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The Washington Star of January 2, 1861, revealed that President-Elect Abraham
Lincoln and Vice President-Elect Hannibal Hamlin had "received anonymous letters
threatening violent opposition to their inauguration." Rumors circulated through the
nation's capital: "The damned abolitionist has been elected but he will never be
president."
On February 11, 1861, two days after the formation of the Confederate States of
America in Montgomery, Alabama, President-elect Abraham Lincoln stood on the
back of a railroad car and bid farewell to Springfield, Illinois, where he had lived for
seventeen years: "I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return.."
Lincoln headed East, on a route that would pass through Syracuse, Albany, New
York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, to become president of a nation on the verge of
Civil War.
At this juncture of the story, there enters a "third gentleman" of Homer whose role was
pivotal. Without him, there would be no connection between Lincoln and the "two
gentlemen of Homer," Carpenter and Stoddard. Indeed, without this "third gentleman"
there would have been no President Lincoln and no reason to celebrate in 2009. The
"third gentleman" was Eli DeVoe. DeVoe, son of John and Helena Godwin DeVoe,
had been born in Homer, New York, in a log cabin, in 1809, the same year that
Abraham Lincoln had been born in a log cabin in Kentucky. Today, a New York
State historical marker is on the DeVoe birth site, near the Atwater Cemetery on
Route 41.
In response to rampant rumors that an attack would be made upon Lincoln along the
published route to Washington, detective Allen Pinkerton made investigations in
Baltimore, Maryland, a veritable caldron seething with anti-Lincoln sentiments.
Unknown to Pinkerton, in Baltimore, another detective, Devoe, traveling under the
name "Davis," with a fellow operative named Sampson, using the alias of "Thompson,"
had infiltrated a subversive anti-Lincoln cell. They learned the cell planned to detonate
an explosion on February 23, 1861, on the Gunpowder River Bridge and, during the
impending confusion, to kill Lincoln.
Because two sources, Pinkerton and DeVoe, independently corroborated the
reported assassination plot, Lincoln wisely agreed to participate in a plan to thwart it.
Escorted by Pinkerton, the President-Elect took another train into Washington. He
sneaked into the city, while Mary Todd Lincoln and the three Lincoln boys were
escorted through Baltimore on the special train without mishap.
Because the plot had been detected and had to be aborted, the subversive cell sought
to ferret out the informant in their midst. Suspicions had been aroused when a letter
was discovered. Mrs. DeVoe indiscreetly had mailed a letter to her husband. It was
addressed to his assumed name, but it bore a New York postmark. This did not
dovetail with DeVoe's claim to be from Mobile, Alabama. Realizing the grave danger
they were in, DeVoe and Sampson disguised themselves and made a hasty retreat,
leaving behind their baggage at the hotel. Followed to Washington by members of the
subversive gang, DeVoe and Sampson experienced two close calls but narrowly
escaped through the assistance of a fellow detective.
DeVoe entered the government's Secret Service and served through the Civil War.
Ironically, it was DeVoe who was present at the arrest of Mary Surratt and Lewis
Paine Powell in 1865 for being accomplices in John Wilkes Booth's successful
assassination of President Lincoln. Unlike Carpenter and Stoddard, who lived very
public existences and left historians with a useful paper trail, DeVoe's work was in the
shadowy world of secrets and covert operations. Hence, little has been known about
him, until after his death in 1874, when an article was published describing his role in
thwarting the plot to kill Lincoln. DeVoe was the stereotypical "unsung hero," working
quietly and professionally behind the scenes and at great personal risk. This
courageous son of Homer deserves recognition as one of those indispensable "dots"
connected to Lincoln.
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