In the chap­ter “A Rumor of Plaid” from *The Demon of Unrest*, the secre­tive arrival of Pres­i­dent-elect Abra­ham Lin­coln in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., cap­ti­vates the city. A reporter from the *New-York Times* describes Lin­col­n’s unex­pect­ed entrance, liken­ing it to mag­ic, not­ing, “the whole city has been agree­ably sur­prised.” The arti­cle on Feb­ru­ary 25 famous­ly depicts Lin­coln in a Scotch plaid cap and a long mil­i­tary cloak, mak­ing him unrec­og­niz­able. This imagery incites car­toon­ists to humor­ous­ly por­tray Lin­coln flee­ing in pan­ic, such as one that fea­tures him peer­ing from a freight car at a hiss­ing cat. Mary Ches­nut’s diary reflects this sen­ti­ment, under­scor­ing the absur­di­ty of Lin­col­n’s “noble entrance.”

As Lincoln’s jour­ney unfolds, colum­nists from both the North and South crit­i­cize him. The *Charleston Mer­cury* con­demns him for cow­ardice, assert­ing that “every­body here is dis­gust­ed” by his clan­des­tine arrival, while pro-slav­ery out­lets like the *New York Her­ald* liken his entry to that of a “thief in the night.” Many even com­pared Lin­col­n’s jour­ney to the Under­ground Rail­road, invok­ing racial con­no­ta­tions of him as a fugi­tive slave.

The chap­ter high­lights Lincoln’s pre­car­i­ous posi­tion; at a crit­i­cal junc­ture, his stealthy arrival does not project the com­mand­ing fig­ure he needs to be. A diarist referred to as “Pub­lic Man” shares a sense of nation­al fail­ure, remark­ing on the shame in an elect­ed Pres­i­dent being “smug­gled through by night.” Anoth­er observ­er, George Tem­ple­ton Strong, wor­ries about the authen­tic­i­ty of the alleged assas­si­na­tion plot against Lin­coln, not­ing its impor­tance for his moral stand­ing as Pres­i­dent.

Despite the claims of a con­spir­a­cy sur­round­ing his entrance, the evi­dence is scant. No weapons or arrests were con­firmed, and fig­ures such as Ward Lam­on express skep­ti­cism about the exis­tence of a plot. The nar­ra­tive of the sup­posed plot con­tin­ues to be con­test­ed years lat­er, with Pinker­ton ulti­mate­ly seek­ing recog­ni­tion for “sav­ing” Lin­coln while coun­ter­ing oth­ers’ claims. Mean­while, Lin­col­n’s orig­i­nal train ride—believed to be a target—proceeded with­out inci­dent, sug­gest­ing that pub­lic fears may have been exag­ger­at­ed. In stark con­trast, new­ly inau­gu­rat­ed Con­fed­er­ate Pres­i­dent Jef­fer­son Davis enters Mont­gomery, charged with a call for war, fur­ther esca­lat­ing ten­sions between the North and South.