MURDER ON THE BALTIMORE EXPRESS

An account of the dangerous days leading up to Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration.

Known for turning historical incidents into detailed, thought-provoking books, Jurmain here takes a plot to overthrow the government and assassinate Lincoln on the way to his inauguration—little-known because it failed—and uses it to shine a light on the tumult and violence of the days leading up to the Civil War. Lincoln, scheduled to be sworn in on March 4, 1861, left his home in Springfield, Illinois, on Feb. 11. He planned to spend 12 days traveling slowly to the Capitol by rail, with 75 stops to meet constituents. (Meanwhile, Jefferson Davis departed on the same day for his inauguration as president of the new Confederate states.) Lincoln, careful not to start a war before he was sworn in, gave deliberately vague, nonconfrontational speeches—but he’d already received bushels of death threats, lacked official protection, and sometimes faced rioting crowds. Oddly enough, it was activist Dorothea Dix who first warned authorities of a plot to kill Lincoln in Maryland, leading to famed detective Allan Pinkerton’s taking the case. As Lincoln’s train moved east, Pinkerton and his agents raced to uncover enough details to thwart the plot and save the president-elect. Jurmain shows the day-by-day unfolding of both storylines as they converge in a way that generates excitement even when the outcome is already known.

Interesting, well-researched, and very well done.