Dual Warn­ing cap­tures the crit­i­cal days sur­round­ing Pres­i­dent-elect Abra­ham Lincoln’s jour­ney to Wash­ing­ton, D.C. on Feb­ru­ary 21, amidst mount­ing threats to his safe­ty. The news of an assas­si­na­tion plot against him had reached the ears of sev­er­al key fig­ures, with Gen­er­al Win­field Scott act­ing swift­ly on the reports he received from Dorothea Dix, who was con­nect­ed to the rail­road exec­u­tive Samuel Fel­ton. The threat was deemed cred­i­ble enough for Scott to call upon the exper­tise of John A. Kennedy, head of the New York City police, to inves­ti­gate fur­ther. Kennedy, who was already in action, had sent detec­tives into South­ern cities, par­tic­u­lar­ly to Bal­ti­more, where ten­sions were run­ning high. To bol­ster their efforts, Scott enlist­ed Colonel Charles P. Stone, a new­ly appoint­ed inspec­tor for the Dis­trict of Colum­bia Mili­tia, to assist with the intel­li­gence gath­er­ing, under­scor­ing the seri­ous­ness of the sit­u­a­tion.

In the fol­low­ing days, Kennedy’s detec­tives went under­cov­er in South­ern cities, gath­er­ing crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion on the alleged plot against Lin­coln. One of them, David S. Book­staver, posed as a music agent in Bal­ti­more and began hear­ing alarm­ing dis­cus­sions about the pos­si­ble assas­si­na­tion. As news of the poten­tial threat spread, the sit­u­a­tion grew more urgent, espe­cial­ly with Lincoln’s sched­uled arrival in Bal­ti­more. Scott, con­cerned about the impli­ca­tions of such an act, had a cru­cial con­ver­sa­tion with Sec­re­tary of State William Hen­ry Seward. In response, Seward instruct­ed his son, Fred­er­ick, to take imme­di­ate action and per­son­al­ly warn Lin­coln. Fred­er­ick quick­ly made his way to Philadel­phia, where Lin­coln was stay­ing at the Con­ti­nen­tal Hotel, while Lincoln’s aide, Nor­man Judd, met with renowned detec­tive Allan Pinker­ton. Pinker­ton voiced his grave con­cerns regard­ing the plot and urged that Lincoln’s safe­ty be pri­or­i­tized.

Upon arriv­ing in Philadel­phia, Fred­er­ick met with Lin­coln, and the two dis­cussed the details of the con­spir­a­cy. Lin­coln lis­tened care­ful­ly to the reports and the poten­tial dan­ger posed to him, but he remained skep­ti­cal of the cred­i­bil­i­ty of the intel­li­gence. In a calm and col­lect­ed man­ner, Lin­coln ques­tioned the details sur­round­ing the threat and the peo­ple involved, reflect­ing his char­ac­ter as a leader who took time to assess infor­ma­tion care­ful­ly before act­ing. Although his safe­ty was at risk, Lin­coln did not pan­ic; instead, he con­tin­ued to move for­ward with his sched­ule. His mea­sured response to the warn­ings exem­pli­fied his lead­er­ship qual­i­ties, and he main­tained con­trol of his deci­sions, which was cru­cial as the coun­try faced such polit­i­cal unrest. His approach illus­trat­ed a key trait of his pres­i­den­cy: the abil­i­ty to stay ground­ed and focused, even when the stakes were as high as they were. The chap­ter con­cludes with Lin­coln reflect­ing on his father’s advice, weigh­ing the con­cerns about his safe­ty, and decid­ing whether or not to adjust his trav­el plans for the next day.

This chap­ter empha­sizes the intense polit­i­cal cli­mate in which Lin­coln was placed. The immi­nent dan­ger sur­round­ing his arrival, com­bined with the nation­al unrest over the impend­ing inau­gu­ra­tion, cre­at­ed a tense atmos­phere that could have eas­i­ly led to rash deci­sions. Yet Lincoln’s abil­i­ty to main­tain his com­po­sure and remain thought­ful in his actions set him apart as a leader. The chap­ter also reflects the deep­er fears sur­round­ing his pres­i­den­cy, par­tic­u­lar­ly regard­ing his abil­i­ty to nav­i­gate threats, both exter­nal and inter­nal, with a sense of duty. It also high­lights the con­stant pres­sure Lin­coln faced, with the nation tee­ter­ing on the edge of civ­il war, and the sense of uncer­tain­ty and unease that per­me­at­ed his ear­ly days in office. While his lead­er­ship was imme­di­ate­ly test­ed, this event fore­shad­owed the types of dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions he would face through­out his pres­i­den­cy, requir­ing calm and delib­er­ate deci­sion-mak­ing. This episode of the attempt­ed assas­si­na­tion fur­thered the sense of unease with­in the nation and show­cased the numer­ous risks that were present in the ear­ly days of his lead­er­ship.