The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War by Daniel Stashower Read Free Book Online

He could see little advantage in neglecting his cooperage for this “will-o’-the-wisp piece of business.” He wavered for a moment or two—“What do I know about counterfeiting?” he asked—but Hunt and Bosworth persisted, certain he would succeed if he put his mind to it. Pinkerton, flattered by their confidence, made an impulsive decision: “I suddenly resolved to do just that and no less,” he recalled, “although I must confess that, at that time, I had not the remotest idea how to set about the matter.”
    For all his reservations, Pinkerton wasted no time. Posing as a “country gawker,” he strolled into town to strike up a conversation with the stranger, and he soon found himself invited to have a quiet chat on the outskirts of town, away from prying eyes. There, the visitor opened a cautious line of questioning, identifying himself as John Craig, a farmer from Vermont, and hinting that he needed a local partner to join him in a lucrative scheme. Not wishing to seem too eager, Pinkerton gave measured responses, admitting that times were “fearfully hard” and that he would be open to a scheme “better adapted to getting more ready cash.” All the while, Pinkerton noted, Craig studied him closely with “a pair of the keenest, coldest small gray eyes I have ever seen.” Worse yet, Pinkerton glimpsed the handles of a pair of pistols protruding from Craig’s coat. “I had nothing for self-protection,” he recalled, “save my two big fists.” As Craig continued his questioning, Pinkerton felt “a sense of insignificance” as he measured himself against the older man. “There I was, hardly more than a plodding country cooper,” he said. “I felt wholly unable to cope with this keen man of the world.”
    As it turned out, however, a plodding country cooper was just what Craig wanted. Turning suddenly, the older man asked point-blank if Pinkerton had ever passed any counterfeit currency. “Yes, Mr. Craig,” Pinkerton replied promptly, “but only when I could get a first-class article. I frequently ‘work off’ the stuff in paying my men Saturday nights. Have you something really good, now?”
    Craig answered that he had a “bang up article,” and passed over a pair of bogus ten-dollar bills. Pinkerton had never seen a ten-dollar bill—real or bogus—in his entire life, but for Craig’s benefit he pretended to be a shrewd judge of forgeries. “I looked at them very, very wisely,” he recalled, “and after a little expressed myself as very much pleased with them.”
    Craig now made his proposal. He would sell Pinkerton five hundred dollars’ worth of phony bills for twenty-five cents on the dollar, or $125 in genuine “eastern bills.” If all went well, he would take Pinkerton on as his local partner, allowing the young cooper a chance to clear more cash in one year than Dundee’s most prosperous merchant would see in a decade. Pinkerton took a moment to weigh the offer, then put out his hand to seal the deal. The two men arranged to carry out the exchange later that day at an appropriately remote spot—an unfinished church building in nearby Elgin.
    This would be the first great test of Pinkerton’s career, and he bungled it badly. As Craig rode off toward Elgin, Pinkerton headed back to Dundee to report to Hunt and Bosworth, who immediately supplied the cash needed to make the exchange, confident that Craig’s arrest and prosecution would soon follow. At the deserted church in Elgin, however, Pinkerton’s inexperience showed itself. As he passed the bundle of cash over to Craig, the older man asked him to step outside for a few minutes to see if anyone happened to be watching. Pinkerton did as directed, realizing too late that he had “placed myself in the man’s power completely” by taking his eyes off the money. A moment later, Craig reappeared, telling an absurd story: A shadowy colleague had swooped in unexpectedly, he claimed, and left a mysterious parcel behind. “He