Scottish-American detective and spy (born 1819)

Allan Pinkerton

Allan Pinkerton was a Scottish-American detective, spy, abolitionist, and cooper best known for creating the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in the United States and his claim to have obstructed the plot in 1861 to assassinate then president-elect Abraham Lincoln. During the Civil War, he provided the Union Army – specifically General George B. McClellan of the Army of the Potomac – with military intelligence, including extremely inaccurate enemy troop strength numbers. After the war, his agents played a significant role as strikebreakers – in particular during the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 – a role that Pinkerton men would continue to play after the death of their founder.