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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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