Baltimore Civil War Museum at President Street Station
Introduction
Text-to-speech Audio
Images
President Street Station
"Flight of Abraham" Harper's Weekly: March 9, 1861
"Passage Through Baltimore" by Adalbert J. Volck, 1863
Allan Pinkerton in Harper's Weekly, 1884
Backstory and Context
Text-to-speech Audio
In 1861, the newly elected President Abraham Lincoln traveled through Baltimore in secret at night due to an alleged conspiracy to assassinate the new president on the way to his inauguration in Washington, DC. This conspiracy became known as the Baltimore Plot. Tensions were high in the nation due to the South’s threats of secession following Lincoln’s election. The public was incredibly harsh of the precautions taken by the president. The Baltimore Sun wrote, “Had we any respect for Mr. Lincoln, official or personal, as a man, or as a president-elect of the United States . . . the final escaped by which he reached the capital would’ve utterly demolished it.” Political cartoons of the time depicted Lincoln as ridiculous, sneaking through Baltimore in flamboyant disguises, such as a kilt. However, although scholars are unsure whether or not a real threat existed, these cautionary measures by Lincoln and his staffs were likely practically prudent given the state of a nation on the brink of civil war.
Allan Pinkerton, founder of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, was commissioned to provide security for the president. Maryland was a slave state and on the border between the North and the South and thus considered especially contentious and possibly disloyal to the Union. People included in some way with the alleged plot include Kate Warne, one of Pinkerton’s agents credited with collecting the information that convinced Pinkerton there was a plot to assassinate the president, and Cipriano Ferrandini, who was accused, but never indicted, for plotting to assassinate Lincoln.
Sources
Stashower, Daniel. "The Unsuccessful Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln." Smithsonian Magazine. February 2013. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-unsuccessful-plot-to-kill-abraham-lincoln-2013956.