The Hour of peril

In February 1861 just days before he assumed the presidency, Abraham Lincoln faced a "clear and fully matured" threat of assassination as he traveled by train to Washington D.C. for his inauguration. Over a period of thirteen days, detective Allan Pinkerton had worked feverishly to detect and thwart the plot, assisted by a widow named Kate Warne, America's first female private eye. As Lincoln's train rolled on, Pinkerton struggled to keep up with the ever-changing details of the murder plot, even as he dealt with Lincoln and his advisors who refused to believe the danger was real. Pinkerton took a desperate gamble to save Lincoln that was shrouded in secrecy, and later mired in controversy. The story of the Baltimore Plot is one of the great untold stories of the Civil War era.