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The famous Allan Pinkerton——the month of the battle of Antietam The name of Allan Pinkerton became one of the most famous in secret-service work, the world over. This keen-witted detective came to America from Scotland about twenty years before the opening of the Civil War. He was conducting a successful agency in Chicago when his friend, George B. McClellan, sent for him to be chief detective in the Department of the Ohio. Shortly after, he went to Washington and under General McClellan directed the secret-service operations in the Army of the Potomac, besides doing extensive detective work for the provost-marshal at the Capital. As a stanch admirer of McClellan, Pinkerton refused to continue in the military end of the service after the general's removal in November, 1862. He remained, however, in Government service, investigating cotton claims in New Orleans, with other detective work, until the close of the war, when he returned to his agency in Chicago. |