Lafayette Baker, creator of the Secret Service Bureau, soldier and secret agent, is one of the unsung heroes of the Civil War. When he arrived in Washington, D.C. in 1861, he already was well prepared for his future role. In the rough and tumble of frontier life he had learned to use his wits, his fists and his ready pistols. In San Francisco, his work with the vigilantes had helped bring order to a lawless city. Now he had traveled across the country to oppose a different kind of lawlessness: the secession of the South from the Union.

Gambling with death he went behind southern lines to learn of troop movements, and penetrated the inner councils of the rebels to uncover and destroy a plot that would have meant the loss of the capital itself. Then came a new assignment—one that would make him the most hated man in the Union. He was to root out the forces of disloyalty and corruption within the Union ranks, using whatever means he could command, no matter how influential his quarry, no matter what displeasure he might incur.

Some called him Abraham Lincoln's strong right arm; others vilified him as a brutal instrument of tyranny, intoxicated by his own power. Yet, his brilliant intuition, bold action and bulldog tenacity brought about his most famous achievement—finding the man who shot Lincoln.

Eventually Lafayette Baker had to pay the price for the animosity he had aroused in the course of his relentless pursuit of duty. But he already had accomplished his great task: the Union was preserved, and the good he had done would live long after the slurs upon his name had faded. 

From the dust jacket