The Secret Service, the first U.S. domestic…

The Secret Service, the first U.S. domestic intelligence and counterintelligence agency, had been created by President Lincoln on April 14, 1865, the day of his assassination, five days after Lee's surrender at Appomattox.

It is commissioned on July 5, 1865, in Washington, D.C. as the "Secret Service Division" of the Department of the Treasury with the mission of suppressing counterfeiting, eith a reported one third of the currency in circulation being counterfeit.

The legislation creating the agency had been on Abraham Lincoln's desk the night he was assassinated.

At the time, the only other federal law enforcement agencies are the United States Park Police, U.S. Post Office Department, Office of Instructions and Mail Depredations, now known as the United States Postal Inspection Service, and the United States Marshals Service.

The Marshals do not have the manpower to investigate all crime under federal jurisdiction, so the Secret Service will soon begin to investigate everything from murder to bank robbery to illegal gambling.