Lincoln and the secret service

[RJNorton]

The web page here says:

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"On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. He'd die the next morning.

But also on April 14, 1865, Lincoln signed into law a piece of legislation which created the Secret Service -- the law enforcement agency charged with defending the President from, among other things, assassination attempts such as the one that befell Lincoln that evening. Was Lincoln also a victim of bad timing? Perhaps he had ESP? Not really -- rather, it's a strange historical coincidence. While we currently think of the Secret Service as primarily existing to protect the President, that was not its original intent.

During the early to mid-1800s, roughly a third of American money was counterfeit. The solution was something similar to today's approach to large scale problems -- form a commission.

On the urging of Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch, Lincoln did exactly that. The conclusion was to form a federal law enforcement division (at the time, there was no FBI), the "Secret Service Division of the Department of the Treasury." That Division was born just hours before John Wilkes Booth fatally shot the President."

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That article is entitled "Abraham Lincoln Created the Secret Service the Day He Was Shot."

This is what I meant in my comment above. I am not seeing this in my own books such as Reck's book which has a detailed account of Lincoln's last day activities. It's not in Lincoln Day-by-Day. I also cannot find it in McCulloch's memoirs where he discusses April 14. It's not in Sandburg (at least that I can see). Like I say, I am not saying it didn't happen...I just cannot find it anywhere in the books I have.