“She succeeded far beyond my utmost expectations.”

Allan Pinkerton’s comment on Kate Warne

Although Lavinia Goodell and Kate Warne never met, in February of 1861 they shared a common interest: following the progress of Abraham Lincoln’s journey from Springfield, Illinois to Washington, D.C.  On the afternoon of February 19,  twenty-one year old Lavinia joined throngs of other New Yorkers to watch the president-elect’s carriage procession in mid-town Manhattan. (Read her account here.)

While Lavinia was in Manhattan, Kate Warne, who was approximately twenty-eight years old and was in charge of the famous Pinkerton Detective Agency’s Female Detective Force, was in Baltimore trying to ascertain if there were credible threats to Lincoln’s safety. It turned out that there were, and Kate helped thwart them.