Pinkerton's War

Allan Pinkerton is best known for creating the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, which gained renown for solving train robberies in the 1850s and battling the labor movement in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. But the central drama of his career, and the focus of Pinkerton's War, was his work as protector of President Abraham Lincoln and as head of a network of Union spies (including himself!) who posed as Confederate soldiers and sympathizers in a deadly cat-and-mouse game.As told in riveting prose by author Jay Bonansinga, Pinkerton's politics and abolitionist sympathies drew the attention of supporters of presidential incumbent Abraham Lincoln-and Pinkerton was hired to act as his bodyguard. While head of the United States' first Secret Service, Pinkerton managed a network of Civil War spies who worked behind Confederate lines and tackled espionage at the highest levels in Washington. They included sharpshooters from Chicago, rangers from the Mexican War, undercover detectives from New York, British dandies, and seductive and shrewd women under the guidance of Kate Warne. By war's end, the agency's reputation was so well established that it was often hired by the government to perform many of the same duties today assigned to the Secret Service, the FBI, the CIA, and, most recently, the Department of Homeland Security.Pinkerton's War is thrilling history and the story of two great American firsts: presidential protection and an organized United States spy network.