February 24, 1861; The New York Herald
A hundred years hence the night journey of the President elect of the United States, in the year of grace 1861, from Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, to Washington, the capital of the United States, will be read by wondering schoolboys, with all the circumstances and dreadful rumors and apprehensions resulting in this expedition, in the same frame of mind in which the rising generation of our time ponder over the flight of Mahomet or the adventures of Sinbad the Sailor. The particulars of this remarkable journey between two days, as far as received, are before our readers in the various despatches on the subject which he publish this morning.
It will be observed that, with all the facts thus placed before us, we are left a wide margin of conjecture as to the precise cause of this mysterious journey, and as to the time when it was arranged. Our Harrisburg correspondent tells us that, although not divulged to Mr. Lincoln till yesterday as some say, the whole plan was arranged days ago; but the special sensation despatch from the same quarter to a republican contemporary says that Thursday night (at Philadelphia), after he had retired, Mr. Lincoln was aroused and informed that a stranger desired to see him on a matter of life and death; that Mr. Lincoln (refused) to admit him unless he gave his name, which being given accordingly, prestige did the name carry, that while Mr. Lincoln was yet disrobed he granted an interview to the caller; that prolonged conversation elicited the fact that an organized body of men had determined that Mr. Lincoln should not be inaugurated, and that he should never leave the city of Baltimore alive, if indeed, he ever entered it. And hence this mysterious night journey to Washington.
There may be something in this report of the stranger call of Thursday night; for on the next day, in Independence Hall, Mr. Lincoln declared that he would rather be on this spot than abandon the cardinal principle of the Declaration of 1776 – a remark which indicated, perhaps, that his mind had been preoccupied with assassins and treasonable conspiracies. But this extraordinary manifestation of firmness on the 22d contributed not a little to intensify the public excitement, curiosity and astonishment, at the news that the President elect, under cover of the night, had doubled upon his track, and had slipped through incog to Washington. It appears, too, that he was ingeniously disguised in a long military cloak: and a ‘Scotch cap,’ the better to accomplish the secretive purposes of this adventure. The ‘Scotch cap,’ we dare say, was furnished by Gen. Cameron, from his relics of the Highland clan of his ancestors, and the military cloak was probably furnished by Col. Sumner.
Admitting the expediency of the enterprise no objection can be made to the costume. History is full of remarkable escapes of this sort. Charles the Second escaped the clutches of Cromwell, and got out of England disguised as a servant; Louis Philippe escaped from the French revolutionists of 1848, and got out of France in a sailor’s pea jacket; and Louis Napolean walked out of the prison of Ham as a laborer, with a plank on his shoulder. Nor can we undertake to say that this night journey of Mr. Lincoln was ill considered or injudicious. ‘Caution is the parent of safety.’ Since last autumn there have been threats and rumors that he would never be inaugurated; and reported conspiracies to cut him off from the White House have resulted in the concentration at Washington, by General Scott, of a thousand disciplined men of every arm of the regular army, to make good the approaching inauguration.
These things, together with the fearful revolutionary spirit and movements which have made a military camp of the seceded States, were calculated to impress the mind of the President elect with a sense of danger, although we have not a doubt that his journey to Washington, according to the programme, would have been a continuous ovation all the way through, including a very flattering reception at Baltimore. But there might have been some unpleasant manifestations. For instance, it appears that two or three sets of scheming Baltimore politicians were anxious to monopolize the coming man; and, after the squabble between the Governor and the Legislature at Albany, we apprehend that Mr. Lincoln thought it eminently desirable to avoid any more annoyances of that description. We have, also every reason to suppose that advice had something to do with this ride by the light of the moon. Certainly his military precautions at Washington have been calculated to give a degree of plausibility to the wildest rumors of dark conspiracies levelled at the incoming administration.
For the present, we are constrained to withhold any judgment against this strange and startling incident and the circumstances attending it. Mr. Lincoln has the reputation of a calm, courageous man. It seems, too, that he was hurried off from Harrisburg somewhat against his will, and that there was an urgent voice in the matter which, as a true man, he could not disregard. In any event, we dare say that after that night’s quiet trip incog, his only regret on reaching Washington was, that he had not started in his Scotch cap and military cloak incog from Springfield, by a special express train, and so to the end of his journey.