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CLASSIC: The Man Who Assassinated Abe Lincoln's Assassin · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Fellow ridiculous historians, Welcome to this week's classic episode. Back
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen, we looked at each other, we had
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: that Ghostbuster's eye contact moment where they figure out the
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: statue of Liberty, and we said, how deeply have we
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: really dove into the infamous tragic story of the Lincoln assassination?
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Not nearly deeply enough, Ben, is what our longing gays
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: told each of us psychically.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, now we do know knowl that on April fourteenth,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five, an actor named John Wilkes Booth assassinated
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: President Abraham Lincoln there in Ford's Theater, watching a play
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: with his wife. That story aside. We know that Booth
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: escaped the scene of the crime and he went on
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: the run. But it turns out there's some more to
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: the story.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Hm, yeah, more like on the limp. If I'm not mistaken,
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: I think that's right. We did have a injury can jump,
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: that's correct. But boy, are we going to dive into
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: a bit of an assassin meta episode today. We're talking
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: about everybody loves an assassin, but what about an assassin's assassin? Okay,
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: maybe everyone doesn't love an assassin, but you get what
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: I'm getting at.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Yes, so joined us as we dive into the bizarre
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: life and times of a man named Boston Corbett. Ridiculous
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: History is a production of iHeartRadio. Today's story kind of
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: but not really starts in eighteen sixty five. On April fourteenth,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Graham Lincoln is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth while watching
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theater in DC.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: You think it was any good, Ben, our American cousin?
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Uh huh?
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: I remember I think hearing about it in school, But
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: it wasn't my kind of play. And it does remind
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: me of one of those very tasteless middle school jokes.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Did you ever hear this one?
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Well?
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Other than that, missus Lincoln, how did you find the play?
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Oh that's funny, that's terrible. Yeah, too soon, surely not,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: surely not.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Ben. You called out the date and it sounded to
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: me like it was long ago.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Long ago, far away, right. And this is ridiculous history.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: It is ridiculous history. And there's our super producer, Casey
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Pegram giving us his stamp of approval. Let me lean
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: by the window and see, I see if we get
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: a thumbs up. Oh, we got a pretty good thumbs up.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Thumbs up indeed, as you would text me thumbs up
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: emoji thumb when you do that. Oh thanks man.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I want to be clear that it is
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: an emoji, because you know, some people don't know this,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: but emojis translate differently across different folks.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: I think, oh, aps, we've talked about Have we talked
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: about this on this show? I don't, you know, we
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: just hung out. It's a bit of a blur. We
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: do talk about all kinds of things. Today we're talking
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: about Abraham Lincoln getting a bullet to the back of
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: the dome by a crazed I don't know, maybe it's
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: not fair to call him craze, but a zealous actor
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: by the name of John Wilkes booth during said play
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: that may or may not have been any good, and
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: then he leapt from the balcony. It was a point
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: blank shot to the back of the head. Six temper
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Tyrannus onto the stage, caught his his pant on something
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: on the way down and broke his leg and somehow
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: managed to escape.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, made it seventy three miles to Port Royal, Virginia
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: while the Feds were chasing him, his accomplices were dropping
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: out one by one. He eventually was cornered in a
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: barn surrounded by veterans from the Union Army.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: But wait, we need to back up again.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Yes, beep, beep beep, that's the sound of the history
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: truck moving back. Because we gave you a little bit
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: of a I guess, a cold open. We should start
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: at the as the Mad Hatter says at the beginning
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: the Mad Hatter, Yes, story, Yes, that's appropriate for this,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: isn't it.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Our story starts with a soldier by the name of
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Boston Corbette.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Although he was born Thomas Corbett and was not a
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: soldier out of the womb, as it turns out, his
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: his initial occupation was as an incorrigible drunk.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Yes, Thomas Corbett was a hatter, not yet mad, and
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: this was a pretty solid job for an upstanding American
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: in the mid nineteenth century. But his wife and his
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: first child, a girl, died during childbirth, and this sent
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: him on a downward spiral.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: He got a lot of death and childbirth things happening
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: in these last this episode and then the last one
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: about the Cocklane Ghost it's true. Check it out. Yeah,
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: if you haven't already, And if you haven't, then shame
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: on you. But yeah, no, he did not. He did
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: not do well after this blow from on high and he,
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: you know, became, like I said before, an incorrigible drunk.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: So that wasn't his first profession. His first profession was
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: a hatter, and then he gave that up for the bottle.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: And he lived in New England in Boston and he
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: would just haplessly stumble around drunk. He was kind of
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: because he was a vagrant. He became known as kind
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: of like one of the town shift layabouts, right. And
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: it was one night late in the eighteen fifties when
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: he ran into someone that would change his life forever.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Yes, And there's a great recounting of this in the
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Washingtonian in an article by Bill Jensen. He meets one
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: of these proselytizing preachers, a street evangelists, and it gets
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: to him. Corbett is mesmerized by this word of God.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: He becomes a regular at the what they call sidewalk
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: churches around the city, which was an interesting phrase I
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: had not heard before. But it's like a regularly occurring
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: church meetup that doesn't necessarily have its own physical building,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: and he became sort of a hype man at these
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: street preaching get togethers. He stopped drinking and he started
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: he started being the guy who just yells amen along
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: with you know, sort of punctuating what the preachers are saying.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Hype Manning is is sort of like in the
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: trap music up today, they's going to go yeah.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was what he would do, except he was
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: going huck Florid to God free this.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Yep, yeah, that kind of thing. And now on speaking
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: of Jesus, he also grew his hair his man long,
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: to appear to resemble Jesus Christ himself. He was baptized
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: in the Methodist faith, and he changed his name to
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Boston from Thomas because Boston was the town where he
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: credited this meeting with the street preacher that turned his
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: life around.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Right. He was twenty six at this time, and the
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: ministers eventually said, hey, you should get your own turf.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: In other words, maybe it's sort of like back up
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: off our turf with Hype Manning. We don't need you anymore.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: I feel like Jesus is leading you to preach elsewhere, elsewhere,
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: to leading you're to preach down on fourth.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: I think that's right. I think we have to remember
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: we haven't said this yet, but I'm sure a lot
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: of people know this already. But hatters used mercury to
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: treat the felt, to to form the felt, to make
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: the hats, and as we know, long term exposure to
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: mercury does have some debilitating effects on the brain.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as some debilitating cognitive effects. We do want to
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: tell you that the next part of this story takes
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: a brief and grisly turn.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: Yes, we'll try to make it as brief as possible,
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: but yeah, it's it's it's not a pleasant image that's
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: coming up here.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: So he's out ministering to the people in the summer
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: of eighteen fifty eight when he feels that a pair
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: of sex workers are googling him or giving him the eye,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: and he is discussing with himself when he feels physically
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: excited to rise us to the occasion, right, So he
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: proceeds directly home, takes a pair of scissors, and you,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: after making an incision in his scrotum, he removes his
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: testicles and then goes directly to a prayer meeting.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: Like you do. It was a different time. Yeah, and
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: not only that he went to his prayer meeting did
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: whatever that entails. And then, oh, we should also mention
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: that he was when he got home from this encounter
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  Speaker 2: with these ladies of the evening, he was in search
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: of answers and he opened the Bible to It's unclear
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: if he was looking for this passage because he was
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: aware of it, or if he was like, you know,
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: did the old FLIPPERO, and this is what came up
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: tell me what to do? Yeah, exactly. And the passage
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: that he encountered was Matthew nineteen twelve, which has a
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: part that says there are unit who have made themselves
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom of God. And
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: that's what he went and did with the snip snip.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: So he goes on to the prayer meeting and then what, oh,
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: he goes to the hospital immediately.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Right, No, he goes the next day after the prayer meeting,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: he grabs Denner and takes a walk through the city,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: thinking his thoughts.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: Surely he's bleeding profusely from his genitals.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: At this point, one would think that he was able
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: to staunch the wound because otherwise, surely it would have
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: been noticed during a prayer meeting if the guy's bleeding
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: through his trousers. But either way, he did eventually check
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: himself into a Massachusetts general and spent some time trying
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: to heal. Eventually he says, Okay, I'm better. A few
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: weeks later and he moves to New York City to
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: become a hat maker again. But he's still very religious.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: Oh boy, is he. Ever? He's possibly the most religious
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: person we've ever encountered in any story or we've ever
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: done for this show. Can you think of anyone more
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: staunchly religious?
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Staunchly religious? Probably not that guy who mooned all those
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: people now, definitely not who was still unidentified. Yeah, this
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: guy might take the cake so far. He would often
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: use his lunch break to go to prayer meetings. So
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: he still kept these these very i would say, dogmatic
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: religious practices. And then in eighteen sixty one, the Confederate
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Army attacks Fort Sumter, which one was that in the
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Civil War nice ironically named uh huh because it because
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: it was very uncivil. Yes, they were not nice to
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: each other, they were not. He enlisted in the Union
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Army and he had a quotation here that he allegedly
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: told the women at his church, did you see this one?
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: No? I had not been. Oh, give it to me.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: When he told the people as church that he was
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: going to join up with the Union Army, he said,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: when I come eye to eye with my gray suited enemies,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: I will say to them, God, have mercy on your souls.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Then pop them off.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: Ah. Yes, I do remember this one. And pop them
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: off is what did it for me? Very slang. You
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: know what? It reminds me of them. It reminds me
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: of Samuel L. Jackson's character in pulp fiction, does the
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: whole And I will smite thee with great anger and
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: furious vengeance those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers,
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: you know the one. Yeah, it's good though. I wonder
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: if he got that idea from from from old Corbett. Uh.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Perhaps perhaps he did. That would be interesting. We'd have
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: to ask Quentin himself. Right, there was a big bummer
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: about him joining the army. He had to shave his
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Jesus is.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: Jesus, jam is Jesus locks.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and by most of the accounts we've just got,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: he was an ok soldier.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: He could Ryan he could fire a gun pretty good shot,
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: but uh wasn't uh the wasn't the best at he
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: answered to a very particular authority, didn't he, man, it
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: was no, it was not earthly, nor was it his
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: his commanders. And that's gonna come up time and again
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: in this man's story. But one funny anecdote in this
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: Washingtonian article is about the time where when he was
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: training in Franklin Square in New York, his colonel, a
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: man by the name of Daniel Butterfield, who they point out,
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: I did not know this composed TAPS. I didn't think
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: TAPS was composed. Thought it happened just was you know, yeah,
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: but no the sky. Butterfield also apparently had a bit
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: of a potty mouth, because he was just effin and
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: jeffin and swearing all over town. And Corbett was not
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: having it.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Was he, No, absolutely not. Corbett, who shall also mention
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: is still very green his training. Here he when the
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: courl's yelling at them and cursing, he yells back, Colonel,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: don't you know you're breaking God's law. Butterfield is a
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: gas like he's speechless for a second. This has probably
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: never happened to him. So what what does he do
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: in response?
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he he reads him in the Riot Act, probably
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: in a very measured kind of hannibal electric kind of way.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: I don't know this guy. Corvett kind of gives me
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: the creeps, the whole self near relation thing that that's
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: a that's a bridge too far illness, I think for sure.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: And yeah, again we should point out that he had
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: been exposed to these vapors, these mercury vapors for quite
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: some time in his in his hatting career, before he
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: for any of this happened. Yeah, and he says, colonel,
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: don't you know you are breaking God's law?
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Uh?
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: And yeah, Butterfield was probably just like, you know what,
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: my boy, thank you so much for pointing that out.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you for saving But no, it's not
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: he did at all. It's not what he did at all.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: No, h he said, I'm gonna send you to jail.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: So Corbette begins loudly singing hymns, pretty much shouting hymns
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: while he's in jail. He's asked to stop, he won't.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Butterfield eventually throws up his hands and says, look, if
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: you just say you're sorry, I can let you out
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: of prison, to which Corbett.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Says, oh. He says a no, sir, I have no
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: cause to apologize to you, for you are but immortal,
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: and you half offended the delicate sensibilities of the Lord
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: thy God. So if you ask God to forgive you,
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: then maybe I'll ask you to forgive me the Chutzbaugh.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: It's out of control for a guy without balls. This
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: is really ballsy. Seriously, Yeah, no, no doubt about that.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: To think it just goes to show that those kind
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: of balls come from within. My friend. There we go.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: So he is released at jail, Yeah, because he's like,
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: this guy's impenetrable, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Also there's a
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: war going. Yeah, they probably need him. He's a crack shot.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: He's at least a passable soldier. So yeah, they need him.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: And okay, let's see, God, this guy's got a really storied,
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: storied life. Yeah, where do you want to go? Well?
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: He he. He becomes a pretty important figure in the
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: Union cause he fights in all these very very deadly
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: conflicts that most people would not have survived and did
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: not survive. And I don't know if he had God's
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: God on his side or whatever, but it's I don't know,
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: it's hard to not think that his piety maybe had
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: something to do with it, or maybe it was just
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: he was stark, raving, mad and fearless and just kind
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: of like had luck on his side.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Like the New England Historical Society covers a
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: little bit of his activity in the Civil War. I
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: did not know that he had enlisted re enlisted three times.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: He took to this conflict and he wasn't the best soldier,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: but he was consistent. The thing people hated about working
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: with him is that he was always telling people not
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: to curse or do sinful stuff.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Sure like you know, like you do in the army. Right.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: He sounded like a real killjoy. But he eventually got
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: captured and sent to Andersonville. Do you know what Andersonville
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: Prison been? Yes?
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: No, Andersonville Prison is a terrible terrible place, or it
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: was a terrible terrible place.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: We should say. It's here in Georgia, right, hunt.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: It was a Confederate run prison here in Georgia, which
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: you can visit. I've actually been. It's the Andersonville National
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Historic Site now, so it preserves Camp Sumter, which is
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: also known as the Prison and it held forty five
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: thousand Union soldiers prisoner during the war. Nearly thirteen thousand
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: of them died not from execution, but from diseases, scurvy, diarrhea, dysentery,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: the bloody flux.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, is that what it was called. I think that's
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: what they call it. Yeah, that was the shorthand, although
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: it's sort of longer. No, just dysentery, the blood deflux,
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: same number of syllables. But it sounds a lot scarier,
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: doesn't it. It does, Yeah, because the flux, I guess,
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: is when you expel blood. Right now.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: The thing about the thing about mister Boston Corbette is
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: that maybe it's a matter of his faith. Maybe it's
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: a matter of luck. He survived. Yeah, this man was
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: nothing if not resilient. I mean, he survived a self
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: administered castration, first and foremost. He survived you know, drunkenness
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: in the streets, and he survived some of the most
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: intense battles of the Civil War. And he survived this prison,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: which was built to house ten thousand inmates and ballooned
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: to over thirty two thousand.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: There was like a little stream that ran through it,
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: and apparently it had just become a swamp of human filth,
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: and all of these diseases ran rampant. The guy who
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: was in charge of this facility was actually brought up
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: on war crime trials because thousands, if not tens of
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: thousands of men died in his facility.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thirteen thousand that we know of, So that guy
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: was rightly brought up a war crimes what's his name?
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: His name was.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Captain Henry wurrez wr Z. Not only he's tried for
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: war crimes, but he was executed. So after Corbette gets away,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: after he survives this, it.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: Convalesces for a bit, one would imagine.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Right, learns to eat solid food again. He still stays
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: with the army. He had eventually reached the rank of
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: sergeant in the sixteenth New York Volunteer Cavalry. Now to
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: the point where we began the story.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: Oh man, weren't we having a barn burner? I don't
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Maybe we hadn't quite gotten there yet. But our man
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: John Wilkes Booth, hobbled from his idiotic fall at the
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: Ford Theater after putting a bullet in Old Abe Lincoln's
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: head is now hold up in this barn, along with
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: two accomplices. I want to say, yeah.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Everybody else has deserted them. He's seventy three miles away
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: from the theater and being hunted like a dog. Boston
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Corbette is one of the twenty six elite cavalrymen sent
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: from the unit to pursue John Wilkes.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: Booth and pursue him. They did. They got a tip
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: from a local innkeeper who put them in touch with
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: a man who kind of cave gave a give it
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: to us man. I'm I'm not doing a very good
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: job here. Oh no, you got it. You got it.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: We've got a Booth and his conspirator, David Harold, in
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: a tobacco farm owned by a guy named Richard Garrett.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: So what do the Calvern men do once they have
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: them cornered in that barn?
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Well, they're not coming out right, So they light some
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: straw and fire and poke it through in anthole in
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: the in the barn, and you know, like old dry
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: wood tends to do it. It went up in flames
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: pretty quickly. And David Harold says, Okay, this is crazy
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: even for a terrorist like me. I give up Booth,
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: who has already made his decision made his peace with
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: whatever powers he thinks exist, stays inside. But as the
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: barn disintegrates in the conflagration, the soldiers outside can see
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: Booth's silhouette moving back and forth in the burning barn.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: And let's let's just remind our listeners. Maybe not a
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: really reminder, because we haven't said it yet. The instructions
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: of this brigade was to bring back these men alive
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: because the plot against Lincoln there was a good chance
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: that had been organized orchestrated by forces on the Confederate side,
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: and they wanted to, you know, get to the top
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: of this conspiracy. Right, So when our boy Corbett popped
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: one off, as he would say, right at John Wilkes
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: Booth as he hobbled away, people were understandably annoyed, right.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: And another government employee says, what on earth did you
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: shoot him for? And he's rushing to yank Booth out
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: of the burning barn. They wanted him alive to you know,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: run up the ladder of the conspiracy, and Corbett refused
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: to apologize. Booth dies around seven am the next day,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: and the government forces are are wondering why this guy
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: is completely contradicting his orders. And all he says is
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: that God Almighty directed me to So instead of John
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Wilkes Booth going back to DC, they take Corbett.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and Edwin M. Stanton, who's the Secretary of War
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: who had issued a reward the War Department of one
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars fifty for Booth, twenty five for Surrat
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: and twenty five for Harold, and a total of one
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars. And this guy questioned Corbett personally, and
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: I think he sort of decided it wasn't worth pursuing that.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: You know, the guy's dead. The justice has been served.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: This guy's going to be kind of a national hero.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Let's it. Let's let it slide.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Even though Corbette kind of changes his message at
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: the trial, and he says, I didn't fire the ball
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: from fear. I was under the impression that he, meaning Booth,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: had started to the door to fight his way through,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: and I thought he would do harm to my men
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: if I didn't fire. So it changes a little bit.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: He's not quite as self righteous about it. But how
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: does his story end, Noel, he doesn't get the whole
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: fifty grand, No, he gets a portion of it, though
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: I think he gets a little over sixteen hundred, and
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: then he asked if he can take his horse home,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: which I thought was pretty sweet. He says, he's not valuable,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: but I'm attached to him and I'd like to take
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: him home.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: He's a sentimental man. He's a sentimental eunuch mad hatter.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Later he is largely forgotten. He starts initially going back
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: to work as a silk hat finisher, then he turns
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: to being a lay preacher, making two hundred and fifty
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: a year, two hundred and fifty dollars dollars, yes, not thousands,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: of course, And by eighteen seventy four he has his
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: mental state has further deteriorated. He is convinced that John
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Wilkes Booth is actually still alive, and that Booth has
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: sent people from the former Confederacy to kill him.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: That being said, though he was not a popular man
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: among his cohorts, for the reason we talked about earlier,
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: that he's always in people's faces preaching the Holy Roller line.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: But also like even the other troops that he was
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: with in his unit, they would have been irritated with
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: him because he kind of stole their glory, right Yeah,
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: that could have been any of them. Also, it would
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: have been much more of a group victory if they
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: had brought the man back alive like they were supposed to,
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: but instead he took it upon himself to pop one off. Yeah,
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: and so he was getting threatening letters, right, that was real. Yes,
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: he was getting threatening letters. Don't know if they were
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: meant just to torture him, but some were signed Jay
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: Wilkes Booth. So in his mental state, he felt that
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: these really were from this guy, and there was this
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: overarching conspiracy to assassinate him. By eighteen seventy eight, increasingly unpopular,
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: despised by half the country, strongly disliked by his colleagues,
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: he hops in a wagon and says that he's going
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: to head west. Where's it go, Ben?
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: He goes to a place called Cloud County, Kansas and
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: starts the homestead on eighty acres.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Unfortunately, that doesn't go super well, and because of
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: some pretty intensely erratic behavior, he does not get to
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: continue in that endeavor. Some of that behavior includes, in
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: eighteen eighty seven, he holds the Kansas House of Representatives
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: hostage basically using two revolvers and a sword, and then
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: he declares that the session has been adjourned, and then
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: he has various in sundry run ins with the law,
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: and in eighteen eighty seven October, that is, he is
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: declared insane and he is committed to a Kansas asylum.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: But that's not the end.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: That is not quite the end. He escapes from the
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: asylum on May twenty sixth, eighteen eighty eight, because he
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: sees somebody making deliveries and tethering a horse to the
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: front of the building. So he breaks away, jumps on
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: the horse, and takes off all the way to Neodesha, Kansas,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: home of a fellow veteran and survivor of Andersonville, a
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: guy named Richard Thatcher.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: And that caused this kind of bolo letter to be
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: generated with the heading insane man escaped Topeka, Kansas, May
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: twenty sixth, eighteen eighty eight. Dear Sir Boston Corbett, an
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: insane man escaped from the insane asylum at Topeka this
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: morning and is supposed to be heading for Cloud County.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: He's about fifty five years old and five feet four
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: inches tall. It is a clever detail. This is a
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: smart move. He has plucked all his beard out down
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: to the lower part of his ears, his gray chin, whiskers,
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: and mustache, gray hair cut square at bottom and parts
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: his hair in the middle. He wore a dark jeans
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: suit and black soft hat and was riding a bay
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: or a sorel pony with a boy's saddle. So keep
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: a lookout for that guy.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: He is regarded as a dangerous man, but was unarmed
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: when he escaped. If he comes your way, arrest him
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: and return him to the asylum at once, or telegraph
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: doctor B. D. Eastman, Superintendent Insane Asylum, Topeka for orders.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: What happens when he meets up with his old pal
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Thatcher or when he reaches Thatcher's property.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: We should say, well, the first thing he did when
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: he got there to Neodosha, Kansas, was he he took
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: that stolen horse that he referred to as a borrowed horse,
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: and he tied a note onto it and slapped on
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: the button and send it on its way. And it
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: was quite a ways of way, so it's unclear if
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: that horse made it to its rightful owner. But the
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: note kind of was like, sorry, I just had to
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: do it here, Please take this horse back. I didn't
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: I wasn't stealing it. But yeah, he went to a
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: train station and was trying to get to Mexico. And
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: that is the last anyone ever heard from him.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Right, Rumors still trickle in after that. You'll see a
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: lot of people list his death as eighteen ninety four.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: One theory says that he was targeted by people who
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: were bitter over the various battles he had had in
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: his time in the Union Army. Someone else said he
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: died the Great Hinckley Fire, and then there were people
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: who would point out other possibilities. You know, in the
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: early nineteen hundreds, the Federal Prison Bureau heard about a
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Boston Corbette who claimed he was alive and well and
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: wanted his pension. But the problem was that the guy
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: who claimed to be Boston Corbette, who also went by
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: the nickname Old Trapper Old Trapper, only gave vague descriptions. Yeah,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: I think he was taller, and he was taller, Yeah,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: like a lot taller, I believe full eight inches or so.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: And then people thought that would be the last they
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: heard of him, But more and more stories poured in.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: They just became less and less credible, if that makes sense.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: It does, and now he is largely lost to history
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: except for one one thing that remains.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, it's like a weird kind of memorial. It's
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: just a pen like a like a fenced area that
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: marks where his final home was. And in this Washingtonian
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: article they wrap up talking about how in nineteen fifty
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: there was a boy Scout troop that made a stone
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: plaque to put there and they called it the Boston
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: Corbett Dugout. And there are two revolvers embedded in the rock.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: And here ends the strange story of Boston Corbette war.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: He wrote a sum a villain to others, but clearly
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: a man in need of medical care of some sort.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, who left a pretty fascinating mark on history.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: And if you'd like to read more about Boston Corbette,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: you can check out the book The Madman and the Assassin,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: which has a pretty snappy chronicle of his time, both
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: his normal life leading up to the Civil War and
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: his earlier struggles all the way to that fateful day
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: when he shot John Wilkes Booth. I felt like a
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: very definitive ending. Usually we get to a segue or something.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: Huh, yeah, No, that's good. That's good where it's almost
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: like we're getting a little bit better at this. Well,
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: let's jakes ourselves fair enough, fair enough, But we hope
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: you enjoyed this story. We were surprised in the course
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: of our research to learn that, you know, a lot
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: of people haven't heard of this guy. I hadn't.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't really teach you about it in school,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's like, I think this is an
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: interesting slice of life of the time too, in terms of, like,
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: you know, the way mental illness was handled, the whole
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: idea of me. There's just so many interesting little twists
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: in this story, the way the whole Andersonville incarceration thing.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: And I knew a little bit about that, but this
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: was a really interesting inside perspective, like from someone who
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: lived through it, the whole, you know, coming to Jesus stuff.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: It's just this is like, why is there not a film.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: About this guy who would play him, Crispin Glover?
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: Yes? Can I tell you that My friend Matt saw
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: Crispin Glover on the subway in New York for like
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: an hour, just sitting by himself, wearing a really nice
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: black suit and listening to earbuds.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: I think you may have mentioned that it was he
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: actually going somewhere, just writing the subway, I.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Think he was going. He said, well, Matt works way uptown,
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: and his his theory was maybe that he was shooting
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: something in Harlem, because that's sort of the direction.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think Crispin Glover would be a good pick.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: He would be awesome. I mean, I mean, look, if
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: you look at this guy at listeners, if you want
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: to check it out, tell us what you think. Who
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: would play Boston Corbett, Oh, Crispin Glover all day long?
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: You know who else would be good? Norman Ritas dead
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: in the States.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Also, my favorite moment in the guy's biography is definitely
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: the Other Street evangelists saying God has called you to
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: preach my son about four blocks that way.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: That's still my favorite. That's good.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: We want to know what you thought about this episode,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: and as always, some of our best ideas come from you,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: fellow ridiculous historians. So let us know what other tremendously
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: important characters in American history or in the history of
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: your own country seem to be largely obscured today. We'd
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: like to shed some light on them. As always, thank you,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: for checking out the show. Thank you to our super producer,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Casey Pegram.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: Thanks to Alex Williams who composed our theme, and thanks
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: to Christopher Haciotis for being our researcher extraordinaire on this episode.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: And by this time, longtime listeners you know the Drill
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: will find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. You can
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: also check out our community page, Ridiculous Historians, which is a.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: Hoot, a real hoot and hot and haller a brewhaha.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Sure are we just going to toss synonyms?
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: We have to get out of here. We do toss synonyms, huh.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: I like it. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: favorite shows.