|
'Nuts' Arrives in Washington - 23 Feb 1861
President-elect Lincoln had been traveling to his scheduled inauguration by a long circuitous railroad journey from Springfield. A million or so Americans had glimpsed a top hat parting a sea of humanity, or seen a bearded man wave from the back of a speeding train, or waved to him on a balcony in a downtown hotel, and felt a connection to their government.But on this day, he had to reverse his open-air approach, and indulge in a most un-Lincolnesque deception. He canceled his planned appearances, and allowed himself to be whisked unceremoniously into Washington on a series of secret trains and carriages. He agreed to this plan only after revelations from different sources confirmed that the threat of assassination at Baltimore was real. The indignity of this final day undid some of the good work he had done, but it was necessary. As deeply as he believed in democratic institutions, he needed to survive this trip in order to save them. Lincoln had been receiving death threats since he won the election in 1860, but the threats received in Baltimore seemed too ominous to ignore. His trip from Baltimore to DC was covert and unscheduled. Private detective Allan Pinkerton supervised Lincoln's security detail. Pinkerton's coded nickname was 'Plums' and Lincoln's was 'Nuts'. After arrival in DC, Pinkerton sent a message back to his superiors: Plums arrived here with Nuts this morning all right. Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-02-27 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=317037 |