In 1856, a 23-year-old woman walked into the offices of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. She introduced herself to Allan Pinkerton as Mrs. Kate Warne, a widow, and enquired if he would employ her as a detective. He told her it was not the custom but then, to his credit, asked her what she thought she could do.
She explained to him that she could be an undercover asset, infiltrating places that male detectives could not go; he was impressed, and decided to hire her as an experiment. She went to Alabama, befriended the wife of the main suspect in a robbery the entire nation had been talking about, got the confession, and recovered the cash. Pinkerton decided his experiment was justified, and Warne became his first female agent—but not his last.
Her biggest coup was during Abraham Lincoln's campaign for the presidency. The secessionists were plotting to ambush and kidnap or kill him during his whistle-stop campaign tour; Pinkerton and others pled with him to cancel, but Lincoln was adamant that it would go as planned. "Mrs. Cherry" (Warne) went to Baltimore, accentuated the southern accent she had learned during her sojourn in Alabama, and pinned a black-and-white Southern cockade to her dress. She partied with the secessionists at Barnum's City Hotel in Baltimore, the headquarters of the secessionists, and learned all their plans.
To get Lincoln unscathed through Baltimore, Warne booked a four-person sleeper berth on the train and Lincoln, disguised in an old overcoat, a soft hat, and a shawl, was ushered into the compartment, where Warne sat up all night to guard him until she could deliver him to Washington.
Pinkerton was inspired to hire scores of female detectives, and put Warne in charge of them. During the Civil War, she and Pinkerton went undercover to gather intelligence for the Union, and after the war she continued her career, posing as a fortune-teller or society widow to winkle out information.
Unfortunately, her career came to an abrupt end at the age of only 35, when she died from pneumonia. She is buried in the Pinkerton family plot; her obituary said, “She was a marked woman amongst her sex, with a large, active brain, great mental power, and excellent judge of character, and possessed of a strong, active vitality.”
Here is Kate, in one of her many guises. The photo was a poor one and in sepia tone, so I decided to keep it simple and paint in browns and blacks only, but I couldn't help accentuating her rosy cheeks and lips just a little.
"Kate Warne, Pinkerton"—Black Uniball, Daler Rowney inks, India ink, on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress paper, 9x11 inches.
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