A Rumor of Plaid cap­tures the dra­mat­ic and secre­tive jour­ney of Pres­i­dent-elect Abra­ham Lin­coln to Wash­ing­ton, D.C., on the eve of his inau­gu­ra­tion, set­ting the stage for the tur­bu­lence that would soon grip the nation. A New-York Times reporter described Lin­col­n’s arrival on Feb­ru­ary 25 as noth­ing short of mag­i­cal, not­ing that the city was “agree­ably sur­prised” by his unex­pect­ed and stealthy entrance. The pres­i­dent-elect, wear­ing a Scotch plaid cap and a long mil­i­tary cloak, appeared unrec­og­niz­able, which sparked a wave of car­toon­ist ridicule. In one depic­tion, Lin­coln was humor­ous­ly shown flee­ing in pan­ic from a freight car, his fright­ened expres­sion adding to the grow­ing leg­end of his secre­tive arrival. Mary Chesnut’s diary reflects this absur­di­ty, empha­siz­ing the odd­i­ty of Lin­col­n’s “noble entrance,” sig­nal­ing the pecu­liar nature of his arrival in the cap­i­tal amidst a time of grow­ing nation­al ten­sions.

As Lincoln’s secre­tive jour­ney unfold­ed, reac­tions var­ied wide­ly. Crit­ics from both the North and South voiced their dis­ap­proval, with South­ern news­pa­pers like the Charleston Mer­cury label­ing him a cow­ard for enter­ing Wash­ing­ton so qui­et­ly. The New York Her­ald also chimed in, com­par­ing his entry to that of a “thief in the night,” fuel­ing fur­ther dis­dain. These reac­tions were ampli­fied by the racial under­tones, as many likened Lin­col­n’s jour­ney to the Under­ground Rail­road, asso­ci­at­ing him with a fugi­tive slave try­ing to avoid detec­tion. This harsh crit­i­cism under­scored the deep­en­ing divi­sion between North and South, as Lin­coln, already a divi­sive fig­ure, strug­gled to estab­lish the com­mand­ing pres­ence need­ed in such a volatile time.

Amidst the crit­i­cisms, Lin­col­n’s clan­des­tine arrival high­light­ed his pre­car­i­ous posi­tion as Pres­i­dent-elect. The silence sur­round­ing his entrance only served to enhance the per­cep­tion of nation­al fail­ure, as not­ed by an unnamed diarist referred to as “Pub­lic Man,” who expressed dis­ap­point­ment that an elect­ed pres­i­dent should have to be “smug­gled through by night.” George Tem­ple­ton Strong, a not­ed observ­er of the time, wor­ried about the rumors of an assas­si­na­tion plot against Lin­coln, fear­ing that such threats might tar­nish his moral author­i­ty as a leader. These fears, though wide­ly dis­cussed, lacked con­crete evi­dence. There were no con­firmed arrests or dis­cov­er­ies of weapons, and fig­ures like Ward Lam­on expressed doubts about the legit­i­ma­cy of such a plot, sug­gest­ing that the sto­ries sur­round­ing Lin­col­n’s secre­cy might have been exag­ger­at­ed. Despite these rumors, Lincoln’s train ride—often cit­ed as a poten­tial target—proceeded with­out any inci­dents, which fur­ther ques­tioned the cred­i­bil­i­ty of the sup­posed assas­si­na­tion threat.

This chap­ter also con­trasts Lincoln’s cau­tious entry with the bold and inflam­ma­to­ry actions of Con­fed­er­ate Pres­i­dent Jef­fer­son Davis. In stark con­trast to Lincoln’s secre­tive arrival, Davis entered Mont­gomery amid a call to arms, a direct chal­lenge to the Union. The deci­sion to inau­gu­rate Davis and the sub­se­quent seces­sion of South­ern states served to esca­late the already tense atmos­phere, fur­ther height­en­ing the divide between the North and South. The chap­ter illus­trates the widen­ing gap between the two fac­tions, with Lin­coln attempt­ing to ease ten­sions through a qui­et, almost apolo­getic entrance, while the Con­fed­er­a­cy took an aggres­sive stance from the out­set. This dif­fer­ence in tone and action would set the stage for the Civ­il War, a con­flict that would reshape the nation and chal­lenge its very iden­ti­ty.

The chap­ter pro­vides a snap­shot of the tur­bu­lent polit­i­cal land­scape of the time, high­light­ing the uncer­tain­ty and divi­sion that defined the ear­ly days of Lincoln’s pres­i­den­cy. While the rumors sur­round­ing his arrival fueled a nar­ra­tive of con­spir­a­cy and mis­trust, they also under­scored the frag­ile state of the nation. Lincoln’s cau­tious approach con­trast­ed with the bold­ness of his Con­fed­er­ate coun­ter­parts, illus­trat­ing the chal­lenges he faced in attempt­ing to lead a nation on the brink of col­lapse. The public’s reac­tion to Lincoln’s secre­tive entrance into Wash­ing­ton only added to the grow­ing sense of cri­sis, mark­ing the begin­ning of a pres­i­den­cy that would be defined by war, divi­sion, and the even­tu­al strug­gle for nation­al uni­ty.