we leave. ted is a distinguished lecturer at the city university in new york. he has been a contributor to such publication such as the washington post and the new yorker. and the new york times. and the times he edited the collection of the centennial essays call the union. he wrote a beautiful op-ed essay on james be cannon and abraham lincoln in 1860 and 1861. that op-ed was drawn from his new book. lincoln on the verge. 13 days to washington that i hope you see over one of my soldiers. i'm not going to try to guess which one that is. it's a riveting account of winter, not just focusing on him but his surroundings. a real road passenger in the north as he made his way from being springfield to washington to become the most looked at president in history after that time. i am going to lead the conversation. at around 11, 11:15, we will go to the queue and a we have a long time to talk. i'm asking the obvious question which we alluded to a few minutes ago, picture us in the midst of a presidential transition that feels different. a big block says that the election is illegitimate. there were threats coming out from demonstrators. there is indignation. of course i'm talking about 1860. not anything else. so what can we learn from abraham lincoln? and indeed from james buchanan if there is anything to learn about transitions. >> i should begin by saying that i didn't anticipate 2016 or 2020 when i started this book. it's 2011. as you mentioned, i was deeply involved in the new york times which you were participating, in many others on the call participated in as readers, we were trying to reach new audiences through new tools, tell good history online. so 2016 was five years away and barack obama was actually still in his first term. but even then, there was a feeling that there were two very different americas. that feeling has deepened a lot from 20, 11 2012. there were people who did not like each other. that is a future of all of american history but it was crystallizing into non acceptance into the other sides right to govern. i believe the birtherism was have a meeting in 2011, it wasn't something i was paying that much attention to biden retrospect it was important. a significant number of americans denying the right of someone who had clearly been elected to be the president. i've seen this book over the last nine, years that was an important part of the, buck the shock of the election of lincoln in 1860, shock among many northerners as well as southerners. shock that a person who a year earlier who was relatively unknown to all northerners despite the lincoln douglas debate that he actually managed to win among much more famous rivals for the nomination. then a different kind of shock spreading out throughout the south after the news of the election had southern in which was seething, anger preparations for war if it came to that. and secession. and a lot of incredulity, a feeling expressed in newspapers and correspondence that this could not have happened. and if we just pretend that it didn't happen then maybe the whole thing will go away. as you describe, there were a lot of people exploring alternative solutions, the son of alexander hamilton is wondering we have northern and southern delegations could rethink their electoral votes and put it in the house of representatives for a new vote. it had, happened that the house took over the right to pick the president. they were planned the seam wacky now but they were talked about very seriously, but maybe a three part presidency with the south representative in some new kind of presented of to come, new york city and its mayor, fernando, wood is flirting with some kind of non participation in lincoln's government. that was a model that was known to exist in europe. places like hamburg and -- with self regulating mechanisms. it was not at all certain that the constitution and the idea of all of the states participating in a single government led by the government of the united states. it was not at all certain that that would survive the transition, we are seeing a whole lot of that today so we are now 11 days after the election, there will be a major demonstration in washington d.c. today by trump supporters who are saying stop the steal. apparently a lot of that is being driven by roger stone, whose sentence was recently commuted by president trump. so there is the same feeling that there are two realities in conflict. there are a whole lot of trump supporters who do not believe that he lost the election. and also believe that there are a lot of legitimate ways that he can fight back. whether in the courts. it's not going very well for him. i hope it does not come to this but through increasingly belligerent tactics standing near state capitals on the days that electoral votes are going to be counted and certified. and it just sort of standing aggressively on sidewalks in southern towns, western towns, much as they were doing in the fall and winter of 1816 and 61. so we don't quite know the end of the story yet. >> i was reminded when you gave your answer, of course we know that there was a threat against the reading of the electoral votes on february 12th, i guess. was lincoln's birthday. he was in columbus, ohio. it had been rumored that there would be a kind of demonstration from the senate gallery. of course the vice president, a southerner who had lost the election, had to read the results much like accorded in 2000. but electors themselves did not go. i like the idea of an elector staying home. not causing trouble. they met in their states as i tracked the springfield boat where people voted for lincoln and they just said, i examined, i don't know if you had the chance to look at this in the international archives. they are in. envelope's they are sealed in individual. ceo we must say faithfully read aloud. >> i am so impressed that you have seen them. i emailed someone at the archives and she set me a image of ohio. i have only seen. one i would love to see the seal. >> the seal -- apparently they sent one by mail. this was the system. they sent one by mail with a wax. ceo sent one with the message. since they weren't sure that the messenger would not disappear somewhere they also mailed them. another analog that i just thought of that i had not thought of. lincoln rarely spoke about his life and sufferings. did mentioned the death of his younger son and the fact that he was buried when he left them. there is something of a comparison to the fact that joe biden has already twice visited the cemetery where he was buried. >> that is a very good observation herald. >> just a quick story. quick story. when sam water son and i performed a piece called -- for george h. w. bush in texas years ago, he came backstage with tears in his eyes and we asked him, we had done this for a series of presidents overtime, we asked him what moved him the most about the speeches that water stint had read. we thought he would say the gettysburg address or the second inaugural as everyone does. they said the departure from springfield. the farewell address. really we said why. he began to cry. he said because nobody knows what it is like to leave your home to become president and leave the grief of your child behind. >> that's an amazing story herald. >> ted this is as good a time as any to ask, you could have done any number of projects, when he started this book, and you chose to do this. why did you decide to do it? >> part of the answer is a lifelong fascination with lincoln which i am sure i share with every person on this call. and i want to thank my fellow road islanders, chief justice williams and ed achorn who wrote a book about lincoln's second inaugural which i strongly urge people to read. you may not technically be a rhode island. or you lives one or two miles over the bird or. we're conscious of borders in rhode island because we have so little land. it's nice to be part of the lincoln community in rhode island. i grew up in rhode island and i read the kinds of childhood biographies for young americans that many of us i suspect devoured in fourth and fifth grade. i read a book by a woman by the name of augusta stevenson, a childhood series for ten and 12-year-olds, it got me hooked to lincoln at a young age, i had lincoln paraphernalia on the walls of my room growing up. he's intimidating. i never dare to write about him. i did a couple of 19th century bucks. i was part of a series of short presidential biographies, and i got martin van year in and there's a memorable encounter between him and lincoln in the early 18 forties. that i described in my book. a lot of years went by and i became a white house speech writer, some went to my surprise because i was already namely in academic. and yet, i was doing a little bit of freelance journalism, so i was a writer with several different voices. i was always fighting a little bit against my academic voice and i'm happy to say, i think that i finally, with this book, was able to tell a more of a story and less of an academic history which not everyone wants to do that, but i did want to do that. and he took me a long time to figure out how to do that. in the way that happened was the disunion series we were talking about. that was the green child of a couple young editors a new york times who were given some permission from the senior editors of the paper to explore new content ideas online. because back then, around 2010, 11, the online paper was like the minor leagues. it wasn't as a important as the. now it has almost become the opposite. i still get the daily near cuts, but most of us get it in our phones and our laptops and we're checking it all day long. so they got permission to do a history future and they decided they wanted to do the beginnings of the civil war, it was only scheduled to be six months and ended up going for years. they cover the entirety of the war. but in the early months, they just wrote to a couple historians they knew and i happen to know them socially, i've done a couple op-eds for the times but they certainly did not write to me from my distinction as a lincoln person. they did right to you for your distinction as a lincoln person, but i helped them. i hope them find out of good heart, who many of you may know from his book 1861. he had finished the writing of that book, but it was not yet published. so he was the perfect kind of lead stalking horse to write a lot of essays in a six month period from november 2010 to april 2011, covering the time from lincoln's election to fort -- about 150 years ago. and we began thinking it would be about what happened on this day hundred and 50 years ago. that was the conceded. we later got away from that because there were so many good historians who just wanted to write in and what was on their minds. and that was a kind of flood that began to come in. of great writing. and, so i was a little bit involved as an editor and more involved as a writer and in late february began -- i'm sorry, early february, we had to flow the trade rises and that felt great. and i'm sure you've had this feeling and many people out there that we do some projects out of a sense of duty. and then others just become fun. and this had a feeling of fun from the very beginning. fun endanger. i should add because of the assassination plot in baltimore. so i really put a lot into the writing of my 13 posts and so, only 13 days went by and i had written the backbone of this book and then it took me nine years to finish it. so, go figure how wide almost finished it in almost half a month and it took me nine years tactic completed. writing it online helped keep it loose and flowing and who has didactic in my academic work. so i think that helped me a lot. >> that's interesting. my old boss and politics was a great advocate for writing -- before he submitted speeches. and you just told us the way and the construction and outlined, even if we did it publicly around which the layer of the. book so lincoln had been silent for, except for ikea accidental top, the state fair, he was silent from the cooper union, and new england tour, he managed to get to providence, right? and until february 11th 1861, really a year of silence and he always said at gettysburg, we always say this every year. we'd like to avoid saying foolish things. he allowed to trust themselves to speak extensively, as the jury summarize are -- and we know he prepared some speeches in springfield to deliver along the route at state capitals and such, but he made 100 speeches along the route. did he gain confidence in his ability to say just the right few things? how do you account for the extravagant number of talks that he was willing to do after so many months? >> well that's one of the great traumas of book from me. part of it is just looking out the window in america, and part of it is the sense of encroaching danger has lincoln goes into the seat of danger has baltimore was called and then washington was also pretty dangerous. but then, there is this feeling of a personal journey of fair amount of growth for lincoln over only 13 days. and as you said, he hardly spoke of it at all. except for that accidental speech in springfield. when mainly he said, he didn't want to speak. that was the thrust of his message. and it's great paradox, the greatest order in american history is silent throughout his nomination and campaign and in the weeks after, his victory and his silence was held against him as you know, very well and people thought he was even articulate and a kind of small town lawyer with nothing of great interest to say to anyone. but being the punctilious person that he was, he's riding up along hand speeches, one per day, usually the speech he would give in a state capital inside the legislature of a state house. and so, those were serious moments when he speaking to the electoral representatives of the state, that was very important ritual for incoming president elect, including for the reason that he might need governors to call up truce if washington were either attacked or if he needed to raise an army to compel the south to come back into the country. but as soon as -- i was ten minutes of leaving springfield after delivering the incredible farewell address, it is clear that the minute ten minute reality of a strange, or any require some to go out all the time and say a few words. people gathered at the side of the track, either crossroads, in the form country, you went through a lot of reform country or in a small town or unbearably the smallest crowd than anybody had ever assembled and a small crowd would be there, requiring a few minutes of a top or and a large city like indianapolis or cincinnati or columbus where he really had to give a significant kind of speech or especially as he's gone along the ohio river vacancy kentucky on the other side. so these are fairly fraught moments of political theater which he really had to think through and in general, he did extremely well. there were a couple flubs, he had a kind of flubbed in indianapolis. his first night when he gave a kind of funny but undignified speech about how the south theory of union was like you free love match between man who didn't want to bury a woman, he was sleeping with, basically. and then a couple of other speeches that didn't hit their mark hole that well our in economic speech in pittsburgh in the rain. but, overwhelmingly, he was finding his footing. he was funny, as he was before juries. he could be profound. he often spoke movingly about where he was, including looking over the ohio at the south, how to stay where he was born. we're seeing veterans gathered hidden near cleveland and he's seeing veterans at the war of 1812. and then as he comes closer to philadelphia, beginning in trying to new jersey and then in philadelphia, he talks with great beauty and grace and historical insight and some personal memory of his childhood, which as you know, the small amounts we ever get, we cherish because he spoke so little about the person he was has a pretty unlettered and impoverished youth. so at the end of the trip, he's talking about when the american reserve revolution meant to him when he was a child hood reader of history. and then giving these beautiful remarks in on next to independence hall that to me foreshadow what he will say in the same state two years later at gettysburg. >> i agree with you, that's something about being in the sense of revolution and made him and has before. i wish he i could say that he was equally enjoyable. in a hostile place but how seriously do you take his rumblings about coring, making a stop and what he called the place of magma tiffany? do you think he ever really contemplated doing that? >> you know i never thought about that until the second. because a really precise perceptive observation that using the word nativity was kind of a charge the word. >> yeah, i think. so >> especially for someone who was so comparative to jesus after his martyrdom. that's interesting, harold. well, we have that letter in 1860 where he expresses his wondering whether he could even go into kentucky for fear of being lynched. he did right out, hang hands in his manuscripts at the library of congress, and undelivered speech to kentuckians, very interesting and he gave some of it in his trackside remarks along the ohio and southern indiana and then southern ohio and's a has allowed what he would say to kentucky. he would say to them, you are as good as we are, we would be much the same as you if in your circumstances. so he's got a good message to the south. it's a message seriously similar to the one job biden is saying a lot right now. which is, i want to be a president for all of america and just respect everybody's rights. so, i think by the time the train trip is underway, there is no great expectation he will go into kentucky, including for the fact that has i found -- was about to say, i wasted, except i don't think it was a waste. i dawdled for at least a year of my nine years doing intricate railroad research, probably of small interest to lincoln biographer's. but i. was interested in where the roots actually went and where their options to go to the south. and there were very few. it was hard to get off a northern train and get into the south. >> well, please don't think that you waste her time because all of that stuff was so new to me. so high have sealed in my mind an image of one of lincoln's trains and when you're going downhill with the brakes on and i see, leave strong track. that was a pretty scary -- >> into pittsburgh, yeah. a wise. >> so, actually i think hit speeches her the formal speeches, i agree with you that it's a tariff speech is boring. but at least a choice of some of his base. >> that's for sure. >> the immigrant and the big tariff guys. and, i think the free love thing was settler than some people give or acknowledge. people had charge that anti slavery people were also proponents of free love. so they were free love advocates. and if you look at the period of cartoons, you see women who advocate free love with black people and abolitionists, they're all part of a radical loony. so, and he turns it on this unionist, i think it's kind of -- >> that's a good point. >> may be silly and frivolous, but i think it was making a point. so, i'm going to leave the last 15 minutes to talk about the assassination plot. a little bit of time before. so, ted, this is a hard one but i'm going to ask you to put yourself in lincoln's head for a moment. and i'm going to recite a number of goals for the trip that i summarized and i want to don't know if you agree or whether you would choose one of his principal. and also tell me five but -- so, chief goes henry to washington, canning to washington alive, nipping secession in the bud, winning over northerners who have been voted for him, introducing himself to people who didn't know him for all of the above or something else. >> that's pretty comprehensive, harold. that's very good i might add one that became extremely important to me and i'm a little embarrassed to talk about it, as i think he was. but i also think it's important and suddenly i would say in the era 2022, which was sprinkling over his listeners, a kind of mystical attachment to the union, to the idea of american history has something very special that had happened in human history and we also know that lincoln was the first to poke fun at himself and had a side of him that was anecdotal and even kind of course uncertain ways. but there was also something quasi-, mr. cohen spiritual in him which seward and observed that was a nice comment i remember, i think seward might have said it to the adams family. where we often went for dinner that there was a kind of spiritual quality or mystical, i can remember the exact word to lincoln's attachment to the union which maybe his greatest attribute. and i think alexander stevens said something like that too and you and i have emailed a bit, really interested in their friendship. their friendship and rivalry. but lincoln his -- to further all the goals you mentioned, including winning over democrats and then northern keeping border states, extremely important. and by the, way over the course of writing this book felt that it was incredibly important that virginia had not yet succeeded by the time. virginia even more than kentucky and missouri and maryland. it was really important that this state of presidents was still part of the united states when he was inaugurated. but to further all of those goals, retelling the history and he's a master retailer that might be the right word because there were a lot of floating competitive ideas of american history. we're all in the history of business. we all tell it all the time. we're seeing a really interesting retelling over the last two years with the 16, 19 project and donald trump's attempt to come back with the 1776 commission and for most of us, we're wondering where we fit in in this landscape of competing narratives. and lincoln was also putting up a competing narrative and throughout the 18 fifties, the south, every year minimize the declaration of independence a little bit more as a document that was no longer convenient to their way of looking at things. lincoln is lifting it up, more and more and more, even before the lincoln douglas debates and then very much during the debates. and then, it just keeps coming out and so, it's not there at the beginning of the trip, but it really is there at the end. and it's really there at gettysburg so, i think this mystical attachment to the union, which may have been something he developed has a eight-year-old reading, talking with people out in the front here in southern indiana, but something that was above and beyond a normal grasp of american history and the facts was a love of the idea of equality expressed in jefferson second paragraph of the declaration. >> i love that you also mentioned the retelling aspect of it. he was not originating this story because when people came to him during his presidency, has things like mister president, how do you write all these amazing stories and jokes and he said, well i'm not a humorous, i'm a retailer of other people's work. so he was a retailer and admittedly, humor and reverence for the people, so part of this complex character. and you mentioned earlier, you know, impugn dwell on current events over the form, although we have acknowledge the reality. you mentioned the demonstrations that will be occurring today to give a contrary view or to suggest a contrary view that the elections -- contrary to reality. but abraham lincoln had to contend with something quite different so during his inaugural journey, there was a counter inaugural journey by jefferson davis. and do we have any record of whether he -- i mean, you poured through all of the newspapers, more much more than i ever could. small town papers and such. are there references in northern papers about this other inaugural journey? >> yes, there are. would i really wanted to get, i feel to engage with the words of speeches that jefferson davis was given. it's really hard to give those. by the tyler graff was sending the reports that he's in northern alabama tonight or he's going to be in atlanta tomorrow night, so they knew where he was and they did get the words of his inaugural address in montgomery. but yeah, i was fascinated by that story. i mean, you have it in lincoln president elect to. but even the nature of that train trip was interesting and were revealed to my way of looking at, it a lot of the bankruptcy of the confederacy. that, how do want to offend any trump admirers on this call, but it resembled the situation -- in some ways, resembles the situation that they were much clearer on their right to govern. then they were on their actual governing. they weren't that interested in governing, they were very focused on their right to govern. and, so davis to get too -- well, he lives on a plantation on the mississippi near the louisiana and mississippi boundary, he has to get to -- first of vicksburg, ten to jackson. from jackson to montgomery is not very far, but to do that, he can't do it because there is no train that goes between those two. so he's got to doing this wild roundabout route up to memphis, which is still in tennessee, which is still in the united states of america across tennessee and then down into georgia and it's slow and uncomfortable and just to me brought out the great difficulty, the confederacy would have been actually working out a government and an economy that served its people in any way. so, lincoln knows where davis is is and tanker your question, yes, northerners are where. but davis is words, they're as difficult for northern readers stand to get as they are now and when i was talking about lincoln retelling american history, to this ida better point of purchase onto americans. his family and his wife's family had served in the american revolution with much more distinction than lincoln's. but somehow lincoln outfoxed him and claimed the american revolution, which davis never did and it might have helped his cause if he had. >> it's a really good point. that davis did not do that. i've seen a couple of speeches of his but they were quite belligerent. and i couldn't agree with you more. that any idea that his southern military, with all the talent that it had from west point, that remainder became loyal to the confederacy. they should have known. abraham lincoln takes a journey that sort of goes like this and then this. and davis is going like this, this and. this he's never going to be able to move supplies by rail. and they should've figured that out. but really interesting, the confederate government of course used george washington on the seal of the confederate states of america and james mercenaries points to, that there are illusions that there are rebellion is our sacred of the american revolution. but lincoln crystallized thoughts and that's a great point. so we need to spend the land 15 minutes of our discussion, sure there will be questions about this. the assassination plot, because so much of your book is wrapped around the constant threat and you talk about more near misses than i ever knew about. something exploding and shattering windows and had a train station. innocuous and accidents and accustomed to the terror of the family, when they happened. i think one of your major contributions with his book is that historians have tried for a long time to figure out when to the news of baltimore plot reached lincoln and how credible and how did no better than to trace it to philadelphia on february 21st with perhaps some links to lincoln about it when he was in new york city. but you have done just a fabulous job of identifying new sources for the story. so i just want you to go through here were discovery here and telling everyone about how the threat was really irregular from almost a time he left springfield. >> well, thank you harold. again, your book was springboard for so much of this for me. i also got a lot from a strange book that you know very well, we've talked about would choose freak to search, is 1960 book. lincoln's great trainee to greatness, which is on the same topic as my book. but it's strange, it has no footnotes and so you don't know where he got anything and that's frustrating and he was i think, i don't know very much about him. he was the kind of pr man in new york i think? >> some of the best lincoln scholars where pierre guys. >> that's funny. while, lincoln was a pretty good pr man for himself in a lot of ways, to. so, but it's a wonderful book to so i, mean i had frustrations and not knowing where he got things. but some of those stories about bombs going off in or near the train got probably from victor the first time, but then i was able to corroborated some with deep reading of newspapers which thank you for noticing that and i just want to pause for a second to say very specifically worded most of that work. and it wasn't this incredible database called chronicling america. i'm sure many of the lincoln historians and no weight, but if you don't, it's a database cohosted by the library of congress and the national endowment for the humanities and who michel crow is the great keeper of the lincoln manuscript that the lever of congress and was on the prize jury and had always been grateful to her, who, fooling, aloft are actually worked at the lab of congress. but with that database, it takes a little time to get to know how to search through it and you have to search by state and by year and what do you figure that out, you get this incredible cornucopia of local newspapers and so, by getting back closer to the train and looking at cincinnati papers i found the story of a kind of grenade that was left in a car that lincoln was going into and in the ohio papers, although actually, there's still a little bit of doubt about which small town in ohio the incident happened where that glass was shattered by the exploding of guns and artillery near the train. the glass fell on mary lincoln, even having access to those newspapers, sometimes they contradict each other and another instead tint in upstate new york where guns were fired off and welcomed way to close to the train. so even the people welcoming lincoln were sometimes causing him a lot of danger. >> on the subject of finding the first morning of baltimore to identify the new source obviously, a woman. >> so, what was known as you know has the various writings of allen pinkerton a confusing to, i must say, because he told the story many times. there are the original notebooks that he was keeping as he was brought in to protect lincoln, not unlike the secret service, but he actually worked for a railroad, not the government. and then he re-told the stories several times later in his life. it gets confusing also because howard lam in, and i'm grateful for you around because you're telling me how to pronounce his name. he did in light pink retain and they contradict each other a few times and lincoln is part of the difficulty of knowing what really happened because he minimized the assassination plot later, he hardly ever talked about it but when he did, he sort of soft peddled it probably because of lingering embarrassment over having to go all night and the rumor falls that he was disguise, but where i found some really interesting source material who was in the writings of a man named samuel felting. but lived in philadelphia. he was the president of important railroad. the baltimore, basically joe biden's home turf. it was the train line from wilmington, from philadelphia through wilmington to washington. he was approached by a woman. i was really happy to find two interesting women in this story, she was dorothy dick's, mental health advocate who despite restrictions comment to her gender she was a very effective reformer, throughout the 18 fifties advocating for the right of the mentally ill and coming up through the south in the fall of 1860, including south carolina, somewhere she picked up hard intelligence of the plot to pick up lincoln and it was detailed, it does about trained bridges coming into baltimore. or possibly the way that you transferred from one station in baltimore that took the train to philadelphia, that was the presidents street station into the camp in the street station that was bernie and the baltimore oreo stadium. that's where you cut the train to washington. in the transfer to train stations, if you don't get them in the -- would get it in a horse and carriage going through the crowd. she went to samuel felted who later wrote down, he wrote a written account of it which is in the papers and philadelphia, that this woman, dorothy, had better information about the threat against lincoln than anyone in washington d.c. or any elected political office. he was always grateful to her. because of this intelligence he sent out to pinkerton from chicago, pinkerton brought out eight detectives with him including another woman. a fascinating, very effective spy basically, named kate. not sure how to pronounce her name. his most effective agent. i got all of the information by going through baltimore restaurants and bars, pretending to be southerners. they were able to warn lincoln and his entourage while they were on route at the same time that samuel and scott are getting the same information, and also warning lincoln. >> so you have got to read the papers of the railroad, really great research. i had no idea that dorothy was an. it we know about kate warren, she appears under a different name in the movie. a tall target. if you've seen that movie. >> it is quite a good movie. >> if you like the rough edge dick powell image, it's good. it's not a great lincoln at the very end. i hope jonathan white is ready to come in with questions because there are so many stacked up that i don't want to take more time, if we want to spend the next 20 minutes instead of 15 on questions that would be great. so my question is, i hope my final question, is how serious was the plot? was it a real assassination plot or just a bunch of rumors. the one thing that i think mitigates against the seriousness is that while lincoln leaves harrisburg and makes his way overnight he allows the presidential special to come to baltimore as scheduled with his wife and son some occur. if you read the newspaper accounts, people are pounding on the railroad in anger. he left his family pretty exposed there. >> it is true and it is a fair question, including like ages said, lincoln soft peddled it in some ways afterwards. i still find the evidence more persuasive than not. the best of the evidence is alan pinkerton's various talents of the story. he was really involved. he was there in baltimore as a gathering of the intelligence that led to the decision to send lincoln through in the middle of the night. he is with lincoln in that dark commuter train. it is him and lamb and they are going through it in the middle of the night. so i doubt pinkerton, who is a reputable person in many ways, later on in his life would fabricate the evidence even if he wants to sell books i don't think he would lie out right about the plot. especially dorothy's role, she is an upright person, she didn't talk about it herself, but fell ten is a very reputable transcriber of the conversation she had with dorothy. it's right. there is in the historical society of pennsylvania, and as you know herald, there were so many warnings, including letters coming in, many from baltimore, quite a few warning him of the danger that he was about to go through. a couple came from military officers in the u.s. army and they were asked to come in the military with him. -- he invites onto the train, which makes me think that the warnings were credible. a lot of citizens in baltimore were writing to him saying, you cannot come through town. you have to come and discuss or at the middle of the night. your point about letting his wife and children into the next few days is a good point, how could he in good conscience expose them to the great danger. all i can say is the ideas about protecting women and children were so different that he didn't think anyone would hurt them. it's another greatest answer but one last point is when i read martin johnson's report, the gettysburg, address he describes -- heading to gettysburg. once again, it was pretty dicey. there were thugs climbing on the side of the car trying to get at lincoln and only that we could they get the soldiers off of the plane. so bottom our state very tough, and as you know it was violent when the massachusetts troops came third in april of 1861. >> some of it inexplicable. all of, it frightening. so i see that jonathan white is on. i will sign off for a bit and come back. thank you ted. >> thank you harold. >> i can do another couple of hours but i know we have to move on. a lot of questions stacked up, i will turn it over to him. >> thank you. harold that was wonderful. a wonderful conversation. a great way to start off our for him today. we have a lot of conversations in the q&a. i will start with one from brian. he asked how many people along the route were you able to visit in the process -- >> i have a disappointing answer which is only a couple. i had a fantasy that my author tour would take me to some of those places, and then all of my bookstore visits were wiped up during the pandemic. i have done zero but through the magic of zoom i picked up a lot of them. i went to springfield. in 2012 it was magical. i would love to go back. i went into the library, i need to go back. i have a strong desire to go back. i have been to cleveland and pittsburgh and philadelphia for separate reasons. i went to cleveland. i'm a real buff so i once took a train to cleveland. i went all the way to chicago but through cleveland. i now live in new york. i grew up in providence so i did the last stretch from new in a car go through those small towns in illinois and indiana and southern ohio and the outskirts of pittsburgh and then up to cleveland and then slowly across upstate new york, and i i want to take like six weeks and really do it right, but i have not done it as as well as i i would like to sure. a question from mel maurer he asks whose idea was it for lincoln to take the journey to washington in this way. well, he had to get there somehow and trains were already established as the best way to go from. lincoln to take the journey to washington in this way? >> he had to get their somehow. trains were already established as the best way to go from west to east. he had been on trains many times including a year earlier today the cooper union speech in the new england states afterwards. so it was almost certainly going to be a train trip but the route was a little bit up in the air. as the planning came together in january of 1861, it seems that seward and his political ally, -- , were very involved. they probably found the railroad guy create sort of the route, and deal with the people in every station. that was a guy named william wood who later appeared to be a dangerous member of his entourage. he leader was bribing mary todd wilson with gifts, may have been in cahoots with people who want to harm lincoln. even with all of their preparation they found a guy who was kind of suspicious. >> this is a follow-up question. it comes from mark. he professed his question by saying he really enjoyed the buck. within lincoln circle and maybe others, is responsible for the planning and logistics of the trip. things like changing trains or speaking at the different state legislatures. >> that is a big thing. i don't want to say waist, but i slowed down as i got into the minutiae of train travel in 1960. one fortunately there are a lot of great books and many scripts that have been preserved in libraries because the train was such an exciting thing to americans in the middle of the 19th century. i believe it was exciting to lincoln himself. the guy i mentioned, he's job, he had railroad experience, his job was to right ahead through letters and telegrams to make sure that they were ready for the presidential special and to let everybody know exactly where they were. so media in the train, not unlike air force one. they are in the back. the president elect is at the front with his family. it's exactly like air force one. there are other local actors who are very interesting. so in pittsburgh we have a gaggle of railroad executives who are just amazing movers and checkers. there is a guy named thomas scott, who is a young man, but a very high up with the pennsylvania railroad. he has recognized the talents and even younger young man, andrew carnegie, who is first a kind of teenage telegraph wonder. canned he is the fastest telegraph editor. thomas at it and also by the way was a extremely fast telegraph operator. carnegie is promoted over and over again by scott to be a kind of manager for pennsylvania railroad. those guys follow lincoln into washington, and become really important and managing the north railroad supremacy which is very much a factor in the north's ultimate winning of the civil war. >> yes. this question comes from pete rad. he asks did lincoln discuss or even mentioned slavery in any of the speeches that he gave along the way? if so, what did he say? if not, why didn't he? >> great question. he is writing the first inaugural on route. he has completed his first draft and set it in type, in springfield. he is still adjusting it. his illinois friend is with him on the first day of the trip and offers a important single word change, which harold describes in the presidential act, i also mention, it is a kind of change of a verb to be more conciliatory towards the south. and, when he's addressing southern audience is, i mentioned that in southern indiana and then in cincinnati, he sort of talks allowed to the south. he saying things like we are like, you will respect you, we would act as you are doing, which convey that he will not do anything to touch slavery where it exists in the southern states that are not territories, that are actual states. and that is his message in his first inaugural address. so, the short answer is, he's not really talking about it in most of his northern stops on the route but when he's near the south, he gives these little verbal hints that he will not touch it where it exists. but he's also resisting the attempts that are coming into him privately through his correspondence or through word of mouth that if you just agrees to this compromise, or this other one that, somehow the crisis will go away and he isn't agreeing to those compromises. so, in that important way, he's rejecting the idea that so many other northern presidents agree to that somehow. a last minute compromise will allow slavery to spread out into the west and that is the rock upon which he will not compromise at all and that's the rock upon which the civil war begins. >> that's right. i'm going to combine to questions here. bonnie asks how much time lincoln had for self contemplation during this journey, and then angela asks what you think was sort of the biggest impact this trip had only can? >> not much time for contemplation, it was a harrowing journey. it was physically and mentally grueling and i came away amazed that he could formulate his thoughts as well as he did, delivering those beautiful speeches in trenton new jersey and philadelphia at the very end and a very nice one harrisburg, pennsylvania after philadelphia. so his hand, his arm take, he lost his voice over and over again, including halfway through the trip and miraculously, it came back but he was in kind of physical agony, especially in his hand and arm from shaking tens of thousands of hands. but he did it, you know, he stood up and did it over and over again and that was something i was very moved by. his physical courage and his mental courage. i mean, he just showed up for every difficult job that was expected of him. the humble jobs of standing outside an assembly room in a state house, lighting 2000 people come through and all have a piece of him, including a possible assassin. but then, even with no time to write speeches, he saying things evermore beautifully and i don't know how he did that, but i imagine falling asleep at night, he's going through the thoughts in his mind and he did fall asleep the last -- second to last night of the trip. near independent all. so i'm sure he was thinking about the declaration, what it meant to him, and then he shows up at dawn the next morning and says, i've never had a practical sentiment that did not originate with the words that were written here. it's very beautiful. so, i'm sorry, can you repeat the second part of the question? >> what part of the trip had the greatest impact on lincoln? >> well, i think seeing all those faces looking up to him for leadership gave him inspiration to weigh in must for every person, including donald trump, including the 45th president. there's something about the size of the job and this size of the population of the united states that feels you with a fair amount of law in reference. you do get the feeling of lincoln growing into the job that he's from springfield, illinois, very much so. as he steps on to the train. and he is thinking about the totality of american history by the time he arrives in washington. so i think, just as americans saw him and were comforted over and over again, people said in their correspondents or in their newspaper articles, he's not as only as i thought. and he spoke better than i expected him to. seeing all those tens and hundreds and thousands of people still tame some political capital, which he really needed. because he has less than 40% of the vote. but also, i think it fills him with the sense that yes, i am the error to washington. and to jefferson and to jackson. he's reading jackson as he's composing his first inaugural address. washington more than the others, he mentions washington a lot. he mentions him in the farewell address in springfield and then over and over again and so. i think he had a growing consciousness that he had to continue to be the captain of a ship, he talks about the ship of state also. and i wondered a few times if the train he's on has become literally the ship of state. but he's the captain of a vessel, much as george washington had been both as revolutionary commander and then as a first president. so seeing those hundreds of thousands and really millions by the time the trip is done, i think filled him up with a job just as they were comforted by seeing him. >> right. we have so many great questions but we only have about three minutes. so i think we can only ask about one more. jay s writes this. in brad melters fictional account of the conspiracy to harm lincoln in baltimore, he writes that she wrote in the train car with lincoln and that he was this is not a disguised as her brother. is there any truth in that and then dave uyghurs asks about where the story of the disguise comes from? so can you talk for just two or three minutes about that? >> if i want to just say to all the members of this wonderful organization and especially to frank and to herald, if any of you want to email me after the fact, i'm happy to try to answer questions by email. i have one email in which you can find online and i still have an email at brown university, where used to work which is just ten underscore whitmer at brown dot edu. so i'll try that one. i don't remember in the facts that he was disguised as her sickly, brother that was in the movie that harold mentioned in early 19 fifties, movie called the tall target. i liked it a lot so there was a kate lauren-like figure who talks about her sick relative and that becomes. you don't really even see him for most of the movie. it's a sort of shadow in the background. but, and the sources that i consulted that are largely at the huntington library, but published in the book called lincoln and the baltimore plot. there was no reference of a sick -- i want to be precise, it wasn't as specific is that. to train was held up at philadelphia at the last minute because what was called an important package had to be given to the conductor of the train, very important for delivery in washington and that was a pot acknowledge of meaningless paper and as that package was being handed to the conductor in philadelphia at the station that no longer exist, but in doll downtown philadelphia. lincoln was climbing into the back of the train where a door was opened. kate lauren had gone onto the train and had reserved a berth by bribing a conductor and she might have said something about an invalid relative there. so i want to amend what i said earlier. i think she did something there but the main excuse they gave to the railroad was the delivery of a package. and that was a bogus excuse just so lincoln could climb into the back. >> well thank you so much. this has been a wonderful conversation between you and harold. i want to remind all of our viewers that you can order ted's book, lincoln on the verge and you can also order heralds book, the presidents versus the price from the gettysburg heritage center. and we have created a very special book plate for the 25th anniversary of the lincoln forum symposium that will be signed by the author. there is a link to the gettysburg heritage center in the chat box that you can click on. it will take you right to the store or you can go to gettysburg museum store .com. abraham lincoln's ecological address is likely considered one of the greatest speeches in american political history. edward achorn spoke, every drop of blood, the momentous segue
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