Downed by Kindness.
After defying a host of armed keepers, James Driscoll, in the Trenton, N. J. State prison succumbs to a gentle word.

One convict causes a great commotion in the Trenton (N. J.) State Prison, Tuesday week last. On the afternoon of that day the prison alarm signal was rung for the first time in many years, and deputy keepers and guards came. They found all the prisoners at work except James Driscoll, a powerful convict, who had been sent from Passaic for two years for burglary. He stood in one corner near the elevator, armed with a heavy chisel and a long needle. In from of him stood tow deputy keepers covering him with their heavy revolvers.

The other prisoner were removed from the shop and then the head keeper stepped up to Driscoll, around whom a dozen keepers were clustered with drawn revolvers. “Driscoll,” he said, “if you don’t lay those things down in five minutes we will shoot.”

“Shoot and be d—d. I will have one life anyway.” Replied Driscoll, doggedly. The keeper held his watch in his hand and told off the minutes as they passed.

“One—two—three—four—“ “Don’t shoot!” interposed Prison Inspector Cartwright, who was an eye-witness of the scene, and whose word is law in the prison. “Give him time to consider.”

Arguments were used in vain. Driscoll refusing to lay aside his weapons. Inspector Cartwright finally realized the extreme measures would have to be resorted to and started to leave the room, but as he closed the door he changed his mind and returned with the determination to prevent bloodshed.

“Hold on! Wait a moment,” he said, as he advanced toward Driscoll, despite the efforts of the keepers to restrain him. “Now, look here, young man,” said the inspector, he stood within five feet of the prisoner, “you are throwing your life away. Do you know me?”

“No, I don’t know you, and I don’t want to know you,” answered Driscoll, as he brandished his weapons.

“I am one of the inspectors and it is my duty to protect you. That is what I am here for. My name is Cartwright. “

If your name is Cartwright you have got a good name in this prison. If you will send these hounds away from here I will go anywhere with you.” Said Driscoll, taking both weapons in his left hand, and allowing the Inspector to take him by the right. After nearly every official had left the room, Driscoll laid down the weapons and waited quietly with the Inspector to the rotunda. Driscoll was then handcuffed and placed in the dungeon on bread and water. The immediate cause of Driscoll’s revolt was an order of Deputy Keeper Ashley for him to stop singing, which he refused to obey.

Driscoll has the reputation of being very unruly. He has served a term on Blackwell’s Island for burglary, and also ten years in Sing Sing for the same crime and shooting a policeman in New York.

Reprinted from The National Police Gazette, October 9, 1886.

This is believed to be the only photograph of Kate Warne, America’s first female detective  (standing behind Allan Pinkerton.)  

"She was above the medium height, slender, graceful in her movements, and perfectly self-possessed in her manner. I invited her to take a seat, and then observed that her features, although not what would be called handsome, were of a decidedly intellectual cast. Her eyes were very attractive, being dark blue, and filled with fire. She had a broad, honest face, which would cause one in distress instinctively to select her as a confidante, in whom to confide in time of sorrow, or from whom to seek consolation. She seemed possessed of the masculine attributes of firmness and decision, but to have brought all her faculties under complete control."

Kate Warne soon proved herself to be indispensable. In 1858 the Pinkerton Agency was hired by Adams Express in Montgomery, Alabama, to capture a thief who had stolen $40,000 from a locked pouch somewhere between Montgomery and Augusta, Georgia. Warne contributed to the case by gaining the confidence of Mrs. Nathan Maroney, wife of the suspected thief and obtaining information from her. The thief was convicted and all but $400 of the stolen money was recovered. The story was published by Pinkerton as The Expressman and the Detective, the first of series of books based on Pinkerton’s cases.

Kate Warne’s most important case was “The Baltimore Plot” to assassinate President Lincoln. The Pinkertons had been hired by the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, to investigate the possibility of sabotage by secessionist groups. Warne was one of five agents sent in February 1861 to Baltimore, a hotbed of secessionist activity. Posing as a wealthy southern belle, Kate Warne was able to infiltrate social gatherings. She acquired information confirming not only the secessionist’s plan to sabotage railroads but an imminent plot to assassinate the president in Baltimore.

President-elect Lincoln would be traveling from his home in Springfield, Illinois to Washington, D.C. for his inauguration. The trip involved changing trains in Baltimore, traveling about a mile by carriage between stations. This is when the assassins planned to strike. Dubious at first, the president was finally convinced by Pinkerton of the danger, but because of scheduled public ceremonies in Harrisburg and Philadelphia, he did not want to change his travel plans.

A new plan was put into place by the Pinkertons, including code names for the principals—Pinkerton was “Plums,” Lincoln was “Nuts,” Kate Warne used two aliases, Mrs. M. Barley (M.B.) and Mrs. Cherry. Warne made arrangements for the president, incognito, to take a different train from Philadelphia. President Lincoln disguised himself as an invalid, and Kate Warne posed as his sister. They had adjoining berths in the sleeping car out of Philadelphia. Warne remained awake and alert all night until the train reached Washington. Legend says that the Pinkertons’ motto “We Never Sleep,” was inspired by Kate Warne’s sleepless train ride.

Warne was an effective Union spy during the Civil War, and after the war continued as an active detective, as well as managing Pinkerton’s female detectives. Kate Warne and Allan Pinkerton would often pose as husband and wife during investigations, and it was rumored that they were also clandestine lovers. Kate Warne died suddenly of pneumonia in on January 28, 1868, with Pinkerton by her bedside. She was buried in Pinkerton’s family plot in Chicago’s Graceland Cemetery.

• American Civil War Espionage. Memphis: Books LLC, 2011.
• Mackay, James A.. Allan Pinkerton: the first private eye. New York: J. Wiley & Sons, 1997.
• Pinkerton, Allan. The expressman and the detectives. New York: G.W. Carleton, 1886.
• http://www.pimall.com/nais/pivintage/katewarne.html