Lessons from 1861 for 2021

In May, I advised my client, the District of Columbia, that the upcoming Inauguration would be “the most interesting since 1861.” I was asked to help draft a scenario for exercises, and I drew up a most likely scenario of COVID-19 still beleaguering a city with resulting economic woes and a depleted workforce; potentially severe winter weather; and an Inauguration that featured significant numbers of people participating in what the District euphemistically calls “First Amendment Activities.” 

In truth, I envisioned a Trump Inauguration with more vociferous and potentially more violent marches than the very polite and well-organized “Women’s March” of 2017, and a mostly maskless mob of Trump supporters who might be exercising their second amendment rights as well. 

The comparison to the March 4, 1861 inauguration of Abraham Lincoln parallels the January 20, 2021 Inauguration of Joe Biden in several ways. I hope that my comparisons below are wrong. My goal is to encourage thought on the subject, and preparation and awareness, not to play Nostradamus.

Between Lincoln’s election on November 6, 1860 and January 19, 1861, South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, and Georgia seceded from the union. The southern candidate for President was John C. Breckenridge, who, as Vice President under James Buchanan, actively conspired with southern states who were planning secession. 

The president of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad, Samuel Morse Felton, was worried about his railroad’s short-term future. He had heard rumors of plots to sabotage the tracks outside of Baltimore, designed to prevent Lincoln from getting to Washington to be inaugurated. Morse asked Allen Pinkerton for help. Pinkerton had recently launched the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in Chicago and had made his bones as a railroad detective in the 1850s. In fact, one of his clients was the Illinois Central Railroad, where he met the company lawyer, Abraham Lincoln. That would play a pivotal role when Lincoln would need to be persuaded to change his train schedule en route to Washington.  

Pinkerton came east from Chicago to meet Morse, then set out for Baltimore, a hotbed of secessionist sentiment. (Maryland, a slave state, voted overwhelming for Breckenridge, and was considering secession in early 1861.) Pinkerton and his agents instead discovered the plot to assassinate Lincoln, to be carried out as he changed trains in Baltimore. Traveling to meet Lincoln in Philadelphia, he persuaded Lincoln to don a disguise and ride an earlier train. By the time the conspirators met Lincoln’s scheduled train in Baltimore, the President-elect and Pinkerton were safely in Washington.

When I read that Joe Biden was going to take the Amtrak from Delaware to Washington, DC for his inauguration, and then canceled those plans for security reasons, I felt a chill. Biden used to ride that train every day, to and from his Senate job from his home in Delaware. Biden’s train would also have passed through Baltimore on his way to D.C. 

Here are some takeaways to guide you through the coming weeks:

? Pay attention to infrastructure. Railroads were the primary means of cross-country travel in 1861, and they are still relevant today, though air routes and highways are also essential now. 

? Human intelligence is indispensable. It is important to listen to the rabble rousers, hang out in questionable places, and insert yourself into the discussions. You must "see something" in order to "say something."

? Sentiments run deep on both sides, and loyalties can change quickly. Both sides believe they are right, and that God is on their side. These are dangerous times, as they were then.

? In an emergency, people operate at the speed of trust. Lincoln trusted Pinkerton because he had worked with him before. It is doubtful that Lincoln would have taken anyone else’s advice to alter his schedule.

? Pinkerton thought the worst was over when he got Lincoln safely to Washington. Lincoln was safely inaugurated on March 4, 1861. 39 days later the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter, South Carolina. A week later, Union soldiers were attacked in Baltimore as they changed trains to head south. Four soldiers and twelve rioters were killed in the fighting. The bloodiest four years of US history followed.

? Despite the bloodshed and fighting all around Washington during the Civil War, the only time the Confederate flag entered the US Capitol was January 6, 2021, as Joe Biden’s election was being certified by Congress.

This will indeed be an “interesting” inauguration. As in 1861, the struggles will not end there. Retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal has recently said, “I think we’re much further along in this radicalization process, and facing a much deeper problem as a country, than most Americans realize.”

What do you think?