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

On February 13, 1861, Congress certified the electoral count that declared Lincoln the winner of the Presidential Election of 1860. General Scott’s forces stationed in Washington helped ensure that the count went forward peaceably, despite a large crowd of “irate Southerners” (240) who arrived at the Capitol Building to protest the vote. Some of those protesters managed to bypass security and observe the electoral count. They let out shouts of protest upon the announcement of Lincoln’s victory.

Around this time, Allan Pinkerton—the detective whose agents were seeking out possible Southern threats to Lincoln and Washington—determined that there was a high likelihood of an assassination attempt on Lincoln during his journey though Baltimore, Maryland. It is unclear to what extent this threat was real and how much of it was part of Pinkerton’s attempt to raise his profile and that of his detective agency. Whatever the case, Pinkerton dispatched Kate Warne—his lead female detective—to meet Lincoln’s team and warn them of the danger.

Lincoln’s friend Orville Browning, who saw an early draft of the inaugural address, suggested that Lincoln soften its language somewhat. Browning told Lincoln that it was important for the seceding states to appear as the aggressors in any upcoming conflict. Lincoln agreed with Browning’s suggestions.

Lincoln’s train passed through Albany, New York, where a famous actor—John Wilkes Booth—was performing in a tragedy. The poet Walt Whitman observed Lincoln’s arrival in New York City, where he described Lincoln as “seamed and wrinkled yet canny-looking” (245). Lincoln also met with “the famed showman” (246) P. T. Barnum. Some members of Lincoln’s family visited Barnum’s museum of oddities.

The detective Kate Warne delivered the warning to a member of Lincoln’s team, but he kept the information to himself, perhaps suspecting it was a false threat.

Worried about the dangers to Lincoln during his journey, General Scott launched his own investigation into possible plots. This investigation was totally separate from Pinkerton’s but uncovered similar rumors revolving around the threat to Lincoln during his train transfer in Baltimore.

Believing the threat credible, William Seward—soon to be Lincoln’s Secretary of State—dispatched his son Frederick to meet Lincoln in Philadelphia to urge him to amend his journey through Baltimore to avoid the danger. Before Frederick delivered his message, Lincoln met with Pinkerton in Philadelphia. Lincoln was skeptical of Pinkerton’s warnings about the threat to his life. However, Frederick’s separate warning about a Baltimore threat gave Lincoln pause.

On February 22, Lincoln gave a speech at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall—the signing place of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Symbolically, Lincoln raised an American flag bearing a star for each member of the United States, including the seceded states. His speech echoed the theme of the Declaration of Independence that “all should have an equal chance” (255), which many took to mean that Lincoln eventually intended to emancipate the enslaved people of the South.

Lincoln consented to alter his travel schedule to avoid any potential danger when passing through Baltimore. Under the new plan, he would depart Pennsylvania in secret and pass through Baltimore in the middle of the night on his way to Washington.

At Fort Sumter, the garrison anticipated an attack any day. South Carolina had now built enough fortifications to prevent Union ships from entering the Charleston Harbor to support Major Anderson and his men. The garrison suspected that they were meant as a sacrifice to turn public sentiment against the Confederacy.

On February 22, the garrison fired 34 shots from the cannons in commemoration of George Washington’s birthday. Diarist Mary Chesnut seethed, since she knew the 34 shots stood for each member of the United States, in rejection of the Confederacy.

A sudden violent attack in Washington on the night of February 22 seemed to confirm the aura of fear and danger that permeated the city in the run-up to the inauguration. Three men attacked Republican Congressman Charles Van Wyck—a vocal opponent of enslavement—with knives at 11:30 pm. Miraculously, Van Wyck fought back, shooting one of his attackers and knocking out another with one punch. The third knocked Van Wyck unconscious, but then fled the scene. Van Wyck survived. The motive for the assault was never discovered, but the rhetoric at the time in Congress over enslavement and secession was filled with war-like and violent language.

On the night of February 22, Lincoln undertook his secret journey to Washington. He wore a disguise, including a different hat than his signature stove-top, and walked with an exaggerated stoop. He and his small entourage of guards, including detectives Pinkerton and Kate Warne, arrived in Baltimore at 3:30 am as planned. Their next train departed Baltimore for Washington 45 minutes later without incident.

Lincoln’s arrival in Washington was hardly the ceremonious event an incoming President might expect, since it was in the middle of the night, with the President-elect in disguise. By this point Lincoln had travelled 2,000 miles by train and given over a hundred speeches along the way without anything bad occurring.

William Seward was supposed to meet Lincoln upon arrival but overslept. Seward was a powerful ally to Lincoln as Secretary of State during his presidency, though he begrudged that he had to take a subservient position to Lincoln, thinking that he should be in charge instead.

The day Lincoln arrived in Washington, Texas seceded from the Union, bringing the Confederacy to seven members. The US Army commander in Texas surrendered all federal outposts in the state to the Confederacy and soon after joined the Confederacy as a brigadier general.

Lincoln’s stealthy entry to Washington proved a source of mockery among Northern newspapers and of sneering among Southern ones. Just when the incoming President wanted to appear strong, instead he appeared “cowardly” and “like a thief in the night” (269). Confederate President Jefferson Davis’s entry to Montgomery was quite the opposite. Davis entered his capitol openly, firing up the Confederacy with a sense of confidence.

It is unclear if a plot to assassinate Lincoln in Baltimore existed at all. No concrete details ever emerged of a specific plan, and Pinkerton was known to at times raise his own profile at the expense of the truth.

The day he arrived in Washington, Lincoln summoned the members of the Peace Convention to meet with him. Lincoln was kind and gracious with the many convention delegates.

A few days afterwards, the Peace Convention submitted a proposed amendment to the US Constitution. The amendment dealt entirely with enslavement, including a clause that would prevent Congress from ever abolishing enslavement where it already existed. The contents of the proposed amendment—along with all the debates at the Peace Convention—made clear that enslavement was the reason for the conflict between North and South. This fact “was obvious to all at the time” (274), though there was a school of 20th-century scholars who inaccurately tried to frame the conflict around states’ rights and not enslavement.

The proposed amendment failed immediately in the US Senate, but a similar amendment that included the language barring Congress from abolishing enslavement where it already existed passed both the House and the Senate. The amendment then went to the states for ratification, though only a few did so before the outbreak of war made it irrelevant. Theoretically, that amendment is still open to this day.

Mary Chesnut and her husband James traveled to Montgomery, Alabama, where James was a delegate helping form the Confederacy’s new constitution. Mary visited with prominent members of the Southern elite, including the handsome John Manning, the ex-governor of South Carolina. Mary pretended to like Montgomery—a small city of only 8,000 inhabitants, half of whom were enslaved—but really didn’t care for it.

Varina, Jefferson Davis’s wife, was also headed to Montgomery. She and Davis had a fraught marriage. Davis was far older than his wife and she often “found herself powerless to shape her marital destiny” (279). Despite his position as President of the Confederacy, Davis did not want civil war, and criticized his colleagues who talked of fighting against the Union.

In late February 1861, Lincoln gave a draft of his inauguration speech to William Seward to review. Seward, who thought highly of his understanding of the secession crisis, suggested many changes. Following Seward’s advice, Lincoln somewhat softened the speech’s language about safeguarding and retaking federal forts.

Lincoln also took Seward’s advice to end the speech on a more reverent and less combative note. As delivered, the speech ended with a hope of reconciliation with the South.

At Fort Sumter, Major Anderson asked his men to make estimates of what kind of relieving force the Union would need to send to reinforce their position. Based on their estimates, it would take a force larger than the entire size of the United States Army as it currently existed to come to Fort Sumter’s aid. Anderson sent these estimates to Washington in the hope that they would dissuade the government from trying to send reinforcements into a hopeless situation.

On March 2, two days before the inauguration, William Seward suddenly withdrew his acceptance of the post of Secretary of State. Seward wasn’t sure what Lincoln thought of him and still considered himself to be the better leader than Lincoln would be. Lincoln didn’t respond immediately, though he did very much want Seward to remain his Secretary of State.

Confederate leader Jefferson Davis appointed P. G. T. Beauregard in command of the Confederacy’s Charleston forces.

Edmund Ruffin became increasingly frustrated that his home state of Virginia hadn’t seceded. He left the state in disgust and returned to Charleston, where the South Carolina militia and enslaved people worked busily to continue building out gun batteries and other fortifications around the harbor.

The English newspaper the Times of London sent a veteran reporter—Sir William Howard Russell—to America to report on the secession crisis. During his two-week sea voyage to America, Russell spent time with Southern planters who embraced enslavement and hated the Union. He came to conclude that the current crisis came down to the fate of two federal properties, one of which was Fort Sumter in South Carolina.