Click to promote the site by sharing this article with your friends on Facebook.United States Senator Abraham Lincoln met in confidence with the general of the Illinois State Militia at Lincoln's home in Illinois' capitol, Springfield. The military man advised Lincoln that the State of Egypt (Illinois' neighbor to the immediate South) had preemptively mobilized to form a defensive force against possible aggressive action by Illinois' volunteer amateur soldiers.

The instigation behind the unprecedented action was the presidential election of 1860, which was being settled that day. Lincoln was the vice presidential running mate to Salmon P. Chase, and passed on to Chase news about slave power advocates readying themselves in Egypt for striking the first blow in a war for the creation of a slaveowner's republic.

"If Lincoln was cheated out of the Republican nomination in 1860 then that man would have inherited the Civil war. Sorry! That's what you get for cheating! The U.S would have been cheated out of being a union and divided in a least 2 different countries. We, the citizens would have been cheated out of a great president. Just as we were cheated out of a great president in 1964 when Barry Goldwater lost. Just my opinion. " - reader's comments"Egypt was the northernmost of the Slave Border states, and brawls and riots over the legal status of Negroes were commonplace events there. In the previous decade, politics in Cairo had grown steadily more frothy with the approach of the War Over Slavery. And now Lincoln heard that an invasion of Egyptians was being planned. Supposedly, there was to be an invasion of Springfield with an aim to kidnap Abraham Lincoln and bring him into Egypt as a prisoner.

Lincoln several times said that he felt there was no substance to the speculation that he was planned as a target of violence. "I've been in Washington these last two years and know that the secessionists are not going to start bloodshed when they plan to avoid such trouble all together," said Lincoln. "Ah . . . "Egypt"? I find that an unlikely name for a U.S. state, no matter what towns and cities might be called. And if President-elect Chase allowed himself to be intimidated out of taking the oath in Washington, his administration would never recover, and neither would his personal reputation--and the Confederacy would have won an important symbolic victory right at the start. Nor would Lincoln have had to be "cheated" out of the Republican nomination. His selection came as a surprise (shock, really) to many people, considering his previous obscurity. Re Scott Palter's remark: in this scenario, it isn't clear that Grant is a "Confederate/slavery diehard." His motivation for attempting to shoot VP-elect Lincoln remains obscure. (To me, anyway.)" - reader's commentsEven so, Lincoln consulted with his friends and they mobilized "Wide Awakes," volunteer marchers who planned to mount guard around Lincoln's House and stand discreetly alongside the Lincolns.

"If the cheating was wide-open, there'd have been bloodshed on that issue alone. By 1860 the whole situation was becoming increasingly volatile, and open cheating on the Presidential election would have been like a fireworks display in an oil refinery. " - reader's commentLate that evening, as the telegraph showed the Republicans (Chase and Lincoln) defeated the Democrats (Breckingridge and Seymour), there was a gunshot at the Lincoln's and a man who was a stranger to Lincoln was fatally wounded. That man, a military retiree named Grant, was accused of trying to barge into Lincoln's home at roughly ten PM that night, carrying a loaded revolver and smelling of the consumption of liquor. Whether or not ex-Captain Grant had been an emissary from Egypt has never been settled.

Before the time of the Chase and Lincoln inauguration came about in the following March, horse and foot soldiers of both Illinois and Egypt fought in confrontations that grew in size to the actions of battalions. On the advice of Pinkerton's security detectives, President-Elect Chase chose not to go to Washington but to take his oath of office in Philadelphia, PA, (A reluctant Lincoln obeyed his instructions from Chase, and also failed to show in Washington DC.) As an outcome of that security decision, the secessionist executive (Breckingridge, supplemented now by new VP Stephens) took up their offices in Washington DC and awaited a challenge from the legal government.