By Linda Harris Sittig
Today the threat of cyber-security is on many people’s minds as criminals hack into our privacy. But back in the 1800s, the security business was usually a male-dominated world.
Until 1856.
That year, a slender, brown-haired young woman walked into the Chicago office of Allan Pinkerton. She was there, she stated, to apply for an advertised job in the newspaper: a detective.
We’ll never know what thoughts raced through Mr. Pinkerton’s mind. But perhaps – a woman? She’s a slight wisp, and who could she possibly apprehend?
Kate Warne, however, had come prepared.
“I am a widow, and as a woman, I can worm out secrets in many places that male detectives could not gain access to.”
At 23, Kate’s past was not well known except her widowhood. But she carried herself with self-confidence mixed with a dash of poise. Pinkerton decided to take a chance and hired her. She became the first female detective in the United States.
Kate’s first assignment was to leave Chicago for Montgomery, Alabama. Once there, she was to take on the case of the Adams Express Company Embezzlement. Mr. Maroney, an expressman with the company, had managed to steal $50,000 of company funds. Kate promptly went to work, camouflaging her northern accent to sound more like a southern belle, and befriended Mrs. Maroney. As Kate and the wife attended social functions together, Kate gleaned evidence. From her ‘friendship’ with the wife, Kate led to Maroney’s conviction and to a ten-year sentence in an Alabama prison.
Pinkerton was impressed, and in 1860 he told Kate he was putting her in charge of his newly created Female Detective Bureau.
Her time in the South became another asset. In 1861 when all America was deeply divided over the factors that led to civil unrest, Pinkerton handed Kate her most important case.
Pinkerton had uncovered rumors of a plot to assassinate President-elect Abraham Lincoln on the way to his inauguration. Lincoln scoffed at the stories and refused to change his already-published schedule of an 11-day rail tour from Illinois to Washington D.C. via Baltimore.
Kate dispatched herself to Baltimore, dressed in Southern garb, including a secessionist black and white cockade pinned to her outfit. She did worm her way into parties at the Barnum City Hotel, known as Southern sympathy headquarters.
At the parties, she heard of the plans to assassinate the President, specifically that it would happen in Baltimore when the President would step off his train from Illinois and transfer to another train bound to Washington.
Kate wasted no time in alerting Allan Pinkerton and suggesting she could help.
She went to Philadelphia and bought four train tickets for the sleeper berths on a regular passenger Philadelphia to Baltimore bound train. After his staff finally convinced Lincoln of the legitimate plot, Lincoln agreed that his private secretary, John George Nicolay, would assist in a scheme to keep Lincoln out of harm.
On February 22, 1861, while en route to Washington, Lincoln’s Illinois train stopped in Harrisburg, PA, where Lincoln got off to attend a high-profile dinner. In the middle of the meal, his secretary (John George Nicolay) interrupted the dinner party to excuse Lincoln. In a separate room, Lincoln changed clothes to look like an ordinary traveler and carried a woolen shawl over his arm to appear as an invalid. As soon as Lincoln left Harrisburg, Pinkerton had all nearby telegraph lines cut.
Late that night at the Philadelphia train station, Kate Warne entered the back of the Baltimore bound train and flagged down a conductor. She needed a favor because she would be traveling with her “invalid brother,” who would retire immediately to his sleeper berth and remain there. No other passengers needed to be allowed to venture to the back of the train. The conductor nodded in agreement.
When the disguised Lincoln finally appeared in the car, Kate greeted him as if he were her invalid brother.
Throughout the night, Kate remained by Lincoln’s side as the passenger train sped from Philadelphia to Wilmington and then to Baltimore. Kate disembarked in Baltimore while Lincoln’s sleeping car was detached from the train, then pulled by horses to the Camden Street station, and recoupled to a new southbound train.
Abraham Lincoln finally arrived at 6 a.m, February 22 in Washington D.C., safe and sound for his upcoming inauguration.
Kate turned 28 a months later.
In the years to follow, Kate continued to work for the Pinkerton Agency as one of their more illustrious detectives. She assisted Pinkerton in procuring intelligence work for the Union Army, and after the Civil War, she worked on high-profile cases of robbery and murder.
Kate would succumb in 1868 to “congestion of the lungs,” most likely tuberculosis at the young age of 35, and buried at the Pinkerton family plot in Chicago.
It would take until 1891 before women in America were able to join any police force, and 1910 before they could become officers.
But it was Kate Warne who had paved the way.
One strong woman.
Thank you to blog followers Jerry Moore and Eileen Rice for suggesting I ‘investigate’ Kate’s life.
If you enjoyed Kate Warne’s story and would like to follow the Strong Women in History blog each month, please sign up on the right-hand sidebar.
You can also catch me on Twitter or Instagram @LHsittig, or FaceBook as Linda Sittig, and my webpage at www.lindasittig.com.
In addition to my three novels of historical fiction: Cut From Strong Cloth, Last Curtain Call, and Counting Crows… I have a brand new book coming out this summer. It’s a non-fiction account titled B-52 Down! The Night the Bombs Fell from the Sky.
Stay tuned!
~ Linda
