Video: 'The Secret Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln Before the Civil War'

(Saturday, February 23, 1861, 6:00 a.m. local time, during the Baltimore Plot) — With the nation on the brink of civil war over slavery, President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrived safely in Washington, D.C., in disguise early this morning after learning of a plot to assassinate him as he passed through Baltimore, Maryland.

The Baltimore Plot, a conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln en route to his March 4, 1861, inauguration, forced the next chief executive to reluctantly agree to go from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to Washington, via Philadelphia and Baltimore, in secrecy and with considerable security undertaken by the railroad.

Video: 'Abraham Lincoln (Documentary)' (Baltimore Plot at 13:12)

Accompanied by a friend, Ward H. Lamon, and detective Allan Pinkerton, Lincoln left Harrisburg after dinner on Feb. 22, 1861, on a special train to Philadelphia. There they connected with the Baltimore-bound train late that evening, arriving in Baltimore about 4 a.m., where they were switched to the Baltimore & Ohio tracks for the trip to Washington.

The manner of Lincoln’s arrival was ridiculed by his enemies and criticized by many friends. According to Lamon, Lincoln soon regretted the midnight journey to Washington as unworthy of the leader of a great republic. But Lincoln’s advisers believed the plot to assassinate him was genuine and that his life was endangered from the moment he crossed the Maryland line.