54 pages • 1 hour read
Lincoln's Grave Robbers
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Background
Historical Context: The United States Secret Service
In today’s world, the words “Secret Service” summon images of grim-faced gunmen sporting shades, dark suits, alert eyes, and set jaws. For the first few decades of its existence, however, the United States Secret Service had no such duties: The only presidents it protected were those printed or stamped on money. Created by an act of Congress in 1865 as a bureau of the Treasury Department, the Secret Service’s original mission was to protect the fledgling US economy by fighting the out-of-control counterfeiting of the nation’s currency. The federal government had only begun printing paper money in 1861, and within a few years, roughly half the bills in circulation were deemed to be counterfeit; this posed a grave threat to the US economy, since millions of honest citizens were being paid in money that was, in effect, worthless. Many of the best counterfeit bills, such as those created by master printers like Benjamin Boyd, could be spotted only by experts. Bank clerks were given special training to detect fraud, but this did not address the root of the problem. Congress’s solution was the Secret Service, which began as a highly specialized police force tasked with aggressively pursuing the counterfeiters themselves. As Sheinkin recounts, the Secret Service ventured slightly afield to address the 1876 Lincoln bodysnatching plot, but since that crime was orchestrated in furtherance of a counterfeiting racket, it was seen to fall within the Service’s purview. Meanwhile, US presidents of the time received virtually no government protection. The American president was not thought to require special bodyguards since they were an elected official rather than a monarch or dictator; in a democracy, the logic went, malcontents would express their ire with ballots rather than bullets.
It was not until 1894 that the Secret Service was commissioned, for the first time, to protect a living president rather than a dead one. That year, the Secret Service committed itself to short-term, informal protection of Grover Cleveland, after the discovery of a plot by a Colorado gambling ring to assassinate the president. Finally, in 1901, after the assassination of President McKinley, Congress bowed to necessity, assigning the Secret Service to the long-term protection of the sitting president. In 1902, the Secret Service attached a full-time detail to the White House, though this comprised only two bodyguards at first. Nevertheless, 37 years after its founding, the Secret Service was now officially a two-pronged operation, fighting the forgery of US currency on one front and threats to the US president on the other.
Sociohistorical Context: Abraham Lincoln as a Legendary Figure
On the evening of April 14, 1865, President Lincoln, who was only a month into his second term, was felled by an assassin’s bullet. This event was especially traumatic since the Civil War had finally ended just five days earlier, with General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. Many felt that the young, battle-scarred nation was on the cusp of a glorious rebirth at the time, having finally sloughed off slavery. As news of the attack on President Lincoln at Ford’s Theater spread, the president passed into the realm of legend, even though he was often a divisive figure when he was alive. It was not lost on many of the mourners that April 14, the day of the assassination, was Good Friday, the traditional date of Jesus’s crucifixion.
The people of the United States were heartbroken, especially because they seemed to have finally regained order and civility after a four-year war when the assassination occurred. Public grieving reached a pitch seldom seen in American life. Levi Graybill, who had led a Union company of African American soldiers during the Civil War, expressed fears that the country was tipping into “Anarchy” (Jordan, Brain Matthew. “How Lincoln’s assassination changed American history.” The Highland County Press, 13 Apr. 2024) For his interment, Lincoln’s friends and supporters insisted on a grand monument in the style of an opulent temple from ancient times, complete with a 117-foot obelisk.
Widely regarded as the savior of the Union, Lincoln’s name and image became almost sacrosanct. His humble, almost impoverished, origins further endeared him to the country, since he was the very embodiment of the American dream. In the decades that followed, the national reverence for Lincoln only grew. As the sociologist James Chowning Davies noted, “Twenty-three years after Lincoln's death his old law partner, William Herndon, in his biography recounted Lincoln's very human failings and fallibility. He was verbally excoriated for desecrating the memory of a saint” (Chowning Davies, James. “Lincoln: The Saint and the Man.” Presidential Studies Quarterly, vol. 17, no. 1, 1987, pp. 71-94). By enshrining Lincoln’s body and memory, his many admirers sought to make his ideas timeless and sacrosanct as well, particularly his heartfelt belief in egalitarianism and civil rights.
Lincoln’s Grave Robbers chronicles the bizarre attempt to exploit Lincoln’s legendary status. Having failed to buy the engraver Ben Boyd’s freedom with gold, “Big Jim” Kennally plots to hijack one of America’s most hallowed relics—Lincoln’s body—as a bargaining chip to release a notorious criminal. As Sheinkin relates, the thwarting of Kennally’s plot and the arrest of his accomplices was an early triumph for the US Secret Service. It also led to the founding of the Lincoln Guard of Honor, a small but dedicated fraternity sworn to the preservation of the beloved president’s remains. Lincoln’s tomb was carefully restored, and his body was reburied with much reverence. Forty-four years later, Washington, DC’s National Mall saw the unveiling of another monument, the Lincoln Memorial, which has the distinction of being the nation’s most-visited monument.
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By Steve Sheinkin
