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The inept, thuggish detectives who let Jesse James get away

In February 1861, President-elect Abraham Lincoln was scheduled to travel through Baltimore by train on his way from Harrisburg, Pa., to Washington, DC. Shortly before his departure, Lincoln was told of an assassination plot on his life.

Hatched by Southern sympathizers, the plan was to cause a commotion on the platform of the Baltimore train station. In the confusion, an assassin would try to get close to Lincoln and kill him. Lincoln dismissed the report, but he was eventually persuaded to switch trains in the dead of night. He was then spirited secretly into the capital.

The man who uncovered the plot? Allan Pinkerton, founder of the now-infamous Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency. His services to Lincoln that night would draw him close to the US government, allowing Pinkerton — armed with government contracts and support — to build his agency into a sprawling empire of espionage, protection, intimidation and even violence.

But was that empire built on a fantasy? Pinkerton may have cooked up the Lincoln assassination plot to further his career, according to a new book, “Inventing the Pinkertons; or Spies, Sleuths, Mercenaries, and Thugs” by S. Paul O’Hara.

“There is very little evidence of the plot. It’s all based on hearsay,” says O’Hara. In fact, there was as much bungling — including attempts to catch train robber Jesse James — as boasting in the Pinkerton spy trade. “But,” O’Hara points out, “perhaps better than any other businessman at the time, Pinkerton understood the power of perception, publicity and branding.”

By the end of the Civil War, during which his agency spied on the Confederacy for Lincoln, Pinkerton and his logo — the all-seeing eye — were famous throughout America. A “Pinkerton detective” was thought to be a moral guardian of law and order, even though Pinkerton’s business was, says O’Hara, “fairly disastrous. He screwed up a lot of cases, and much of his spying during the Civil War was questionable at best.”

A barrel maker by trade, Pinkerton was born in Glasgow, Scotland. He was a radical leftist, agitating for workers’ voting rights. When the authorities struck back, Pinkerton fled to Illinois. An accidental discovery of a ring of counterfeiters gave him a taste for spying.

His method was to surround a suspect with agents who posed as drinking buddies. When the suspect finally unburdened himself, the Pinkertons were there to hear it.

Jesse James, circa 1870Getty Images

One of the agency’s top employees, Kate Warne, was often deployed to befriend the wife of a suspect in the belief that women couldn’t keep secrets. But a lot of bad guys sleep well at night. And not all women blab. So Pinkerton’s methods hardly made him the 1800s version of Columbo.

Where he did score was with the railroads, which made him one of the richest men in America. After the Civil War, the railroads became mighty monopolies and needed to protect trains from robbers, like the crafty Jesse James.

“James outfoxed him all the time,” says O’Hara. On Jan. 25, 1875, Pinkerton agents descended on James’ farmhouse in Missouri in the middle of the night. The plan was to catch him fast asleep. Alas, for all of Pinkerton’s vaunted intelligence-gathering abilities, nobody bothered to tell him James wasn’t home.

By the end of the 19th century, many working-class Americans had come to despise the railroads, which drove farmers off their land and employed Pinkerton men to infiltrate and bust up unions.

Allan Pinkerton died in 1884. His sons, raised in privilege, aligned the company even more closely with big business. Soon, armed Pinkertons “became part of every [worker] strike, shooting into crowds, protecting capitalism,” says O’Hara.

From left to right, Henry Longabaugh (the Sundance Kid), Will “News” Carver, Ben Kilpatrick (the Tall Texan), Harvey Logan (Kid Curry), and Butch Cassidy.Provided by John Hopkins University Press

They overplayed their hand during the Homestead Strike of 1892, in Pennsylvania. Pinkerton men attacked striking steel workers, leaving several dead and injured.

The company staggered along, providing “private security” until it was bought in 1999 by Securitas, a Swedish security conglomerate. Now, the Pinkerton Web site boasts offices “all over the world.” It works in corporate risk management and mobilizes agents to help clients after natural disasters such as hurricanes Katrina and Sandy.

At least the Pinkerton all-seeing eye isn’t a black one anymore.