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Did you know that there's a very, very strange and often
overlooked chapter in the tragic tale of Abraham Lincoln's
assassination?
That's right.
Honest Abe's death almost turned into a full-fledged crime
drama.
After his passing, the president's body
traveled for three weeks by train on a slow,
winding path from Washington D.C. to the Oak Ridge Cemetery
in Springfield, Illinois.
This gave as many people as possible
a chance to mourn as the train went by.
For the next decade, Lincoln's white,
marble tomb sat undisturbed in the rural farmlands
of Illinois.
There was no real security to speak of,
just a single padlock on the vault's door.
That was more than enough to keep the grave site safe
until 1876, the year a gang of goofy criminals
hatched a plot to try and steal the president's remains.
Why try and steal Abe Lincoln's body?
After all, it sounds more like the plot of the next Nick Cage
movie than real life.
So what's the deal?
Believe it or not, it has a lot to do with counterfeiting.
You see, back in those days, banking was disorganized
and counterfeiting money, documents, and other items
was rampant.
It was so bad that most estimate over one
third of the cash in the country at the time was fake.
Lincoln knew this was a problem and invented
an agency tasked with fixing it, the Secret Service.
That's right.
Lincoln started the team that now protects the president.
But in those days, their job was all
about catching counterfeiters, and it wasn't long
before they were truly put to the test.
Our story starts with a counterfeiter
named Benjamin Boyd, who was arrested by the Secret Service.
Boyd worked for a Chicago crime boss, Big Jim Kennally,
who was furious about having one of his men behind bars.
So what did he do?
Concocted a truly crazy scheme to try and get Boyd released.
He was going to kidnap Lincoln's body and hold it for ransom.
Once they had the body, they planned
to ask for $200,000 and a full pardon for Boyd.
The plan was brazen, but given the lack
of security around the grave, the gang
had a pretty solid chance of pulling off their creepy crime.
But they made one critical mistake
that brought the whole thing down before it even started.
You see, being a small time criminal, Big Jim and his men
had no experience body snatching and needed
to bring in another guy.
The problem was they brought in a grave robber named
Lewis Swegles who just so happened to be
an undercover informant for--
you guessed it-- the Secret Service.
Swegles told the Secret Service all about the scheme,
and they quickly got to work hatching a plan of their own
to try and foil the kidnapping.
It all came to a head on the night of November 7, 1876.
Swegles accompanied the criminals
to a dark, moonlit graveyard as Secret Service agents hid
in the shadows watching as the counterfeiters botched
it every step of the way.
For starters, they couldn't pick the padlock
and had to slowly cut through it with a file.
Inside, they realized they couldn't lift
Lincoln's 500-pound coffin.
They were stumped.
As the dynamic duo weighed their options,
one of the agents outside accidentally
fired their pistol which spooked the robbers who ran away.
But again, they weren't exactly criminal masterminds,
so both men just went back home where
they were promptly arrested.
Thus, ending the strange saga of Abraham Lincoln's
attempted grave robbery.
Today, you can still see Lincoln's grave
at the Oak Ridge Cemetery in Illinois,
and you can still see Secret Service hard at work,
albeit, just different work.
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