The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War

As 1861 began, rumors began to circulate about assassination attempts against Lincoln as he traveled from Illinois to Washington for his inauguration. Dorothea Dix—a traveler through the South—alerted Samual Felton—the president of the Baltimore Railroad—that she had overheard plans to attack Lincoln during his journey.

To learn more about any potential plots against Lincoln, Felton hired Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency. Allan Pinkerton and his detectives infiltrated various Southern institutions and militias. For example, Kate Warne—one of Pinkerton’s detectives—pretended to be a secessionist and “gained entrée to the highest levels of Baltimore society” (177). Pinkerton and Felton were especially worried about an assassination attempt in Baltimore, Maryland, since Maryland was a pro-enslavement state and Lincoln would need to change trains in Baltimore on his way to Washington.

With Buchanan and his cabinet now committed to supporting Major Anderson in Fort Sumter, general Winfield Scott sent a commercial steam ship—Star of the West—to pick up 200 US Army troops in New York and transport them to the Charleston Harbor. This plan to support Anderson relied on complete secrecy, which was difficult to maintain since some members of Buchanan’s cabinet might tip off South Carolina that Union reinforcements were on the way.