As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
Few people are aware beyond the Ken Burns Civil War propaganda, that Abraham Lincoln was almost assassinated before becoming President. In 1861, in February, Mr. Lincoln and his entourage left Illinois and embarked on a train tour east. Coming out of New York, and moving into Pennsylvania, some of Lincoln's intimates approached him with the Pinkerton Detective, who had been in Baltimore Maryland and had uncovered a well organized plot, backed by the chief of police, which followeda simple format, in they would start a fight, a riot would start and as the police were distracted, the two main assassins would attack Lincoln with knives.
Lincoln listened to the story, and informed Pinkerton that he had a flag raising the next morning and the matter could be decided upon then, ans Pinkerton wanted Lincoln to take a night train, and not even stop in Baltimore and go on through to Washington City.
The issue did not end there, because soon enough the soon cabinet officer, Seward, had dispatched his son to warn Lincoln that General Scott's officers had uncovered the same plot.
Lincoln listened, but told the young Seward, maybe it was the same story coming from the same men, and he had heard of such things before leaving Illinois, and had dismissed them as he thought he would come to no harm.
He did say though, he would think about it all night, and if no reception committee appeared in Harrisburg or Philadelphia from Maryland, then he would think it over again.
To add to this, Chief of Police of New York, Officer Kennedy, had heard rumors and dispatched his own detectives to Baltimore to sort things out. They arrived at he same conclusion that Mr. Lincoln would be assassinated in Baltimore.
Lincoln was eventually persuaded as the day wore on and into the night to take the night train to Baltimore and leave his train on the normal time route. Lincoln did not want to skulk into the capital, but he thought it was prudent in light of the unrest in the country.
So in the dark, dawning his old overcoat and a soft felt hat that had come in a box in which a new beaver hat had come, he boarded a carriage, was off to a special car bound for Harrisburg and there met up with the main train out of New York, to which he boarded.
A woman had obtained a passage for "her sick brother" in the back of the train. Unknown to Officer Kennedy who was on the train too,, going to Baltimore, Abraham Lincoln was sleeping on the top berth above him.
The train pulled into a quiet Baltimore in the dark. It was delayed an hour and a half as a connecting train was late. Lincoln passeed the time sleepily with Pinkerton and by 6 AM he arrived in Washington City who was recognized by one of Lincoln's Congressional supporters, who almost got clocked by Pinkerton.
Lincoln castigated his supporters later for convincing him he was in harm's way. It got worse as a nasty reporter from the New York Times filed a story which had Lincoln dressed in a Scottish plaid hat and a military overcoat. It went from there to he was dressed as a woman in his wife's pantiloons.
In reality, Mr. Lincoln did leave his wife on the presidential train with his entourage, and they pulled into Baltimore at the appointed time the next day. There was a crowd of 10,000. They had mistaken an earlier train for Lincoln's and swarmed it "like monkeys from the zoo" in covering even the top like lice.
They were not in good humor. The Governor and Mayor could not control the people or the state. When the Lincoln train pulled in, it was greeted with 3 cheers for Jeff Davis. 3 cheers or the Confederacy and 3 groans for Mr. Lincoln.
Some Republican idiot had arranged for Lincoln to be escorted through the town by 100 Negroes, which would have been gasoline on the fire.
While Lincoln was upset with his change of train, the reality is, he would have been murdered as a riot would have ensued and the assassins would have been goaded on, if not someone else in the frenzy. we have no idea as history was not rectified until John Wilkes Booth in that European Confederate plot to murder Abraham Lincoln was completed. America would have had Hannibal Hamlin of Maine as President as he was Vice President. Who knows if the Union would have been saved, or if the war would have even been fought.
This is a part of history which is not known, as this assassination season has appeared again in this election cycle. Congressman Seward had deemed assassination in America as unseemly and not a part of America as America elected her officials. From that point on though, assassination by conspirators and foreigners became the unseemly mark of what thee American mob ventured into.
Nuff Said
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