His position as Marshal of Police and his southern sympathies were two of many factors in Abraham Lincoln's decision in February 1861 to pass through Baltimore surreptitiously on his way to Washington to be inaugurated, in order to avoid a possible assassination attempt.

Despite his politics, Kane was instrumental in providing protection and an escort for Mary Todd Lincoln on her arrival in Baltimore in February 1861 on her way to the inauguration of her husband, who had preceded her.

Kane was born in Baltimore in 1817, into an Irish immigrant family, and at an early age entered the grain and grocery business.

With several others, Mr. Kane purchased the old H-shaped, domed "Merchants' Exchange" (designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe, built 1816–1820, the largest building in America at the time, also known as the "Baltimore Exchange", later site of the present US Customs House, built 1903–05) on South Gay Street between Water and East Lombard Streets and sold the property to the United States Government itself, which, upon remodeling the buildings, which had always housed Federal courts, customs, post office and a branch of the First Bank of the United States along with other city hall/municipal offices in one wing (until "Old City Hall"—the previous Peale Museum on Holliday Street was acquired in 1830 and occupied to 1875) and also included those of lawyers, brokers, shipping companies and other maritime businesses in another wing.

Historians credit Colonel Kane with suggesting and campaigning for a "paid", professional steam-powered fire department system which was later finally organized in the city in 1858–1859, as a definite expansion of municipal governmental functions with advanced improvements.

As a result, the Maryland General Assembly embarked upon a reform movement, which included finding a strong new "Marshal of Police" (chief).

Kane filled the bill, becoming Marshal of Police in 1860, under newly elected reformist Mayor George William Brown.

"[4] Mayor Brown later wrote that the entire police force "had been raised to a high degree of discipline and efficiency under the command of Marshal Kane.

[8] In 1868, in response to stories then circulating in the press about the Baltimore plot, Kane wrote a lengthy account of his view of the events of February 21–23, 1861.

Once in Baltimore, the train would make an unscheduled stop at North Charles and Bolton Streets, where Kane would meet it with carriages that would carry the new President and his family to Gittings' mansion on Mt.

Station in the Nation's Capital at 6 a.m. taking up residence in the noted Willard's Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue three blocks from the White House of out-going 15th President James Buchanan.

Kane, in his memoirs of the Plot and 1861, claimed this was erroneous and that Mrs. Lincoln was not jostled by the crowd, but that she had already alighted and left the station before they assembled.

"[10] Upon hearing reports that the mobs would attempt to tear up the rails leading toward Washington, Kane dispatched some of his men to protect the tracks.

The soldiers attempted to march the distance along Pratt Street, and according to Mayor Brown were met with "shouts and stones, and I think, an occasional pistol shot.

Marshall Kane soon appeared with a group of policemen from the direction of the Camden Street Station, "and throwing themselves in the rear of the troops, they formed a line in front of the mob, and with drawn revolvers kept it back.

Even though Kane appears to have executed his duties faithfully during these events, and wrote an official account defending his actions (Public record defense by Marshall George P. Kane of his actions on April 19, 1861, in dealing with the riot in Baltimore that "shed the first blood of the Civil War"), there is no question that he was very pronounced in his Southern sympathies.

Mr. Johnson, afterwards served as a general in the Confederate States Army, commanding the Maryland regiments came with volunteers from Frederick by special train that night and other county military organizations began to arrive.

Marshal Kane remained in office as head of the Baltimore City police until June 27, 1861, when he was arrested in the dead of night at his house on St. Paul Street by a detachment of Federal soldiers and taken to Fort McHenry.

"Whilst suffering great agony from the promptings of nature and effects of my debility I am frequently kept for a long time at the door of my cell waiting for permission to go to the water-closet owing to the utter indifference of some of my keepers to the ordinary demands of humanity.

"[18] By November, he writes Davis again from Montreal to report on the failure of a plan to rescue Confederate prisoners at Sandusky Bay in Ohio.

"[21] On October 8, 1864, he writes again to Davis, offering to recruit Marylanders to form a corps of heavy artillery, a suggestion that was politely declined.

A Council resolution to appoint a committee to visit and urge upon the United States Congress the necessity of constructing a new post-office was approved by Mayor Kane and also an ordinance to accept Homewood Park (a part of the present site of Johns Hopkins University—near Homewood Mansion, a Georgian–Federal style of architecture, constructed 1801–1808, formerly of the Carroll family and later William Wyman's "Wyman Villa" estates) which was signed April 8, 1878.