The Hour of Peril
Abraham Lincoln’s train journey from Illinois to Washington becomes a dangerous rush towards safety in Daniel Stashower’s meticulous account of the Baltimore Plot to assassinate him before his inauguration. Allan Pinkerton, a Scottish immigrant and cooper-turned-detective, is the man at the heart of Stashower’s work. Employed by the railroad to advise them on the safe transportation of Lincoln to the capital in February 1861, Pinkerton quickly discovers that Baltimore is a hotbed of secessionist activists determined to see that Lincoln does not live to take office. Stashower’s book fully brings to life the character of Lincoln and the factions around him. At the same time, Pinkerton and his operatives infiltrate private homes and barrooms where the discontented rumblings are becoming a real threat. A barber in the Baltimore Barnum Hotel emerges as the mastermind behind a plot to assassinate Lincoln. As Lincoln nears Baltimore, Pinkerton must personally convince the President-elect to travel undercover and through the night, even though he earns the enmity of Lincoln’s advisors in the process. Meticulously researched, and a fascinating insight not only into the Baltimore plot but more widely into America on the brink of Civil War.