hundred men of the militia of the District of Columbia.

In connection with these precautions, Colonel Stone, who commanded these
forces, had kept himself informed about the disaffection in Baltimore,
through the agency of the New York police department. The communication
brought by young Mr. Seward contained besides notes from his father and
General Scott, a short report from Colonel Stone, stating that there had
arisen within the past few days imminent danger of violence to and the
assassination of Mr. Lincoln in his passage through Baltimore, should
the time of that passage be known.

"All risk," he suggested, "might be easily avoided by a change in the
traveling arrangements which would bring Mr. Lincoln and a portion of
his party through Baltimore by a night train without previous notice."

The seriousness of this information was doubled by the fact that Mr.
Lincoln had, that same day, held an interview with a prominent Chicago
detective who had been for some weeks employed by the president of the
Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore railway to investigate the danger
to their property and trains from the Baltimore secessionists. The
investigations of this detective, a Mr. Pinkerton, had been carried on
without the knowledge of the New York detective, and he reported not
identical, but almost similar, conditions of insurrectionary feeling and
danger, and recommended the same precaution.

Mr. Lincoln very earnestly debated the situation with his intimate
personal friend, Hon. N.B. Judd of Chicago, perhaps the most active and
influential member of his suite, who advised him to proceed to
Washington that same evening on the eleven-o'clock train. "I cannot go
to-night," replied Mr. Lincoln; "I have promised to raise the flag over
Independence Hall to-morrow morning, and to visit the legislature at
Harrisburg. Beyond that I have no engagements."

The railroad schedule by which Mr. Lincoln had hitherto been traveling
included a direct trip from Harrisburg, through Baltimore, to Washington
on Saturday, February 23. When the Harrisburg ceremonies had been
concluded on the afternoon of the 22d, the danger and the proposed
change of program were for the first time fully laid before a
confidential meeting of the prominent members of Mr. Lincoln's suite.
Reasons were strongly urged both for and against the plan; but Mr.
Lincoln finally decided and explained that while he himself was not
afraid he would be assassinated,