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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm to bling a chalk reboarding and I'm out. And

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Speaker 1: a couple of months ago, we put out a call

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Speaker 1: for Civil War podcast ideas since it is the one

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Speaker 1: and fiftieth anniversary of the Civil War and all, and

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Speaker 1: listeners have actually sent us some really cool suggestions. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we have quite a list going, and we don't want

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Speaker 1: you guys to think that we haven't looked at them.

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Speaker 1: We're looking at them and just trying to figure out

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Speaker 1: the best way to sort of organize them and approach

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Speaker 1: them in a way that makes sense. But luckily, the

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Speaker 1: observance of this anniversary is going on for the next

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Speaker 1: four years or so, so we'll have plenty of time

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Speaker 1: to sift through them and address some of those requests

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Speaker 1: as we go along. In the meantime, though, we wanted

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Speaker 1: to go ahead and take a look at some interesting

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Speaker 1: characters who participated in a side of the Civil War

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Speaker 1: that we are particularly fascinated by, and that's espionage. Who

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Speaker 1: isn't fascinated by espionage? Yeah, it was actually something of

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Speaker 1: an evolving art during the Civil War, but it became

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Speaker 1: invaluable for for political and military strategy at the time. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: at the time, though, espionage wasn't something that was taught

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Speaker 1: at military academies like West Point, I mean, obviously if

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Speaker 1: it was evolving, So spying was mostly left up to civilians.

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Speaker 1: Like this episode subject Alan Pinkerton, and he essentially organized

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Speaker 1: the first Union espionage. So he's a really interesting character

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Speaker 1: in that sense. But his work around this time was

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Speaker 1: essentially the foundation for the U. S Secret Service as well,

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Speaker 1: So he's got a dual role going already. And if

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Speaker 1: you haven't heard of him because of his connections to

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Speaker 1: the Civil War, you might have heard of his work

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Speaker 1: as a private detective. Some people call him the world's

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Speaker 1: first private eye. That's probably a bit of an exaggeration, um,

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Speaker 1: but there were definitely private detectives before. Still, though Pinkerton

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Speaker 1: did have a unique style, he certainly helped develop the

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Speaker 1: art of being a private eye. He did, and he

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Speaker 1: also founded the country's first national detective agency, Pinkerton's National

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Speaker 1: Detective Agency, which became quite successful and famous, and its

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Speaker 1: organizational structure was actually used as a model for the

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Speaker 1: Federal Bureau of Investigation the FBI, So several of the

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Speaker 1: agency's assignments catching outlaws of the wild West and some

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Speaker 1: strike breaking cases as well, would make great podcast topics,

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Speaker 1: but here, for time's sake, we're just going to focus

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Speaker 1: on his involvement with the war. But first, how did

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Speaker 1: he become a spy in the first place? He literally

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Speaker 1: stumbled into it, as as we're going to find out.

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Speaker 1: So we have one version of Pinkerton's early years that's

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Speaker 1: generally accepted, even though not everyone goes along with that.

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Speaker 1: For instance, Bruce Jurry, who edited an anthology of Pinkerton's

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Speaker 1: autobiographical writings, said, quote, Pinkerton conflated stories and contradicted himself

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Speaker 1: all the time, So it makes him an interesting guy,

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Speaker 1: but it also makes it sort of tough to to

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Speaker 1: try him. Yeah, that's true, and so some of these

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Speaker 1: details might be embellished, but here are some of the

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Speaker 1: basics that most sources accept as fact. Pickerton was born

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Speaker 1: in Glasgow, Scotland, on August eighteen nineteen. His father was

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Speaker 1: a police sergeant who died when Alan was young, leaving

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Speaker 1: the family in a pretty bad position money wise. So

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Speaker 1: Alan was apprenticed to a cooper or a barrel maker

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Speaker 1: by age fifteen and that's how he made a living.

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Speaker 1: So just an aside here, just to show you how

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Speaker 1: sources can differ and why some people aren't really sure

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Speaker 1: if he embellished or not. Some sources say that his

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Speaker 1: father lived till eighteen forty one, so that wouldn't have

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Speaker 1: supporting family exactly, and was a weaver instead of a

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Speaker 1: police sergeant, so some details may have been changed here,

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Speaker 1: But regardless, Pinkerton became involved with a militant labor group

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Speaker 1: known as the Chartists, who sought political and social reform.

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Speaker 1: His involvement in Chartism actually led the authorities to issue

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Speaker 1: a warrant for his arrest, so he ended up having

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Speaker 1: to escape to American in eighteen forty two along with

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Speaker 1: his new wife Joe and Carfrey. And this was supposedly

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Speaker 1: on the very day that of their wedding that they

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Speaker 1: had to do this, that they had to flee. So

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Speaker 1: pretty dramatic honeymoon. Yeah, dramatic and also maybe a little

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Speaker 1: bit exaggerated. Um. So, the first US city that Pinkerton

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Speaker 1: lived in was Chicago, and the next year he moved

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Speaker 1: to a town called Dundee, Illinois. It's about forty miles away,

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Speaker 1: and he set up a successful Cooper business. There a shop,

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Speaker 1: and one day in around eighteen forty eighteen forty seven,

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Speaker 1: he was out chopping wood on a deserted island on

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Speaker 1: a nearby river. So obviously, if you're making barrels, you

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Speaker 1: need wood to make them with. And some people said

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Speaker 1: that Pinkerton was was thrifty and he didn't want to

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Speaker 1: pay for wood for barrel staves, so he went chopped

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Speaker 1: at town himself. But regardless, he's out on this island

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Speaker 1: and while he's there, he discovered a gang of counterfeiters

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Speaker 1: and they didn't see him, so he went back to

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Speaker 1: town and he got the sheriff. The sheriff was able

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Speaker 1: to catch the gang red handed, and after that, the

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Speaker 1: sheriff offered him a job. Good discovery, I guess yeah.

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Speaker 1: He was offered the position of deputy Sheriff of Kane County,

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Speaker 1: so it was sort of a side gig for him.

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Speaker 1: He still had his Cooper business um, although after a

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Speaker 1: few more successful cases, he was able to sell that

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Speaker 1: business and moved to Chicago to pursue a career. It's

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Speaker 1: a full time private detective. Sounds like a movie beginning, right,

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Speaker 1: It really does, But initially most of Pinkerton's clients where

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Speaker 1: government agencies, so it's not like glamorous as you're you're thinking, right.

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Speaker 1: For example, one of his clients was the U. S.

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Speaker 1: Treasury Department. They hired him to find other counterfeitter gangs.

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Speaker 1: They figured, hey, he's good at this, let's let's put

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Speaker 1: him on the case. Um. The US Post Office also

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Speaker 1: had him looking into mail theft, and the Sheriff of

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Speaker 1: Cook County enlisted his help in some of his toughest cases,

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Speaker 1: so he eventually also appointed him Deputy Sheriff of Cook County. Um.

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Speaker 1: He still did private work on side as well too, though,

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Speaker 1: so we've got a lot of different gigs going on.

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Speaker 1: But by eighteen fifty five, Pingerton left the police Force

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Speaker 1: to start the Northwest Police Agency, which was a private

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Speaker 1: detective agency that was really the first of its kind.

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Speaker 1: It had a sign with a wide open eye on

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Speaker 1: it that became its symbol, So are a real private

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Speaker 1: eye kind of deal. And you can google it symbol.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you can look it up and see it

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Speaker 1: and you'll probably be like, oh, yeah, I've seen that

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Speaker 1: before definitely, And I mean the company's slogan to you've

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Speaker 1: probably heard that. It's we never sleep, So he's this

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Speaker 1: this is sort of laying the foundations for for what

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Speaker 1: we think of as private detectives for sure. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: he is a detective at this point and also a

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Speaker 1: sort of businessman. He's growing into that role as well.

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Speaker 1: And at first it was just Pinkerton and about three

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Speaker 1: to five other employees, and they were specialized in railway

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Speaker 1: theft cases in Illinois specifically at that time, most of

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Speaker 1: the state's railroads ran through the countryside where the police

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Speaker 1: really couldn't protect them or prevent employee theft, so they

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Speaker 1: could be held up, or or somebody working on board

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Speaker 1: the train could steal, yeah, could take some of whatever

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Speaker 1: they were shipping, you know, in their freight cars, or

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Speaker 1: you know, pill for ticket money. As we'll see, the

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Speaker 1: detectives they did their work disguised as passengers, since many

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Speaker 1: of the trains did have both passenger and freight cars.

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Speaker 1: And right away they caught a conductor who was pocketing

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Speaker 1: money as we mentioned, and railroad employees unloading merchandise in

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Speaker 1: the middle of nowhere. So that's how they would steal

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Speaker 1: stuff without people detecting them. That's the equivalent of it

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Speaker 1: dropped off the back of the track right, So railroad

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Speaker 1: workers obviously hated them, but owners began to rely on them,

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Speaker 1: and by eighteen sixty one, Pinkerton and his men had

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Speaker 1: been employed to police railroads and other states too. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it was while he was out on one of

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Speaker 1: those out of state jobs, investigating threats by satners against

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Speaker 1: a Northern railroad company in Philadelphia, that Pinkerton overheard a

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Speaker 1: piece of information that eventually led to his involvement in

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Speaker 1: the Civil War. Or did he the crux of the

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Speaker 1: matter here, Yeah, because it's still for to be whether

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Speaker 1: Pinkerton's story was actually true. But in January eighteen sixty one,

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Speaker 1: he claimed that he heard rumors of a plot to

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Speaker 1: assassinate President elect Abraham Lincoln. Supposedly a group of young

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Speaker 1: Southern slave owners calling themselves the Knights of the Golden Circle,

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Speaker 1: planned to shoot Lincoln in February eighteen sixty one as

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Speaker 1: he passed through Baltimore on his way to Washington, d C.

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Speaker 1: The existence of that plot, though, has never been proven. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it really proved to be uh kind of an embarrassment.

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Speaker 1: As we're going to find out that Pinkerton convinced Lincoln's

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Speaker 1: advisors to have Lincoln change his plans and travel Incongnito

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Speaker 1: on a different train in the middle of the night

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Speaker 1: and Pinkerton Road shotgun in the caboose, and he had

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Speaker 1: agents placed at all the bridges and the major crossings,

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Speaker 1: and they'd give him all clear signals with lanterns, so

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Speaker 1: too long flashes, a pause, and then two more flashes,

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Speaker 1: and the train did arrive safely in Washington. But people

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Speaker 1: weren't really impressed, or at least not everyone was impressed,

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Speaker 1: and a lot of people saw Lincoln's actions as cowardly,

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Speaker 1: just kind of silly, and just when they wanted to

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Speaker 1: have a courageous, dignified leader, they have this guy traveling

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Speaker 1: in disguise, and of course, you know, we don't. We

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Speaker 1: don't think anything of something like this. Now, of course

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Speaker 1: you would, you would try to protect the candidate, and

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Speaker 1: you would recognize any threat, even if you don't know

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Speaker 1: what's necessarily behind it, but not at this time. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: people made fun of them. And it's unclear whether he

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Speaker 1: I don't know if he was actually traveling in disguise,

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Speaker 1: but newspapers reported that he was because he showed up

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Speaker 1: in a soft wool hat instead of a stovepipe when

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Speaker 1: he got off at Washington got off the train, and

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Speaker 1: so people when people saw this, they spread the story

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Speaker 1: that he was wearing a Scotch cap and a plaid shawl.

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Speaker 1: And Pinkerton's code message back to Harrisburg was pretty laughable

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Speaker 1: too at the time. It said, quote plums delivered nuts safely,

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Speaker 1: Pinkerton being the plums and Lincoln being the nuts. So

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Speaker 1: it's still pretty laughable. The worst code ever, I think, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't really go along with a serious covert operation.

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Speaker 1: But it also didn't help that they weren't able to

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Speaker 1: prove that there was a real threat. The mayor of Baltimore,

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Speaker 1: for example, had the rumors investigated and said that they

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Speaker 1: were baseless. So what really happened here? Somethink that Pinkerton

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Speaker 1: just made the whole thing up to get a little

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Speaker 1: bit of glory. Still, others, however, including Dorothea Dix and

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Speaker 1: some detectives from New York City who came down to

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Speaker 1: investigate the situation, thought that Lincoln was really wise to

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Speaker 1: do what he did. I mean, whether, yeah, whether the

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Speaker 1: threats are serious enough, it's better to stay on the

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Speaker 1: safe side. But Lincoln was still pretty embarrassed by the

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Speaker 1: whole thing, maybe especially the information about the Shawl, even

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Speaker 1: if that was made up, But he didn't take it

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Speaker 1: out on Pinkerton. You'd think maybe he just wouldn't trust

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Speaker 1: that guy anymore, and instead he gave the detective another opportunity,

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Speaker 1: in fact, a much grander opportunity. Yeah. So that April,

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Speaker 1: after the attack on Fort Sumter, Lincoln asked Pinkerton to

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Speaker 1: organize a federal secret service, which was basically a network

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Speaker 1: of spies that could have inform on Southern sympathizers around Washington.

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Speaker 1: And they were really good at us. For example, Pinkerton

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Speaker 1: caught a Southern spy and socialite named Rose O'Neill greenhow

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Speaker 1: who had been gleaning vital information from her suitor at

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Speaker 1: the time, Senator Henry Wilson of the Military Affairs Committee.

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Speaker 1: When it came to military work, though, Pinkerton's secret Service

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Speaker 1: was a much less effective. He directed intelligence operations for

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Speaker 1: General George B. McClellan, who I'm sure all of you

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Speaker 1: guys have heard of. After McClellan assumed command of the

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Speaker 1: Army of the Potomac. Yeah, and McClellan had already known Pinkerton.

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Speaker 1: He knew him from his role as a railroad executive

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Speaker 1: before the Civil War, but he didn't get such a

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Speaker 1: great reputation as a commander McClellan. That is, a lot

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Speaker 1: of people thought that he was overly cautious. You know,

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Speaker 1: he had built this great grand army and he kind

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Speaker 1: of just wanted to keep it together and not go

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Speaker 1: out and use it. He was also judged for always

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Speaker 1: seeming to be running away from the n ME instead

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Speaker 1: of running toward them and engaging them. Yeah, he seemed anxious.

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Speaker 1: I mean, others who commented thought that he almost was

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Speaker 1: looking for any reason not to confront the enemy. And um,

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Speaker 1: it seems like Pinkerton kind of gave it to him,

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Speaker 1: So it probably wasn't entirely his fault. He had asked

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Speaker 1: for these reports from Pinkerton's secret service so that so

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Speaker 1: that McClellan would know the size of the approaching Confederate armies,

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Speaker 1: and according to an article by Lloyd Lewis and the

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Speaker 1: Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, the statements Pinkerton

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Speaker 1: turned in usually overestimated the enemy's strength by about a

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Speaker 1: hundred percent. For example, on June, Pinkerton estimated the enemy

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Speaker 1: at two hundred thousand men, when actually it was only

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Speaker 1: like eighty thousand. Yeah, so that makes you reconsider McClellan's

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Speaker 1: cautious reputation a little bit. He's getting numbers like that,

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Speaker 1: so we have to wonder why did Pinkerton mess up

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Speaker 1: so badly? However, those numbers so far off, and Lloyd

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Speaker 1: theorizes that it's because Pinkerton was inexperienced in war, and

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Speaker 1: he also hadn't yet established the organizational system that would

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Speaker 1: become the true hallmark of his agency. And eventually that

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Speaker 1: organization system was used by all military intelligence operations, and

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Speaker 1: it had to do with assembling a lot of small

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Speaker 1: details which, put together, could solve a mystery people. I mean,

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Speaker 1: this is later, but Pinkerton's people would send in reports

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Speaker 1: every single day from the field, and those reports were

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Speaker 1: written out and filed systematically by clerks, you know, putting

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Speaker 1: every single little piece together. So the inside of his

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Speaker 1: agency almost looked like it was a big mail order,

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Speaker 1: how stacked high with all of these papers and all

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Speaker 1: of his filing going on. But he wasn't to that

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Speaker 1: point during the time he was working for McClellan. Yeah. Well,

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Speaker 1: either that or he just didn't apply this method to

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Speaker 1: his work. In the war. We're not sure, but either way,

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Speaker 1: Lincoln dismissed McClellan in eighteen sixty two and Pinkerton was replaced.

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Speaker 1: He did a few things for the government during the

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Speaker 1: war after that, but it was more about catching profiteers

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Speaker 1: that sort of work. After this, Pinkerton mostly put his

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Speaker 1: energies back into his agency, which he renamed Pinkerton's National

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Speaker 1: Detective Agency. Okay, so his work in the war wasn't

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Speaker 1: a complete success, but Pinkerton's detective business was very successful,

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Speaker 1: especially when it came to protecting property and money, which

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Speaker 1: is sort of how he started out in the first

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Speaker 1: place with that counterfeiting gang. And we mentioned his work

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Speaker 1: in the West earlier. His agents, who became widely known

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Speaker 1: as the Pinkerton's hunted down wild West outlaws like Jesse

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Speaker 1: James and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids, so you know,

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Speaker 1: really big names and their work or the Pinkerton's work

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Speaker 1: out there really helped curb that post war epidemic of

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Speaker 1: train robbers too. So the law general lawlessness that was

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Speaker 1: going on in the United States at the time. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and as America started industrializing, which was also what was

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Speaker 1: going on at the time, Pinkerton's agents also started working

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Speaker 1: for company bosses and against labor unions as strikebreakers. And

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Speaker 1: this is kind of ironic because of Pinkerton's background as

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Speaker 1: a chartist, But Pinkerton at this stage of the game

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Speaker 1: saw strikes and riots as a threat to society. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Obviously an older man too, and in a different place

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Speaker 1: in his life than he was back in Scotland. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: his whole thing was about catching people who were doing

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Speaker 1: things counter to society, you know, people he saw his enemies,

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Speaker 1: bad guys, and to him, people who were striking, and

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Speaker 1: a lot of times in those days strikings left to riots.

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Speaker 1: I mean, obviously they were considered enemies to him. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And if we sort of consider his legacy as a

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Speaker 1: whole to despite some of his choices and those questions

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Speaker 1: about the validity of the Lincoln assassination threat, most considered

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Speaker 1: Pinkerton to be really amazing at what he did and

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Speaker 1: honest and diligent at his work too. He guaranteed to

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Speaker 1: turn down any reward, he worked only for an agreed

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Speaker 1: upon flat feet. So it reminded me a little of

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Speaker 1: Eliot and Nass or someone you know can be bought

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Speaker 1: and he didn't accept divorce cases because, according to Derry,

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Speaker 1: he didn't want to quote go down into the sewers

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Speaker 1: of humanity or quote have his men crawling around in

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Speaker 1: the undergrowth like peeping tom. So he's certainly maybe even

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Speaker 1: from a Civil war experience, he knew what he was

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Speaker 1: good at and in the direction he was he was

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Speaker 1: going to go. Yeah, and he also pioneered certain strategies

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Speaker 1: that are now classic detective moves, like covert surveillance, which

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Speaker 1: was referred to as shadowing, and the assumption of false identities,

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Speaker 1: which now we know is working undercover. He also published

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Speaker 1: eighteen books of memoir and he once wrote, quote the

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Speaker 1: detective should be hearty, tough, and capable of laboring unknown

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Speaker 1: to those about him. I shall not give up the

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Speaker 1: fight with criminals to the bitter end. And Debiliana, you

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Speaker 1: and I were talking about these memoirs earlier, and while

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Speaker 1: Pinkerton has a reputation as being one of the first

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Speaker 1: private eyes, he said he also has sort of a

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Speaker 1: reputation as helping start detective book too. Yeah, that was

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Speaker 1: the gist of this interview that I read with a jury,

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Speaker 1: and he said, I think the way he put it

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Speaker 1: was that Pinkerton can be considered not just the father

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Speaker 1: of the detective, the detective, I should say, the modern detective.

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Speaker 1: He can also be considered the father of the modern

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Speaker 1: detective novel or detective memoirs. Yes, absolutely, Speaking of detective fiction,

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Speaker 1: Pinkerton's agents have been featured over the years in various works,

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Speaker 1: and for example, in a Sherlock Holmes story called The

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Speaker 1: Valley of Fear. I know we have a lot of

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Speaker 1: Sherlock Holmes fans since we did the Who Was the

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Speaker 1: Real Sherlock Holmes podcast a few months ago. Uh, And

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Speaker 1: in later James Bond novels as well, there's a character

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Speaker 1: called Felix Liter who works for Pinkerton's so it makes

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Speaker 1: its appearance here and there. Yeah, And we were talking

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Speaker 1: to you about how how different he is from the

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Speaker 1: Sherlock Holmes inspiration. You know, he's not the intuitive type

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Speaker 1: of detective. He's the smart kind of detective who sort

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Speaker 1: of figures out these new methods like covert surveill and

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Speaker 1: the assumption of false identities. You know, a different, different

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Speaker 1: kind of man. Yeah. Well, I think since he, as

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Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier, since he fell into his work, his

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Speaker 1: line of work quite literally we don't have as much

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Speaker 1: information about how he developed these skills of his. He

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Speaker 1: just sort of became a detective and then he developed Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was just job one day, and then he developed

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Speaker 1: these methods which were so unique at the time but

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Speaker 1: have become so core to what we think of as

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Speaker 1: the iconic detective. Yeah, for sure. So he died July one,

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Speaker 1: eighty four, but his company is still around today. It's

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Speaker 1: a subsidiary of Secure Toss, although now they are more

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Speaker 1: of a of a security company, so not quite as

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Speaker 1: detective sparring as as he might like to think. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: now we have the FBI and the Secret Service and

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Speaker 1: all these other agencies, so we don't have a need

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Speaker 1: really for all the private eyes. Yeah, for an agency

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Speaker 1: as Pinkerton's was originally, But it's just another way that

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Speaker 1: you might have heard Pinkerton's name if you haven't read

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Speaker 1: about him in history books or read about him in novels.

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Speaker 1: I think that's all the time we have for today

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Speaker 1: to talk about Pinkerton, although I'm sure we'll get a

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Speaker 1: chance to talk about them down the road. I mean

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Speaker 1: the wild West stuff, especially my votes, my votes in

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Speaker 1: that camp, Sarah's votes for the wild West stuff. I

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Speaker 1: don't want to talk about the Molly McGuire's a secret

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Speaker 1: society of coal miners, the Pinkerton's Men in full Traded

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Speaker 1: and everything that went on with that, So definitely more

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Speaker 1: material to delve into there. But if you have anything

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Speaker 1: to contribute to this story that we talked about today,

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Speaker 1: please write us. We're at History podcast at how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com. You can also look us up on

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Speaker 1: Twitter at Miston History or on Facebook. And if you

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Speaker 1: want to learn a little bit more about the Federal

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Speaker 1: Bureau of Investigation, which we mentioned in close connection to

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Speaker 1: Pinkerton and it's it's a history and it's operations today,

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Speaker 1: you can look for it on our home page by

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Speaker 1: searching for FBI at www dot how staff works dot com.

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