Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm to bling a chalk reboarding and I'm out. And
Speaker 1: a couple of months ago, we put out a call
Speaker 1: for Civil War podcast ideas since it is the one
Speaker 1: and fiftieth anniversary of the Civil War and all, and
Speaker 1: listeners have actually sent us some really cool suggestions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have quite a list going, and we don't want
Speaker 1: you guys to think that we haven't looked at them.
Speaker 1: We're looking at them and just trying to figure out
Speaker 1: the best way to sort of organize them and approach
Speaker 1: them in a way that makes sense. But luckily, the
Speaker 1: observance of this anniversary is going on for the next
Speaker 1: four years or so, so we'll have plenty of time
Speaker 1: to sift through them and address some of those requests
Speaker 1: as we go along. In the meantime, though, we wanted
Speaker 1: to go ahead and take a look at some interesting
Speaker 1: characters who participated in a side of the Civil War
Speaker 1: that we are particularly fascinated by, and that's espionage. Who
Speaker 1: isn't fascinated by espionage? Yeah, it was actually something of
Speaker 1: an evolving art during the Civil War, but it became
Speaker 1: invaluable for for political and military strategy at the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at the time, though, espionage wasn't something that was taught
Speaker 1: at military academies like West Point, I mean, obviously if
Speaker 1: it was evolving, So spying was mostly left up to civilians.
Speaker 1: Like this episode subject Alan Pinkerton, and he essentially organized
Speaker 1: the first Union espionage. So he's a really interesting character
Speaker 1: in that sense. But his work around this time was
Speaker 1: essentially the foundation for the U. S Secret Service as well,
Speaker 1: So he's got a dual role going already. And if
Speaker 1: you haven't heard of him because of his connections to
Speaker 1: the Civil War, you might have heard of his work
Speaker 1: as a private detective. Some people call him the world's
Speaker 1: first private eye. That's probably a bit of an exaggeration, um,
Speaker 1: but there were definitely private detectives before. Still, though Pinkerton
Speaker 1: did have a unique style, he certainly helped develop the
Speaker 1: art of being a private eye. He did, and he
Speaker 1: also founded the country's first national detective agency, Pinkerton's National
Speaker 1: Detective Agency, which became quite successful and famous, and its
Speaker 1: organizational structure was actually used as a model for the
Speaker 1: Federal Bureau of Investigation the FBI, So several of the
Speaker 1: agency's assignments catching outlaws of the wild West and some
Speaker 1: strike breaking cases as well, would make great podcast topics,
Speaker 1: but here, for time's sake, we're just going to focus
Speaker 1: on his involvement with the war. But first, how did
Speaker 1: he become a spy in the first place? He literally
Speaker 1: stumbled into it, as as we're going to find out.
Speaker 1: So we have one version of Pinkerton's early years that's
Speaker 1: generally accepted, even though not everyone goes along with that.
Speaker 1: For instance, Bruce Jurry, who edited an anthology of Pinkerton's
Speaker 1: autobiographical writings, said, quote, Pinkerton conflated stories and contradicted himself
Speaker 1: all the time, So it makes him an interesting guy,
Speaker 1: but it also makes it sort of tough to to
Speaker 1: try him. Yeah, that's true, and so some of these
Speaker 1: details might be embellished, but here are some of the
Speaker 1: basics that most sources accept as fact. Pickerton was born
Speaker 1: in Glasgow, Scotland, on August eighteen nineteen. His father was
Speaker 1: a police sergeant who died when Alan was young, leaving
Speaker 1: the family in a pretty bad position money wise. So
Speaker 1: Alan was apprenticed to a cooper or a barrel maker
Speaker 1: by age fifteen and that's how he made a living.
Speaker 1: So just an aside here, just to show you how
Speaker 1: sources can differ and why some people aren't really sure
Speaker 1: if he embellished or not. Some sources say that his
Speaker 1: father lived till eighteen forty one, so that wouldn't have
Speaker 1: supporting family exactly, and was a weaver instead of a
Speaker 1: police sergeant, so some details may have been changed here,
Speaker 1: But regardless, Pinkerton became involved with a militant labor group
Speaker 1: known as the Chartists, who sought political and social reform.
Speaker 1: His involvement in Chartism actually led the authorities to issue
Speaker 1: a warrant for his arrest, so he ended up having
Speaker 1: to escape to American in eighteen forty two along with
Speaker 1: his new wife Joe and Carfrey. And this was supposedly
Speaker 1: on the very day that of their wedding that they
Speaker 1: had to do this, that they had to flee. So
Speaker 1: pretty dramatic honeymoon. Yeah, dramatic and also maybe a little
Speaker 1: bit exaggerated. Um. So, the first US city that Pinkerton
Speaker 1: lived in was Chicago, and the next year he moved
Speaker 1: to a town called Dundee, Illinois. It's about forty miles away,
Speaker 1: and he set up a successful Cooper business. There a shop,
Speaker 1: and one day in around eighteen forty eighteen forty seven,
Speaker 1: he was out chopping wood on a deserted island on
Speaker 1: a nearby river. So obviously, if you're making barrels, you
Speaker 1: need wood to make them with. And some people said
Speaker 1: that Pinkerton was was thrifty and he didn't want to
Speaker 1: pay for wood for barrel staves, so he went chopped
Speaker 1: at town himself. But regardless, he's out on this island
Speaker 1: and while he's there, he discovered a gang of counterfeiters
Speaker 1: and they didn't see him, so he went back to
Speaker 1: town and he got the sheriff. The sheriff was able
Speaker 1: to catch the gang red handed, and after that, the
Speaker 1: sheriff offered him a job. Good discovery, I guess yeah.
Speaker 1: He was offered the position of deputy Sheriff of Kane County,
Speaker 1: so it was sort of a side gig for him.
Speaker 1: He still had his Cooper business um, although after a
Speaker 1: few more successful cases, he was able to sell that
Speaker 1: business and moved to Chicago to pursue a career. It's
Speaker 1: a full time private detective. Sounds like a movie beginning, right,
Speaker 1: It really does, But initially most of Pinkerton's clients where
Speaker 1: government agencies, so it's not like glamorous as you're you're thinking, right.
Speaker 1: For example, one of his clients was the U. S.
Speaker 1: Treasury Department. They hired him to find other counterfeitter gangs.
Speaker 1: They figured, hey, he's good at this, let's let's put
Speaker 1: him on the case. Um. The US Post Office also
Speaker 1: had him looking into mail theft, and the Sheriff of
Speaker 1: Cook County enlisted his help in some of his toughest cases,
Speaker 1: so he eventually also appointed him Deputy Sheriff of Cook County. Um.
Speaker 1: He still did private work on side as well too, though,
Speaker 1: so we've got a lot of different gigs going on.
Speaker 1: But by eighteen fifty five, Pingerton left the police Force
Speaker 1: to start the Northwest Police Agency, which was a private
Speaker 1: detective agency that was really the first of its kind.
Speaker 1: It had a sign with a wide open eye on
Speaker 1: it that became its symbol, So are a real private
Speaker 1: eye kind of deal. And you can google it symbol.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can look it up and see it
Speaker 1: and you'll probably be like, oh, yeah, I've seen that
Speaker 1: before definitely, And I mean the company's slogan to you've
Speaker 1: probably heard that. It's we never sleep, So he's this
Speaker 1: this is sort of laying the foundations for for what
Speaker 1: we think of as private detectives for sure. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: he is a detective at this point and also a
Speaker 1: sort of businessman. He's growing into that role as well.
Speaker 1: And at first it was just Pinkerton and about three
Speaker 1: to five other employees, and they were specialized in railway
Speaker 1: theft cases in Illinois specifically at that time, most of
Speaker 1: the state's railroads ran through the countryside where the police
Speaker 1: really couldn't protect them or prevent employee theft, so they
Speaker 1: could be held up, or or somebody working on board
Speaker 1: the train could steal, yeah, could take some of whatever
Speaker 1: they were shipping, you know, in their freight cars, or
Speaker 1: you know, pill for ticket money. As we'll see, the
Speaker 1: detectives they did their work disguised as passengers, since many
Speaker 1: of the trains did have both passenger and freight cars.
Speaker 1: And right away they caught a conductor who was pocketing
Speaker 1: money as we mentioned, and railroad employees unloading merchandise in
Speaker 1: the middle of nowhere. So that's how they would steal
Speaker 1: stuff without people detecting them. That's the equivalent of it
Speaker 1: dropped off the back of the track right, So railroad
Speaker 1: workers obviously hated them, but owners began to rely on them,
Speaker 1: and by eighteen sixty one, Pinkerton and his men had
Speaker 1: been employed to police railroads and other states too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it was while he was out on one of
Speaker 1: those out of state jobs, investigating threats by satners against
Speaker 1: a Northern railroad company in Philadelphia, that Pinkerton overheard a
Speaker 1: piece of information that eventually led to his involvement in
Speaker 1: the Civil War. Or did he the crux of the
Speaker 1: matter here, Yeah, because it's still for to be whether
Speaker 1: Pinkerton's story was actually true. But in January eighteen sixty one,
Speaker 1: he claimed that he heard rumors of a plot to
Speaker 1: assassinate President elect Abraham Lincoln. Supposedly a group of young
Speaker 1: Southern slave owners calling themselves the Knights of the Golden Circle,
Speaker 1: planned to shoot Lincoln in February eighteen sixty one as
Speaker 1: he passed through Baltimore on his way to Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: The existence of that plot, though, has never been proven. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it really proved to be uh kind of an embarrassment.
Speaker 1: As we're going to find out that Pinkerton convinced Lincoln's
Speaker 1: advisors to have Lincoln change his plans and travel Incongnito
Speaker 1: on a different train in the middle of the night
Speaker 1: and Pinkerton Road shotgun in the caboose, and he had
Speaker 1: agents placed at all the bridges and the major crossings,
Speaker 1: and they'd give him all clear signals with lanterns, so
Speaker 1: too long flashes, a pause, and then two more flashes,
Speaker 1: and the train did arrive safely in Washington. But people
Speaker 1: weren't really impressed, or at least not everyone was impressed,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people saw Lincoln's actions as cowardly,
Speaker 1: just kind of silly, and just when they wanted to
Speaker 1: have a courageous, dignified leader, they have this guy traveling
Speaker 1: in disguise, and of course, you know, we don't. We
Speaker 1: don't think anything of something like this. Now, of course
Speaker 1: you would, you would try to protect the candidate, and
Speaker 1: you would recognize any threat, even if you don't know
Speaker 1: what's necessarily behind it, but not at this time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: people made fun of them. And it's unclear whether he
Speaker 1: I don't know if he was actually traveling in disguise,
Speaker 1: but newspapers reported that he was because he showed up
Speaker 1: in a soft wool hat instead of a stovepipe when
Speaker 1: he got off at Washington got off the train, and
Speaker 1: so people when people saw this, they spread the story
Speaker 1: that he was wearing a Scotch cap and a plaid shawl.
Speaker 1: And Pinkerton's code message back to Harrisburg was pretty laughable
Speaker 1: too at the time. It said, quote plums delivered nuts safely,
Speaker 1: Pinkerton being the plums and Lincoln being the nuts. So
Speaker 1: it's still pretty laughable. The worst code ever, I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't really go along with a serious covert operation.
Speaker 1: But it also didn't help that they weren't able to
Speaker 1: prove that there was a real threat. The mayor of Baltimore,
Speaker 1: for example, had the rumors investigated and said that they
Speaker 1: were baseless. So what really happened here? Somethink that Pinkerton
Speaker 1: just made the whole thing up to get a little
Speaker 1: bit of glory. Still, others, however, including Dorothea Dix and
Speaker 1: some detectives from New York City who came down to
Speaker 1: investigate the situation, thought that Lincoln was really wise to
Speaker 1: do what he did. I mean, whether, yeah, whether the
Speaker 1: threats are serious enough, it's better to stay on the
Speaker 1: safe side. But Lincoln was still pretty embarrassed by the
Speaker 1: whole thing, maybe especially the information about the Shawl, even
Speaker 1: if that was made up, But he didn't take it
Speaker 1: out on Pinkerton. You'd think maybe he just wouldn't trust
Speaker 1: that guy anymore, and instead he gave the detective another opportunity,
Speaker 1: in fact, a much grander opportunity. Yeah. So that April,
Speaker 1: after the attack on Fort Sumter, Lincoln asked Pinkerton to
Speaker 1: organize a federal secret service, which was basically a network
Speaker 1: of spies that could have inform on Southern sympathizers around Washington.
Speaker 1: And they were really good at us. For example, Pinkerton
Speaker 1: caught a Southern spy and socialite named Rose O'Neill greenhow
Speaker 1: who had been gleaning vital information from her suitor at
Speaker 1: the time, Senator Henry Wilson of the Military Affairs Committee.
Speaker 1: When it came to military work, though, Pinkerton's secret Service
Speaker 1: was a much less effective. He directed intelligence operations for
Speaker 1: General George B. McClellan, who I'm sure all of you
Speaker 1: guys have heard of. After McClellan assumed command of the
Speaker 1: Army of the Potomac. Yeah, and McClellan had already known Pinkerton.
Speaker 1: He knew him from his role as a railroad executive
Speaker 1: before the Civil War, but he didn't get such a
Speaker 1: great reputation as a commander McClellan. That is, a lot
Speaker 1: of people thought that he was overly cautious. You know,
Speaker 1: he had built this great grand army and he kind
Speaker 1: of just wanted to keep it together and not go
Speaker 1: out and use it. He was also judged for always
Speaker 1: seeming to be running away from the n ME instead
Speaker 1: of running toward them and engaging them. Yeah, he seemed anxious.
Speaker 1: I mean, others who commented thought that he almost was
Speaker 1: looking for any reason not to confront the enemy. And um,
Speaker 1: it seems like Pinkerton kind of gave it to him,
Speaker 1: So it probably wasn't entirely his fault. He had asked
Speaker 1: for these reports from Pinkerton's secret service so that so
Speaker 1: that McClellan would know the size of the approaching Confederate armies,
Speaker 1: and according to an article by Lloyd Lewis and the
Speaker 1: Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, the statements Pinkerton
Speaker 1: turned in usually overestimated the enemy's strength by about a
Speaker 1: hundred percent. For example, on June, Pinkerton estimated the enemy
Speaker 1: at two hundred thousand men, when actually it was only
Speaker 1: like eighty thousand. Yeah, so that makes you reconsider McClellan's
Speaker 1: cautious reputation a little bit. He's getting numbers like that,
Speaker 1: so we have to wonder why did Pinkerton mess up
Speaker 1: so badly? However, those numbers so far off, and Lloyd
Speaker 1: theorizes that it's because Pinkerton was inexperienced in war, and
Speaker 1: he also hadn't yet established the organizational system that would
Speaker 1: become the true hallmark of his agency. And eventually that
Speaker 1: organization system was used by all military intelligence operations, and
Speaker 1: it had to do with assembling a lot of small
Speaker 1: details which, put together, could solve a mystery people. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is later, but Pinkerton's people would send in reports
Speaker 1: every single day from the field, and those reports were
Speaker 1: written out and filed systematically by clerks, you know, putting
Speaker 1: every single little piece together. So the inside of his
Speaker 1: agency almost looked like it was a big mail order,
Speaker 1: how stacked high with all of these papers and all
Speaker 1: of his filing going on. But he wasn't to that
Speaker 1: point during the time he was working for McClellan. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: either that or he just didn't apply this method to
Speaker 1: his work. In the war. We're not sure, but either way,
Speaker 1: Lincoln dismissed McClellan in eighteen sixty two and Pinkerton was replaced.
Speaker 1: He did a few things for the government during the
Speaker 1: war after that, but it was more about catching profiteers
Speaker 1: that sort of work. After this, Pinkerton mostly put his
Speaker 1: energies back into his agency, which he renamed Pinkerton's National
Speaker 1: Detective Agency. Okay, so his work in the war wasn't
Speaker 1: a complete success, but Pinkerton's detective business was very successful,
Speaker 1: especially when it came to protecting property and money, which
Speaker 1: is sort of how he started out in the first
Speaker 1: place with that counterfeiting gang. And we mentioned his work
Speaker 1: in the West earlier. His agents, who became widely known
Speaker 1: as the Pinkerton's hunted down wild West outlaws like Jesse
Speaker 1: James and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids, so you know,
Speaker 1: really big names and their work or the Pinkerton's work
Speaker 1: out there really helped curb that post war epidemic of
Speaker 1: train robbers too. So the law general lawlessness that was
Speaker 1: going on in the United States at the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and as America started industrializing, which was also what was
Speaker 1: going on at the time, Pinkerton's agents also started working
Speaker 1: for company bosses and against labor unions as strikebreakers. And
Speaker 1: this is kind of ironic because of Pinkerton's background as
Speaker 1: a chartist, But Pinkerton at this stage of the game
Speaker 1: saw strikes and riots as a threat to society. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Obviously an older man too, and in a different place
Speaker 1: in his life than he was back in Scotland. Yeah,
Speaker 1: his whole thing was about catching people who were doing
Speaker 1: things counter to society, you know, people he saw his enemies,
Speaker 1: bad guys, and to him, people who were striking, and
Speaker 1: a lot of times in those days strikings left to riots.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously they were considered enemies to him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And if we sort of consider his legacy as a
Speaker 1: whole to despite some of his choices and those questions
Speaker 1: about the validity of the Lincoln assassination threat, most considered
Speaker 1: Pinkerton to be really amazing at what he did and
Speaker 1: honest and diligent at his work too. He guaranteed to
Speaker 1: turn down any reward, he worked only for an agreed
Speaker 1: upon flat feet. So it reminded me a little of
Speaker 1: Eliot and Nass or someone you know can be bought
Speaker 1: and he didn't accept divorce cases because, according to Derry,
Speaker 1: he didn't want to quote go down into the sewers
Speaker 1: of humanity or quote have his men crawling around in
Speaker 1: the undergrowth like peeping tom. So he's certainly maybe even
Speaker 1: from a Civil war experience, he knew what he was
Speaker 1: good at and in the direction he was he was
Speaker 1: going to go. Yeah, and he also pioneered certain strategies
Speaker 1: that are now classic detective moves, like covert surveillance, which
Speaker 1: was referred to as shadowing, and the assumption of false identities,
Speaker 1: which now we know is working undercover. He also published
Speaker 1: eighteen books of memoir and he once wrote, quote the
Speaker 1: detective should be hearty, tough, and capable of laboring unknown
Speaker 1: to those about him. I shall not give up the
Speaker 1: fight with criminals to the bitter end. And Debiliana, you
Speaker 1: and I were talking about these memoirs earlier, and while
Speaker 1: Pinkerton has a reputation as being one of the first
Speaker 1: private eyes, he said he also has sort of a
Speaker 1: reputation as helping start detective book too. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: the gist of this interview that I read with a jury,
Speaker 1: and he said, I think the way he put it
Speaker 1: was that Pinkerton can be considered not just the father
Speaker 1: of the detective, the detective, I should say, the modern detective.
Speaker 1: He can also be considered the father of the modern
Speaker 1: detective novel or detective memoirs. Yes, absolutely, Speaking of detective fiction,
Speaker 1: Pinkerton's agents have been featured over the years in various works,
Speaker 1: and for example, in a Sherlock Holmes story called The
Speaker 1: Valley of Fear. I know we have a lot of
Speaker 1: Sherlock Holmes fans since we did the Who Was the
Speaker 1: Real Sherlock Holmes podcast a few months ago. Uh, And
Speaker 1: in later James Bond novels as well, there's a character
Speaker 1: called Felix Liter who works for Pinkerton's so it makes
Speaker 1: its appearance here and there. Yeah, And we were talking
Speaker 1: to you about how how different he is from the
Speaker 1: Sherlock Holmes inspiration. You know, he's not the intuitive type
Speaker 1: of detective. He's the smart kind of detective who sort
Speaker 1: of figures out these new methods like covert surveill and
Speaker 1: the assumption of false identities. You know, a different, different
Speaker 1: kind of man. Yeah. Well, I think since he, as
Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier, since he fell into his work, his
Speaker 1: line of work quite literally we don't have as much
Speaker 1: information about how he developed these skills of his. He
Speaker 1: just sort of became a detective and then he developed Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was just job one day, and then he developed
Speaker 1: these methods which were so unique at the time but
Speaker 1: have become so core to what we think of as
Speaker 1: the iconic detective. Yeah, for sure. So he died July one,
Speaker 1: eighty four, but his company is still around today. It's
Speaker 1: a subsidiary of Secure Toss, although now they are more
Speaker 1: of a of a security company, so not quite as
Speaker 1: detective sparring as as he might like to think. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: now we have the FBI and the Secret Service and
Speaker 1: all these other agencies, so we don't have a need
Speaker 1: really for all the private eyes. Yeah, for an agency
Speaker 1: as Pinkerton's was originally, But it's just another way that
Speaker 1: you might have heard Pinkerton's name if you haven't read
Speaker 1: about him in history books or read about him in novels.
Speaker 1: I think that's all the time we have for today
Speaker 1: to talk about Pinkerton, although I'm sure we'll get a
Speaker 1: chance to talk about them down the road. I mean
Speaker 1: the wild West stuff, especially my votes, my votes in
Speaker 1: that camp, Sarah's votes for the wild West stuff. I
Speaker 1: don't want to talk about the Molly McGuire's a secret
Speaker 1: society of coal miners, the Pinkerton's Men in full Traded
Speaker 1: and everything that went on with that, So definitely more
Speaker 1: material to delve into there. But if you have anything
Speaker 1: to contribute to this story that we talked about today,
Speaker 1: please write us. We're at History podcast at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. You can also look us up on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Miston History or on Facebook. And if you
Speaker 1: want to learn a little bit more about the Federal
Speaker 1: Bureau of Investigation, which we mentioned in close connection to
Speaker 1: Pinkerton and it's it's a history and it's operations today,
Speaker 1: you can look for it on our home page by
Speaker 1: searching for FBI at www dot how staff works dot com.
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