The Baltimore Plot: What was Pinkerton Thinking?

[Gene C]

(02-09-2016 12:15 PM)maharba Wrote:  My short term interest is in naming the players, some biography of them, and what happened to them, and why weren't they eliminated at the outset, and did these same men work with the Confederacy and JWBooth to complete the job and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in April 1865.
The Baltimore Plot was certainly an early plot to assassinate Lincoln, before he could take office. None of these men were ever prosecuted.

Not sure who you consider "the players".
Part of the reason some of these men were never prosecuted was for political reasons. Lincoln had to keep Maryland in the Union or the nations capital would be surrounded by Confederate states. The railroads the needed Union troops traveled by all ran through Maryland. Ships are to slow, and there are not enough of them to move the number of troops needed at this time. From a practical standpoint, loose your capital city in the first months of a war and it's basically over, your public support to maintain one united country is gone. Maryland must stay in the Union at all costs.

Lincoln is not going to rock the boat and create additional tension with Maryland. At the time he is still hoping for a peaceful solution instead of war. And most everyone thinks if there is a war, it will be a short one. But all the Union troops will still have to travel by rail through Maryland. It is a very sensitive political problem. It's hard to imagine since there has been nothing even close to this in our lifetime.

Once Maryland is safely in the Union several of the rabble rousers in Maryland are arrested, some flee south or to Europe. Some just try to keep a low profile.

Note: I read Stashower's book and enjoyed it, but I don't remember it having the information you are looking for. Libraries are a lot better than they used to be. If your library doesn't have a copy, they can usually get one for you from another library in your state. All you have to do is ask.