Killing Lincoln (Part II)

Dr. Luke Blackburn

After the war broke out in April, 1861, Pinkerton offered his services to President Lincoln who quickly accepted, “Your services are, I think, greatly needed by the government at this time.”  Pinkerton met with the president and his cabinet proposing the creation of a secret service department.  His idea was approved and he was soon selecting many of his best operatives for the new service, which was established in the Department of Ohio under the command of Major General George B. McClellan.  Pinkerton and his group moved to Washington D.C. after McClellan was given command of the Army of the Potomac a short time later.  While Pinkerton was on the job, no further attempts on Lincoln were attempted, however, he left Washington in 1862; disgusted that his friend McClellan had been removed from command of the army.

Dr. Luke Blackburn

Attempts on Lincoln’s life began anew in 1863.   In the summer of that year, as the Confederate military situation became desperate, Dr. Luke Blackburn allegedly devised a scheme to assassinate Lincoln by infecting him with yellow fever[i].  Blackburn’s scheme involved him traveling to Bermuda[ii] (supposedly to help treat victims of a yellow fever epidemic) where he gathered clothing from yellow fever victims, bringing five trunks full to Canada[iii].  In Canada, Confederate agents sought to employ Godfrey Joseph Hyams in distributing the trunks in Washington, Norfolk, Va., and New Bern N.C., and to plant a small valise containing infected dress shirts at the White House[iv].  They offered Hyams $100,000 ($60,000 to be given immediately upon delivery of the soiled clothing) for carrying out the mission, which he promptly accepted.  Hyams, an unemployed native of England and Southern sympathizer, managed to deliver the clothing to the cities, but refused to send the valise to Lincoln[v].  The operation was unsuccessful and its secrecy dissolved at the end of the war[vi].

President Lincoln spent much of the war residing at a cottage near the Soldier’s Home located in the hills overlooking Washington.  He enjoyed the secluded nature of the area and its proximity to wounded veterans whom he loved to converse with.  It was his nature to ride alone from the city to Soldier’s Home whenever he visited.  In August 1864, an unknown assassin took a shot at the president as he approached the grounds late in the evening.  The shot barely missed hitting Lincoln’s head, instead passing through his top hat.[vii]  While unsettled, the president later played the whole episode off claiming, “This whole thing seems farcical…”[viii]  Lincoln’s cabinet found the episode far from “farcical” and ensured Lincoln rode to the Soldier’s Home in a carriage surrounded by a troop of cavalry for the rest of the war.

“This whole thing seems farcical…”

The next unsuccessful attempt to kill Lincoln came in April 1865, in the form of plot to blow up the White House during a cabinet meeting.  The idea came about as a result of several failed Confederate government efforts to kidnap the president and the infamous Dahlgren Raid[ix].  Confederate explosive expert, Sergeant Thomas F. Harney, was dispatched from the Torpedo Bureau in Richmond to implement the bombing.  If successful, the plot would have decapitated the Federal government causing severe dislocation during the closing months of the war.  Fortunately for Lincoln and his advisors, Harney was captured by an Illinois cavalry patrol 15 miles from Washington ending the threat.

 

John Wilkes Booth

Tragically Lincoln could not avoid the final attempt on his life.  On April 14, 1865, after the war reached its conclusion, John Wilkes Booth (a Confederate agent) and small group of co-conspirators managed to assassinate Lincoln while he attended Ford’s Theater.  Perhaps even this effort would have come to naught had John Parker, the policeman assigned to guard the president, not left his post for a drink next door[x].

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[i] Dr. Luke Blackburn was a Southern agent from Kentucky.  Dr. Blackburn “specialized” in the treatment of yellow fever and had treated patients in previous yellow fever epidemics in Mississippi and Louisiana.  Later in the war, he was also involved in a unsuccessful plot to poison New York City’s water supply with arsenic.

[ii] Before leaving for Bermuda, Blackburn told associates that he had, “an infallible plan directed against the masses of Northern people solely to create death.”

[iii] Canada served as a major center for Confederate espionage as it allowed easy access for Confederate agents moving across the border into the North to conduct their clandestine operations.

[iv] The fine shirts were to be sent to the White House as a gift for the President Lincoln with a tag that said “To President Lincoln, from an anonymous admirer.”  The other clothes were sent to resale shops in the hopes that unsuspecting citizens and soldiers would purchase the clothing, become infected with the disease resulting in a pandemic that would cripple the Northern war effort.

[v] Any plot of this nature was destined to fail, however. In 1900, Walter Reed discovered that yellow fever is spread by mosquitoes, not by contact.

[vi] Hyams later reversed his allegiances and decided to approach the U.S. consul in Toronto (there is one source that said he actually approached U.S. officials in Detroit in exchange for immunity) claiming he had information about a plot by Blackburn to infect Northern cities with yellow fever (this occurred on April 12, 1865).  The reason for this turn of events resulted from Hyams not receiving the money promised him for his part of the operation. While there is some conjecture that Hyams was a double-agent -this seems to be highly unlikely.   Blackburn was later arrested by Canadian authorities for violation of Canada’s neutrality during the Civil War.  He was later acquitted and after a number of years in exile returned to the United States, eventually getting himself elected governor of Kentucky.  He later claimed the allegations against him were “too preposterous for intelligent gentlemen to believe.”  However, the evidence is overwhelming that Blackburn was the mastermind behind the plot.

[vii] While the identity of the shooter has never been discovered, there are some historians who believe it may have been John Wilkes Booth, who had a reputation as a crack shot.

[viii] Lincoln told the story of the attempt the day after – “Last night about eleven o’clock, I went to the Soldier’s Home, riding Old Abe, as you call him, and when I arrived at the foot of the hill on the road leading to the entrance of the Home grounds, I was jogging along at a slow gait, immersed deep in thought, contemplating what was next to happen in the unsettled state of affairs, when suddenly I was aroused – I may say the arousement lifted me out of my saddle as well as my wits – by the report of a rifle, and seemingly the gunner was not fifty yards from where my contemplations ended an my accelerated transit began…At break-neck speed we soon arrived in a haven of safety.  Meanwhile I was left in doubt whether death was more desirable from being thrown from a runaway federal horse, or as a tragic result of a rifle-ball by a disloyal bushwacker in the middle of the night.”

[ix] The Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid was an attempt to rescue Union prisoners held at Libby Prison just outside of Richmond.  Unfortunately for Union officials, the attempt was a disaster and Dahlgren was killed in an ambush.  When his body was examined by Confederate officers they found papers which ordered Dahlgren to kill Jefferson Davis and his cabinet as part of the raid.  As a result, the Confederate government began planning a retaliatory operation against Lincoln.

[x] Mystery surrounds why Parker, a notoriously unfit police officer with a drinking problem, was assigned the duty that evening.