"IF any one attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot!" The order rang from town to town. Old Glory waved in the breeze defiantly. "The flag of the Confederacy will be hoisted over Washington within sixty days," came the retort from the far South. "Only over our dead bodies," replied the men of the North. The National Government discovered that a conspiracy had been in operation to denude its armories and weaken its defenses. Political influences had secretly disarmed the incoming administration, scattering the regular army in helpless and hopeless positions far from the seat of the Government and beyond its call in an emergency. Northern forts had been dismantled and the munitions from Northern arsenals had been dispatched to Southern vantage grounds to be used in case of necessity. The treasury had been depleted and the Government was on the verge of bankruptcy. Eleven of the historic old states of the Union had withdrawn and formed a new republic, the "Confederate States of America." These were the conditions that confronted Lincoln in his first days of the Presidency. Plots were rampant to take his life. His steps were shadowed by Secret Service detectives to safeguard him against assassins, and he was practically held a prisoner in the White House. In further protection the defenses around the city were strengthened. From every hillside grim guns turned their deep mouths into the valleys until a chain of fortifications made the city impregnable. Brady secured permission to take his cameras into these fortifications. This is the best negative which he secured. It is taken behind the breastworks at Fort Lincoln, near Washington. [Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN AT FORT LINCOLN]