survived a pistol shot in the back at close range met his death through a bizarre and painful accident. On one of his customary morning walks, he tripped and fell to the ground, biting his tongue severely. He succumbed to infection three weeks later.

The previous year, Pinkerton had at last published his volume of wartime memoirs,
The Spy of the Rebellion,
a final attempt to put forward his version of his service to Lincoln and the Union. “Very often, as I sit in the twilight, my mind reverts back to those stirring scenes of by-gone days,” he wrote, “and I recall with pleasure my own connection with the suppression of the rebellion, and in upholding the flag of our fathers. My task is done. In a few brief pages I have attempted to depict the work of years.”

Pinkerton made no direct reference to his grievance with Lamon, saying only that he had attempted “a truthful narration” of what had occurred on that fateful night in Baltimore. “Exaggerated stories and unauthorized statements have been freely made with regard to this journey of Mr. Lincoln,” he allowed. “The fact remains that Mr. Lincoln, as a gentleman, and in the company of gentlemen, successfully passed through the camp of the conspirators and reached in safety the capital of the county.”

He closed on a note of quiet satisfaction: “I had informed Mr. Lincoln in Philadelphia that I would answer with my life for his safe arrival in Washington, and I had redeemed my pledge.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book would not have been possible without the assistance of the following institutions and their knowledgable research assistants: the Library of Congress, especially the Records of Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency, as well as the Abraham Lincoln Papers and the John G. Nicolay papers; the John Hay Collection at Brown University; the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum; the Baltimore Civil War Museum; the Baltimore B&O Railroad Museum; the Enoch Pratt Free Library of Baltimore; the Ford’s Theatre Historic Site and Museum; the New York Public Library; the New York Historical Society; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Free Library of Philadelphia; the Ward Hill Lamon Papers at the Huntington Library; the Maryland Historical Society; the National Archives; and the Willard Hotel.

In addition, I am grateful to the following individuals for lending their talents, assistance, and unflagging support: Charles Spicer, Andrew Martin, April Osborn, Hector DeJean, Larry Kirshbaum, Susanna Einstein, Steve Rothman, Jon Lellenberg, Harlan Coben, Jeff Abbott, Sonny Wareham, Gary Krist, Louis Bayard, Dennis Drabelle, the Allen Appels (père et fils), Larry Kahaner, Marc Smolonsky, John McKeon, and Professor John Corbett.

And finally, I owe a special debt of gratitude to my friends Marcia Talley, Elizabeth Foxwell, and Margaret Foxwell, who—over coffee one day in 1999—introduced me to Kate Warne.

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