but had it been, news of it could not have
been sent away, for Mr. Felton had had the telegraph wires secretly cut
outside the town. He also ordered, upon a plausible pretext, that the
southward-bound night train on his road should be held back until the
arrival of this train from Harrisburg. Mr. Lincoln and Colonel Lamon
passed from the one train to the other without recognition, and rolled
into Washington early on the following morning. Mr. Seward and Mr.
Washburne met Lincoln at the station and went with him to Willard's
Hotel. Soon afterward the country was astonished, and perhaps some
persons were discomfited, as the telegraph carried abroad the news of
his arrival.

Those who were disappointed at this safe conclusion of his journey, if
in fact there were any such, together with many who would have contemned
assassination, at once showered upon him sneers and ridicule. They said
that Lincoln had put on a disguise and had shown the white feather, when
there had been no real danger. But this was not just. Whether or not
there was the completed machinery of a definite, organized plot for
assault and assassination is uncertain; that is to say, this is not
_proved_; yet the evidence is so strong that the majority of
investigators seem to agree in the opinion that _probably_ there was a
plan thoroughly concerted and ready for execution. Even if there was
not, it was very likely that a riot might be suddenly started, which
would be as fatal in its consequences as a premeditated scheme. But,
after all, the question of the plot is one of mere curiosity and quite
aside from the true issue. That issue, so far as it presented itself for
determination by Mr. Lincoln, was simply whether a case of such
probability of danger was made out that as a prudent man he should
overrule the only real objection,--that of exciting ridicule,--and avoid
a peril which the best judges believed to exist, and which, if it did
exist, involved consequences of immeasurable seriousness not only to
himself but to the nation. For a wise man only one conclusion was
possible. The story of the disguise was a silly slander, based upon the
trifling fact that for this night journey Lincoln wore a traveling cap
instead of his hat.

Lincoln's own opinion as to the danger is not quite clear.[125] He said
to Mr. Lossing that, after hearing Mr. Seward, he believed "such a plot
to be in existence." But he also said: "I did not then, nor do I now,
believe I should