Latest / Ridiculous History / Kate Warne, the Pinkerton Detective Who Saved Abe Lincoln, Part 2: To Rescue A President

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Kate Warne, the Pinkerton Detective Who Saved Abe Lincoln, Part 2: To Rescue A President · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye
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Speaker 1: welcome back to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank
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Speaker 1: you so much for tuning in. First things first, if
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Speaker 1: you have not listened to our excellent I'll say it
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Speaker 1: excellent episode Part one of our continuing series on Kate Warren,
0:44
Speaker 1: please stop today's podcast hold on listen to part one.
0:49
Speaker 1: I'm saying it's great, not necessarily because well certainly not
0:54
Speaker 1: because of me, not even because of my coast, but
0:56
Speaker 1: we have a very special guest on that episode. You
0:58
Speaker 1: don't want to miss it. Go ahead, will wait one? Okay,
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Speaker 1: that should do it? Hi am ben Hi, I'm no.
1:04
Speaker 1: That's another example of the magic of podcasting because you
1:07
Speaker 1: can just freeze time or accelerate it. Or are you
1:11
Speaker 1: one of those ones who listens to podcasts that the
1:13
Speaker 1: quadruple speed? You monster, You should be ashamed of yourself. Anybody,
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Speaker 1: Casey Supertacher, Casey Pegram No. I find that just terrifying
1:22
Speaker 1: that people do that, That people like to X their
1:25
Speaker 1: way through a series or something. I feel like you're
1:27
Speaker 1: missing all the nuance and all the humanity when you
1:29
Speaker 1: do that. It's just like a big information download into
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Speaker 1: your brain. Yeah, I've done it before, but it's if
1:35
Speaker 1: you're gonna mess with the speed, I think it's it's
1:38
Speaker 1: much more fun to take that chopped and screwed remix
1:42
Speaker 1: approach and slow the host down because because there's nothing
1:47
Speaker 1: there's nothing quite as hilarious as hearing some of your
1:51
Speaker 1: favorite podcasters sound like they're on a mix tape that way. Um,
1:56
Speaker 1: But speaking of favorite podcasters, Ole super producer Casey Pegram,
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Speaker 1: I think it's official that you and I have a
2:05
Speaker 1: brand new favorite podcaster who is actually working with us
2:10
Speaker 1: on today's episode. Is that correct? Um? I can say that.
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Speaker 1: I don't want to speak for Casey program. I mean
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Speaker 1: he could have had a horrible time last episode. I
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Speaker 1: don't think that's true. Casey, No, No, I'm not many
2:20
Speaker 1: great time as well fantastic. So I think we're all
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Speaker 1: in agreement. Yes, our new favorite podcaster is with us
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Speaker 1: againd Today Joe Piazza, author, um journalist and podcaster, host
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Speaker 1: of the new series in conjunction with the Tribeca Film Festival,
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Speaker 1: Fierce About Badass Women. Joe, thanks for coming back for
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Speaker 1: part two. Guys. That was the nicest introduction ever. I
2:40
Speaker 1: want to take you with me to parties. I want
2:42
Speaker 1: you to introduce me to my husband. That was that
2:45
Speaker 1: was just so wonderful. We are available for introductions for hire, um,
2:50
Speaker 1: sort of like what's that thing where you hire celebrities
2:52
Speaker 1: to like wish your birthday, wish to your your kid
2:54
Speaker 1: or whatever cameo. We'll do that, but exclusively with introductions.
2:58
Speaker 1: I love it, love it all right. It's a good
3:00
Speaker 1: side hustle, goodside hustle. I want if I want a
3:02
Speaker 1: piece of that pie. Everybody needs one. So yes, everybody,
3:06
Speaker 1: everybody needs a hustle. Um, But a hustle can be tough, because,
3:11
Speaker 1: let's face it, folks, not everybody is as versatile as
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Speaker 1: our protagonist today, Kate Warren, now ridiculous historians. When last
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Speaker 1: we spoke, we were building up to what many people
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Speaker 1: consider a pivotal event in American history, and one that
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Speaker 1: doesn't get as much attention as it should. So now
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Speaker 1: our story shifts to eighteen sixty one. Kate Warren has
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Speaker 1: established her bona fides as the first female p I
3:44
Speaker 1: in the United States. She is frankly kicking ass and
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Speaker 1: better than a lot of the dudes who were her
3:50
Speaker 1: co workers. But trouble is on the Horizon. Kate Warren
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Speaker 1: is literally kicking ass and also taking names, taking a
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Speaker 1: lot of names. Find an out names left and right,
4:01
Speaker 1: taking names. She's naming names. You know, she is undercover
4:05
Speaker 1: and in full effect. Um, And I think that we
4:08
Speaker 1: can say with with some certainty, and I feel confident
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Speaker 1: saying this that Kate Warren actually, in the next story
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Speaker 1: that we're going to tell you saved America in a way.
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Speaker 1: She she protected the country in an incredibly important way
4:23
Speaker 1: with with what she pulled off. Next agreed, Yeah, and
4:27
Speaker 1: that's not hyperbole. I don't think that's hyperbolic at all. Uh,
4:30
Speaker 1: what are we talking about? Well, well, here's the lay
4:33
Speaker 1: of the land. So there's this guy. His name is
4:37
Speaker 1: Samuel Morse Felton, and he's he's a big deal. He's
4:41
Speaker 1: kind of like the monopoly Man character. He's a railroad
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Speaker 1: magnate if you're being nice, a railroad tycoon if you're
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Speaker 1: being honest. And he, uh, he knew that Lincoln, his
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Speaker 1: his buddy, Lincoln's inauguration was coming up in March of
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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty one, and then he had this terrifying light
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Speaker 1: bulb moment of an epiphany where he said to himself
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Speaker 1: you know, secessionists are all around the country. The country's
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Speaker 1: lousy with these people. They're dangerous and they're getting more
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Speaker 1: and more dangerous by the minute. And they hate Abraham Lincoln. Yes,
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Speaker 1: secessionist of the ones who just like vehemently opposed, uh,
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Speaker 1: the idea of abolishing slavery. They wanted to se see
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Speaker 1: from the Union, you know all that, um. But yeah,
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Speaker 1: it's true. In eighteen sixty one, this train trip was
5:28
Speaker 1: going to happen and uh, and Lincoln's pal realized, Okay,
5:31
Speaker 1: this could be problematic, so they decided that he needed
5:35
Speaker 1: kind of a cover, um, so that it wouldn't be
5:38
Speaker 1: you know, quite as obvious which train car he was on,
5:41
Speaker 1: and for this leg of the trip in particular. Well,
5:43
Speaker 1: and it's worth noting too that the Secret Service didn't
5:46
Speaker 1: exist at this time. So Lincoln, who is the president elect,
5:50
Speaker 1: who is traveling to Washington, d C. For his big inauguration,
5:53
Speaker 1: huge deal about to completely change the course of history,
5:56
Speaker 1: which the secessionists knew. And that's why where they were
5:59
Speaker 1: so terrified of him and why they wanted to destroy him.
6:02
Speaker 1: He had no protection. He he did not have armed guards,
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Speaker 1: and him and Samuel Morris Felton. We're trying to figure
6:09
Speaker 1: out how can he get to Washington, d C. For
6:12
Speaker 1: this inauguration, um without being killed? And really quickly, I
6:16
Speaker 1: just want to point out, um, we know Lincoln was
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Speaker 1: an incredibly device to figure These secessionists absolutely hated him
6:21
Speaker 1: because they knew, um what he stood for and what
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Speaker 1: he had planned. Essentially, he was getting all these death
6:28
Speaker 1: threats and and one of these is the weirdest, weird
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Speaker 1: flex death threat I've ever heard of in my life.
6:33
Speaker 1: It's my favorite. Yeah, no, no, no, no, okay, Well
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Speaker 1: what have you a knife? I get that? Okay, you're
6:42
Speaker 1: coming for me? A bullet maybe with my name written
6:45
Speaker 1: on it? That? How about a spider filled dumpling? You
6:50
Speaker 1: never see it coming. The spider filled dumpling sounds like
6:54
Speaker 1: something out of it, like that scene where in the
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Speaker 1: Chinese restaurant, you know, and like all like the fortune
6:58
Speaker 1: cookie turns into an eyeball and he got the dumpling
7:01
Speaker 1: with spider's crawl. I mean, this is comical, but you
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Speaker 1: know effective. They definitely we're sending a message, and Lincoln
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Speaker 1: knew he wasn't safe, especially in these territories where secessionists
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Speaker 1: were a little more prevalent. Yeah, you can't. You can't
7:14
Speaker 1: keep an eye on every single spider filled dumpling. That's
7:18
Speaker 1: just the reality of the country Lincoln was living in
7:21
Speaker 1: at the time. So they had to figure out something
7:24
Speaker 1: to your to your excellent points here. So Samuel Bors
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Speaker 1: felt it meets up with Pinkerton the agency and and
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Speaker 1: and Pinkerton says, Okay, we've looked through the death threats, stumplings, knives, bullets,
7:36
Speaker 1: et cetera at all, and we feel like we have
7:41
Speaker 1: pinpointed the area where we are most likely to see
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Speaker 1: They called it a true threat, but we're most likely
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Speaker 1: to see action coming out of all this equivalence of
7:51
Speaker 1: nineteenth century hate mail. And they said this threat is
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Speaker 1: most likely to happen in Baltimore because out of all
7:59
Speaker 1: the spots on your itinerary, Baltimore is the only major
8:03
Speaker 1: slaveholding city. Yeah, it was. It was a hotbed of
8:06
Speaker 1: successionist activity at the time. And now, of course I've
8:09
Speaker 1: got good Morning Baltimore running through my head. Really, Bob,
8:13
Speaker 1: thank god, I don't know this song. Is this like
8:15
Speaker 1: a more actual morning show theme? Oh no, no, no, no,
8:18
Speaker 1: no no, it's it's a wonderful musical ode to the
8:21
Speaker 1: grittiness of Baltimore. Just google it later, you'll enjoy it.
8:23
Speaker 1: I need to learn more about Baltimore. I've only been
8:26
Speaker 1: once and it is a really interesting city. Obviously, a
8:29
Speaker 1: lot of what I know about Baltimore comes from the
8:31
Speaker 1: amazing HBO series The Wire. So Felton and Pinkerton met
8:35
Speaker 1: up in my hometown of Philadelphia and they devised a plan.
8:40
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, they said, Okay, Baltimore is a powder keg right,
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Speaker 1: and we don't want you Lincoln to be the non
8:48
Speaker 1: consensual match to the flame here. Uh but we can't
8:52
Speaker 1: get around Baltimore because, in addition to being a major
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Speaker 1: slaveholding city, every single inauguration route that we can think
9:00
Speaker 1: of means that we have to stop in this city.
9:04
Speaker 1: We have to stop it like one of the worst
9:05
Speaker 1: cities for you. Bro. Uh So this is dangerous because
9:10
Speaker 1: you are not on the train the whole time. This
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Speaker 1: is the really crazy part. He's switching to a different train.
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Speaker 1: You're gonna arrive, they say, to Lincoln at one train station,
9:21
Speaker 1: but then you have to get off and you have
9:22
Speaker 1: to travel a full mile to a second train station.
9:26
Speaker 1: And that is where we think if there is an
9:29
Speaker 1: attempt on your life, it will occur. And so this
9:32
Speaker 1: is this around now is when they brought in Kate Mortn.
9:35
Speaker 1: And Kate was such an asset to them in this
9:39
Speaker 1: investigation because, as we talked about in the last episode,
9:43
Speaker 1: she was so good at disguises, and Kate, even though
9:47
Speaker 1: she was we believe that she was something of a Yankee,
9:51
Speaker 1: was very good with a Southern accent, and so she
9:54
Speaker 1: could put on a Southern accent and try to infiltrate
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Speaker 1: some of these secessionist groups. According to an actual quote
10:01
Speaker 1: from the time, adopting a thick Southern accent, the New
10:04
Speaker 1: York native transformed into Mrs Cherry Mrs m Barley, a rich,
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Speaker 1: flirtatious Southern lady in town from Alabama to socialize at
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Speaker 1: classy secessionist gatherings. Oh, Mama, you find you find gentlemen
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Speaker 1: given me the vapors, I do declare Mrs Mrs Cherry
10:24
Speaker 1: or Mrs mbally, depending on all your lacking, sir, well,
10:27
Speaker 1: are you towel glass? You now go on and tell
10:34
Speaker 1: me about y'all's plans exactly, Oh my god. And you
10:39
Speaker 1: know she would she would like crash these secessionist parties, um,
10:42
Speaker 1: which I love and she would often be I learned
10:46
Speaker 1: a new word today. I think we learned another new
10:47
Speaker 1: word in the last episode. But this is my favorite cockade.
10:51
Speaker 1: You say, you know those ribbons you get when you
10:53
Speaker 1: win like a like a like a prize, or that
10:55
Speaker 1: emoji for like you know you did good, like a
10:58
Speaker 1: blue ribbon, those things are called cocky aids. That's a
11:01
Speaker 1: not of ribbons. The signaled Southern sympathies. I'm gonna say
11:05
Speaker 1: it again, cockade. So she would wear one of those
11:08
Speaker 1: to indicate her secessionist sympathies. And she again posed as
11:11
Speaker 1: a Southern socialized lady of great finery from Alabama, and um,
11:16
Speaker 1: that's exactly what she did. She infiltrated these parties and
11:20
Speaker 1: began to gather intel, and turns out that the plot
11:24
Speaker 1: that they thought they knew about was just the tip
11:26
Speaker 1: of the iceberg. Yeah, this is this is a really
11:28
Speaker 1: good point because it goes back to one of our
11:31
Speaker 1: earlier stories about Kate Warren or should I say Mrs
11:34
Speaker 1: m Barley in this case, you know, she was of
11:38
Speaker 1: northern birth right, so she needed to rep Southern in
11:42
Speaker 1: a convincing way. And this is this is so brilliant.
11:46
Speaker 1: She used her previous research on that Adams Express Company
11:50
Speaker 1: robbery and her involvement in that or her involvement in
11:54
Speaker 1: catching the thieves. Uh, And she said, I'm from mcgomra
11:59
Speaker 1: alibi Amma. She was super familiar with it because she
12:03
Speaker 1: had spent so much time cracking that case and boom
12:06
Speaker 1: it worked. I mean, she's amazing at this. Yeah, And
12:09
Speaker 1: that's why in the TV series, even though each episode
12:12
Speaker 1: is really a different case that she's cracking and she did,
12:15
Speaker 1: they all build on each other, right, So she's got
12:17
Speaker 1: all of this knowledge from this case that she cracked
12:20
Speaker 1: from Monk I'm real Aabama. She's bringing it to the
12:22
Speaker 1: secessionist parties. And it's worth noting here too that the
12:25
Speaker 1: secessionist parties were fancy like these weren't just a bunch
12:29
Speaker 1: of like brawlers in a bar. These were some fancy
12:33
Speaker 1: rich people's secessionist parties because those were the people that
12:36
Speaker 1: were desperate to protect their way of life at the time.
12:39
Speaker 1: And Kate became really good at floating in and out
12:43
Speaker 1: of that kind of fancy rich person society, and in
12:46
Speaker 1: a way that had to be really hard, because it's
12:48
Speaker 1: it's not easy to present yourself into a kind of
12:51
Speaker 1: click like that, and yet she was she was just
12:54
Speaker 1: such a butterfly on the wall that she was able
12:57
Speaker 1: to get into these parties and get the information that
13:00
Speaker 1: she needed and ultimately the information that would save Abraham
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Speaker 1: Lincoln's damn life. No, it reminds me of that scene
13:06
Speaker 1: and Inglorious Bastards where they're in the Nazi bar and
13:10
Speaker 1: they're posing as Nazis, and was that I'm backing you up.
13:15
Speaker 1: I'm hyping ridiculous story. You can't see. You can't see
13:19
Speaker 1: what I was doing. Brilliant on an audio podcast. But
13:22
Speaker 1: I love this scene you're talking about Ben Ben pulled
13:24
Speaker 1: up three fingers like this. I thought it was a
13:25
Speaker 1: symbol representing something that I was either missing in the
13:28
Speaker 1: story that I was about to tell. But no, thank you,
13:30
Speaker 1: my friend. I appreciate the backup. I think we all
13:32
Speaker 1: love that scene. It's one of the most tense scenes
13:34
Speaker 1: and in recent memory in a film. I really love it.
13:38
Speaker 1: But no, it's that kind of tension of like, you know,
13:40
Speaker 1: if she had been found out, not to say they
13:42
Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily executed her on site, but not to say
13:45
Speaker 1: that they wouldn't have I don't know, and they had
13:48
Speaker 1: the money to get away with it too. I want
13:56
Speaker 1: to go to this point that you you established, no
13:58
Speaker 1: uh that got you got. I love our dramatic structure here.
14:02
Speaker 1: I think we're killing this honestly. So there's this point
14:05
Speaker 1: where Kate learns, as as you alluded, tounal, the full
14:10
Speaker 1: depth of the conspiracy, how real it is, how serious
14:14
Speaker 1: it is. Casey, I'm gonna ask you for a dramatic
14:17
Speaker 1: sound queue. Heads up, there's a new player entering the chat,
14:21
Speaker 1: as we say in today's parlance, is a man named
14:29
Speaker 1: Cipriano Ferrandini. He's he's he's Italian, and he loves the
14:35
Speaker 1: Italian Revolution. And he says, I'm gonna, you know, take
14:38
Speaker 1: the same stuff from the Italian Revolution to what I see, well,
14:43
Speaker 1: what they would sometimes refer to as the Southern Cause
14:46
Speaker 1: ak secessionism. And I picture, I mean, I I just
14:49
Speaker 1: can't help picturing um Cipriano Ferrandini. I'm picturing him as
14:53
Speaker 1: this very like phlamboyant, outspoken Italian man. In my head,
14:58
Speaker 1: he wears a cape. He where's the cape all the time?
15:01
Speaker 1: What is the style of his mustache? In the in
15:04
Speaker 1: your mind's eye, oh see, in my in my mind
15:06
Speaker 1: we've got a curly queue. We've got a long, skinny,
15:09
Speaker 1: curly queue. We're on the same page. What a what
15:12
Speaker 1: a rascal? He really seems like a classic would tie
15:15
Speaker 1: a Damsel in distress to the train tracks type villain,
15:18
Speaker 1: you know, uh, Mr Ferrandini. Um, So it's true. He
15:22
Speaker 1: there was a thing that he observed in the Italian Revolution,
15:25
Speaker 1: sort of like a method of of let's call it
15:28
Speaker 1: a diversion um, the idea that a mob would kind
15:31
Speaker 1: of flock around Lincoln like like you do, even if
15:35
Speaker 1: it's not threatening. Although if you were that guy like
15:36
Speaker 1: I would terrify me. Like I always wonder what would
15:38
Speaker 1: be like to be one of those boy bands where
15:40
Speaker 1: it's just you can't go to the mall without getting mobbed.
15:43
Speaker 1: You know, this doesn't sound like much fun to me. No,
15:45
Speaker 1: thank you podcasting life for me. But yeah, while that
15:48
Speaker 1: was happening, another group, secondary group, um would create a
15:53
Speaker 1: diversion or a distraction that would draw the police away
15:56
Speaker 1: from the scene. And this is interesting. Beforehand all of
16:00
Speaker 1: the dission the successions would draw ballots to the side.
16:02
Speaker 1: Who was going to shoot link him? Who gets to
16:05
Speaker 1: shoot Lincoln? I mean, if there's there it's a very
16:08
Speaker 1: Julius Caesar kind of feel to it, right like, And
16:11
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, actually several men
16:15
Speaker 1: drew the ballot that they would be able to shoot Lincoln,
16:18
Speaker 1: which again to kind of spread the culpability around um,
16:23
Speaker 1: around the would be assassins. Yeah, yeah, and it's it's brilliant.
16:27
Speaker 1: One question that's kind of lost to history is whether,
16:32
Speaker 1: in casey I expect the sound cue every time we're
16:34
Speaker 1: using this guy's name, is whether Cipriano Ferrandini actually informed
16:44
Speaker 1: his co conspirators that more than one person would draw
16:47
Speaker 1: the ballot. There's redundancy in there in case somebody, um
16:52
Speaker 1: chickens out or has a sudden moment of clarity, crisis
16:55
Speaker 1: of consciousness. But as we know Pinkerton, Okay, they hopped
16:59
Speaker 1: to it, and they tell Abraham Lincoln about this plot,
17:02
Speaker 1: and he hears about it, what does he do? Can
17:05
Speaker 1: I really quickly backtrack just to Cipriano Ferrandini, Why what
17:09
Speaker 1: would it would have been about the Italian Revolution or
17:11
Speaker 1: about his Italian roots that would have caused him to
17:14
Speaker 1: sympathize with the secessionist cause or to be so overtly
17:18
Speaker 1: like racist. Was that a thing in Italy around that time.
17:21
Speaker 1: I know it was like, you know, worldwide, but was
17:23
Speaker 1: Italy a country yet it was? It was a sort
17:27
Speaker 1: of a mixed tape of states, right, Yeah, I don't
17:30
Speaker 1: think it wasn't garab Baldi was Garabaldi the eighteen fifties
17:34
Speaker 1: of the eighteen nineties, Joe, Yes, I think that's correct there,
17:38
Speaker 1: because I'm not going to make you do it again, Casey,
17:42
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I don't want to. I don't want to
17:44
Speaker 1: abuse your generosity here. But this guy CF was familiar
17:49
Speaker 1: with the eighteen forty eight revolutions in the Italian states.
17:53
Speaker 1: I believe that we're part of the larger, more widespread
17:57
Speaker 1: revolutions in Europe overall. Um Italy has had had for
18:03
Speaker 1: a long time difficulty forming a sustainable countrywide government. So
18:09
Speaker 1: as far as this guy's uh inspiration, it's funny because
18:15
Speaker 1: he started as a hair dresser. I don't want to
18:17
Speaker 1: take away from course he did. I told you, I
18:20
Speaker 1: meant my My description of him, even though I've never
18:22
Speaker 1: looked at a picture of him, feels so right on.
18:27
Speaker 1: So he was barber is a hair dresser, but he's
18:31
Speaker 1: a he's a dangerous guy, I guess not to answer
18:34
Speaker 1: your question, it feels like he always had that racism, right.
18:41
Speaker 1: I don't think you could support secessionist and not be
18:43
Speaker 1: racist at the time. Um. And so maybe he was
18:48
Speaker 1: just known for bringing some real world, firsthand experience to
18:52
Speaker 1: the would be revolutionaries and secessionists here in the States.
18:55
Speaker 1: What do you think that sounds about right to me?
18:57
Speaker 1: Can you guys see my screen? Yeah, he doesn't. He
18:59
Speaker 1: does not have a curly Q mustache. I don't know,
19:03
Speaker 1: it's just pretty well quoft. It looks like a barber's mustache. Uh.
19:07
Speaker 1: He's a little older than I expected. Um where he bespectacled,
19:11
Speaker 1: kind of gentlemanly looking dude with the boat tie. But
19:15
Speaker 1: I want to assume that this was in his later
19:17
Speaker 1: twilight years. The Cipriani Barondini of our story was much
19:22
Speaker 1: more than Lothario asked character than we have discussed. But
19:25
Speaker 1: let's not get caught up in this gentleman because things
19:27
Speaker 1: escalate pretty quickly, uh, and move forward. Um, and that's
19:31
Speaker 1: when the Pinkerton's swoop in and um kind of save
19:35
Speaker 1: the day. Yeah. So, so the thing is that this
19:38
Speaker 1: guy they're quiet is going to be president of the
19:43
Speaker 1: United States, so they can't really pull the leash on
19:46
Speaker 1: him too hard. Ultimately, if this guy is like, Hey,
19:49
Speaker 1: I appreciate the work you've done, but I'm gonna be president,
19:53
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna do what I want, uh you guys,
19:56
Speaker 1: And he pulled like a tim gun move in my
19:57
Speaker 1: head and he's like, just make it work. We're going
20:00
Speaker 1: to Baltimore. Yeah. They I mean, they couldn't. They couldn't
20:02
Speaker 1: get him to not go through Baltimore. And they're telling him,
20:05
Speaker 1: They're like, you're going to be murdered in Baltimore, and
20:07
Speaker 1: he was like, I'm I'm going anyway. This is my day.
20:11
Speaker 1: And they eventually did convince him to go to Baltimore early,
20:16
Speaker 1: so everyone is expecting him in Baltimore a little bit
20:19
Speaker 1: later than he actually got there, and that is part
20:22
Speaker 1: of what helped foil at least part of the plot
20:25
Speaker 1: that Cipriano Ferandini was levying against the President. I love.
20:29
Speaker 1: I love the kind of subterfuse, very simple one that
20:33
Speaker 1: they employed here. They made Lincoln get rid of his
20:38
Speaker 1: signature stovepipe hat, and as we know, he's a quite tall,
20:41
Speaker 1: skinny dude, so they had him kind of hunch over
20:45
Speaker 1: and covered him with a shawl. And I love this
20:46
Speaker 1: quote us from the mental flass article. And I love
20:49
Speaker 1: that the way this is presented here covering Lincoln in
20:52
Speaker 1: a shawl and declaring him frail, It's like this, this
20:57
Speaker 1: is a frail creature here they had to declare there
21:00
Speaker 1: at every every time they met somebody knew. Um, they
21:03
Speaker 1: hit him in one of the sleeper cars of one
21:05
Speaker 1: of the regular passenger trains, not in like the presidential
21:09
Speaker 1: you know whatever campaign type compartment. So um, the assassin
21:15
Speaker 1: that would be assassins would have thought that he was
21:17
Speaker 1: traveling in one train, but he was actually in another compartment.
21:20
Speaker 1: He was able to uh break off from the caravan.
21:24
Speaker 1: Um in under cover of night. Can you picture that
21:27
Speaker 1: conversation of trying to get Lincoln to take off his
21:29
Speaker 1: signature hat like that hat's his thing. I'm sorry, but
21:33
Speaker 1: this is this is my look, this is my brand,
21:37
Speaker 1: Like I I pictured, I picture that is being very difficult,
21:40
Speaker 1: and we should talk about how instrumental Kate Warren was
21:44
Speaker 1: in sneaking him around. So yeah, they get Lincoln to
21:48
Speaker 1: take off his fancy had and they get him to
21:50
Speaker 1: stoop over a little bit, and they cover him with
21:52
Speaker 1: a shawl and a cape. But it was Kate's job
21:55
Speaker 1: to pose as his sister and to do all of
21:58
Speaker 1: the talking. She had to do all of this fast
22:00
Speaker 1: talking to say, oh my gosh, I have this sick brother.
22:03
Speaker 1: Please let me get him onto this train quick. And
22:05
Speaker 1: can you please give us a sleeper car that is
22:07
Speaker 1: very far away from all the other people, because look
22:09
Speaker 1: at him, he is so frail and sick and probably contagious.
22:13
Speaker 1: A cough car. And then she and then she ushers
22:16
Speaker 1: Lincoln onto the train. She's got this pistol. She's hoping
22:19
Speaker 1: she doesn't have to use it. She's ready to use
22:21
Speaker 1: it if she has to. So in this way, Kate
22:23
Speaker 1: Warren was actually the first secret Service agent in this country.
22:28
Speaker 1: That's absolutely right spot on. She does uh. This is
22:32
Speaker 1: this is our dramatic moment, right the calm before the
22:36
Speaker 1: storm in in this episode of Kate. This is the
22:39
Speaker 1: moment where picture Kate Warren with her pseudo frail, pseudo
22:45
Speaker 1: brother uh in a sleeper car and she's just like
22:49
Speaker 1: sitting there, I don't know, probably drinking coffee or something,
22:52
Speaker 1: staring at her pistol. She does not sleep at all
22:54
Speaker 1: that night, not one wink. Uh. And they get to
22:56
Speaker 1: Baltimore safely, Warren no longer has to pose as uh,
23:02
Speaker 1: Lincoln's protective sibling. But there's an interesting thing that happens.
23:09
Speaker 1: They unhitch the sleeper car from the train, so they
23:12
Speaker 1: don't make this you know, frail non haberdash Lincoln walk
23:18
Speaker 1: the streets. They it's weird. It's like take the mountain
23:22
Speaker 1: to the person kind of thing. They just moved the
23:24
Speaker 1: train car, which is crazy. I didn't know you could
23:26
Speaker 1: do that. They moved the train car by horse through
23:29
Speaker 1: the streets of Baltimore in order to hitch it to
23:32
Speaker 1: another train that will then get them to Washington. It
23:35
Speaker 1: would have been a pretty bumpy rye and they weren't
23:37
Speaker 1: the streets all like cobblestone in those days. Yeah, I
23:39
Speaker 1: would have been rough. And so this is another tense
23:43
Speaker 1: moment because they had to wait in this car and
23:47
Speaker 1: they have to say, well, you know, we hope that
23:50
Speaker 1: this horse pulled train car isn't too a nomalous it
23:54
Speaker 1: doesn't arouse too much suspicion, right exactly, But it works.
24:00
Speaker 1: They connect this car to that train a mile away.
24:03
Speaker 1: Lincoln somehow stays unnoticed and you, you guys know, the
24:07
Speaker 1: whole time he's in the sleeping car. He's probably saying
24:10
Speaker 1: to his aids like, well, I just don't understand why
24:12
Speaker 1: you guys turned so anti stovepipe hat. Everybody loved it,
24:17
Speaker 1: and I feel like you guys are I don't know
24:20
Speaker 1: if your teammate anymore. I just I wish you would
24:22
Speaker 1: tell me where you put the hat. I'm not freaking out,
24:24
Speaker 1: you're freaking out. And anyway, they get to that next
24:27
Speaker 1: train station, they continue on and eventually arrive in Washington
24:32
Speaker 1: and the next day after this incredibly tense moment, Lincoln
24:36
Speaker 1: asked Pinkerton the agents who were involved to give him
24:40
Speaker 1: a visit. He wants to thank them in person. And
24:42
Speaker 1: I love this because he thinks all of the agents,
24:45
Speaker 1: but he really gives Kate a special thank you because
24:49
Speaker 1: she was the one. She was his body person. She
24:51
Speaker 1: was the person that was, you know, hustling him around
24:53
Speaker 1: and was by his side and was ready with her
24:56
Speaker 1: gun to shoot someone if if one of the secessionists
24:59
Speaker 1: that drew the right car hard actually found them. And
25:02
Speaker 1: so what he said was quote and I'm not going
25:04
Speaker 1: to do it. I'm not I'm no Daniel bay Lewis, guys.
25:07
Speaker 1: So I'm just just pretend just pick put a stovetop
25:10
Speaker 1: hat on me and picture me as Daniel Day. But
25:13
Speaker 1: he says, I am sensible, ma'am, of having put you
25:16
Speaker 1: in some inconvenience. That's putting it lightly a by the way,
25:20
Speaker 1: not to not to speak of placing you in danger.
25:23
Speaker 1: So he did acknowledge that he differentiated the inconvenience from
25:26
Speaker 1: the danger. I appreciate it was she was inconvenienced and
25:30
Speaker 1: she was in danger. And in my head in that
25:31
Speaker 1: scene where she's staying up all night and she's like,
25:33
Speaker 1: are they coming? Are they coming? I don't think she's
25:35
Speaker 1: drinking coffee. I think she's drinking whiskey. Oh, I guarantee
25:39
Speaker 1: for the look. Right, we've got to remember the aesthetic. Yeah,
25:42
Speaker 1: here's the thing. This is um probably like the headline
25:46
Speaker 1: that pops up for Kate Warre if you if you
25:49
Speaker 1: hear about her in history books. But as we established
25:51
Speaker 1: in part one of this series, she did much more
25:54
Speaker 1: than that. And now we have to look at the
25:58
Speaker 1: post Lincoln operations or post Lincoln career, which is sad
26:03
Speaker 1: because we'll never know how much more she could have
26:06
Speaker 1: done had her life not been cut short. I do
26:10
Speaker 1: want to point out. We are recording this episode on
26:14
Speaker 1: June tenth, which is the day um of celebration for
26:18
Speaker 1: the abolition of slavery. And if Lincoln had been killed,
26:22
Speaker 1: the Emancipation Proclamation may not have come to pass, certainly
26:26
Speaker 1: not as quickly as it as it did. It was
26:28
Speaker 1: only a couple of years later that that he he
26:30
Speaker 1: made that historical m announcement. And you know, we think
26:34
Speaker 1: of the assassination attempts on Lincoln in terms of the
26:38
Speaker 1: one that succeeded more often than not, but it's really
26:42
Speaker 1: the one that didn't succeed that gave us the brunt
26:44
Speaker 1: of what made Lincoln such an important president. I think
26:47
Speaker 1: that's a really good point. And to be just a
26:50
Speaker 1: little bit cheasy here, Uh, it reminds me of, you know,
26:54
Speaker 1: the fact that history is a palam test. You know,
26:56
Speaker 1: everything is written atop something else. And I I think
27:00
Speaker 1: of the Faulkner quote himself a problematic author, when he
27:04
Speaker 1: said the past is never over. It's not even past
27:08
Speaker 1: history hinges on such on such small things. I think
27:12
Speaker 1: that's a brilliant point. Noel, thank you for making it. Yeah,
27:15
Speaker 1: no worries, and uh, thank you guys for joining in
27:17
Speaker 1: the conversation. We have one final kind of sad, little
27:25
Speaker 1: little chapter in in Kate's life, which is the untimely
27:29
Speaker 1: end of the life of of such a brilliant and
27:33
Speaker 1: creative I say creative because she was very resourceful, and
27:37
Speaker 1: then all these tales we hear about her and the
27:38
Speaker 1: reason that she's going to be a perfect heroine for
27:42
Speaker 1: a television series. She knew she was like a female
27:45
Speaker 1: James Bond. I mean, she knew how to get things done.
27:47
Speaker 1: She knew how to get what she wanted with the
27:49
Speaker 1: resources that she had at a disposal. And I think
27:51
Speaker 1: that is the quintessential feature of like a great brilliant detective. Oh,
27:57
Speaker 1: she's definitely a female James Bonding. That's that's that's how
28:00
Speaker 1: going to write her. Umm, I am curious. We don't
28:02
Speaker 1: have a ton of information about the next part of
28:05
Speaker 1: her life, but there had to be other interesting cases,
28:09
Speaker 1: which is why there it just feels like there's so
28:11
Speaker 1: many holes in her story, because what we do know
28:14
Speaker 1: is that she continued working for Pinkerton through the Civil War,
28:18
Speaker 1: and there had to be some fascinating things that came
28:21
Speaker 1: up during the Civil War, Right, what does creep me
28:24
Speaker 1: out a little bit? Is that sometimes and this I
28:27
Speaker 1: think this partly shows Pinkerton's great respect for her, but
28:30
Speaker 1: also shows Pinkerton how how pretty Pinkerton thought she was,
28:34
Speaker 1: because she would sometimes but they would pose as a couple, right,
28:37
Speaker 1: they would, they would they would do work where they
28:39
Speaker 1: were posing as a couple in order to infiltrate a case.
28:42
Speaker 1: And they did that a lot, particularly in in southern society,
28:46
Speaker 1: and to gain crucial military intelligence. And you know, to
28:49
Speaker 1: that end, it seems like Pinkerton and his work with
28:52
Speaker 1: Kate we're probably quite crucial to a lot of the
28:56
Speaker 1: war efforts. So I think that part of her life.
28:58
Speaker 1: It's sad to me that that that has been forgotten. Agreed,
29:02
Speaker 1: you know, their tales untold, right, and and this is
29:07
Speaker 1: you know, this is one of the one of the
29:09
Speaker 1: balancing acts about about history. And I I think, if
29:13
Speaker 1: we're being completely honest, a large part of why there's
29:16
Speaker 1: so much missing information here, I would I think you
29:19
Speaker 1: could say, well, maybe a lot of these operations were
29:22
Speaker 1: on the hush and they had to be secret, but
29:24
Speaker 1: I think it would be naive to not acknowledge that
29:27
Speaker 1: a huge part of why we don't know more about
29:29
Speaker 1: her adventures is because history was not giving women their due,
29:33
Speaker 1: bringing it back to Fearce. So we do know one
29:36
Speaker 1: thing about what ultimately happened to Kate Warren. As we established,
29:41
Speaker 1: we don't know her exact date of birth, not even
29:44
Speaker 1: the year, but we do know when she passed away.
29:47
Speaker 1: That was on January eighteen sixty eight. She was either
29:52
Speaker 1: thirty five or thirty eight. But again, not the kind
29:56
Speaker 1: of person you would want to press that question on. UM.
30:00
Speaker 1: She did not. Uh, it's it's not a violent cause
30:03
Speaker 1: of death. It was pneumonia, I believe, and before that
30:07
Speaker 1: happened the last years of her life. UM. Again showing
30:11
Speaker 1: Pinkerton's great abiding respect for her uh, he made her
30:15
Speaker 1: the um superintendent of the agency's Bureau for Women. Because
30:20
Speaker 1: not only was she herself such an important figure in
30:24
Speaker 1: the detective agency, she led to Pinkerton realizing the the
30:29
Speaker 1: effectiveness of of female agents, and he hired many more
30:33
Speaker 1: and she would train them. UM. So she was able
30:35
Speaker 1: to kind of pass on that legacy to many of
30:39
Speaker 1: the other female Pinkerton detectives. That is a mouthful. UM.
30:43
Speaker 1: We do know, unfortunately, that after Pinkerton himself passed away, UM,
30:48
Speaker 1: his children kind of dismantled the agency. Um and really,
30:53
Speaker 1: like again, like we talked about a little bit at
30:54
Speaker 1: the top of the show, moved it much more towards
30:57
Speaker 1: the kind of strike breaking, you know, bully squad that
31:00
Speaker 1: we kind of think about them as today. But you know,
31:03
Speaker 1: let's highlight this period of relative progressiveness within this agency
31:07
Speaker 1: and give Pinkerton the original his props um for seeing,
31:12
Speaker 1: you know, the promise of of of women in detective work.
31:16
Speaker 1: And obviously it wouldn't be It would be decades before
31:19
Speaker 1: women were allowed to be police officers. So this was
31:22
Speaker 1: pretty forward thinking. Well yeah, and you know, by decades,
31:25
Speaker 1: it would be more than a hundred years before women
31:29
Speaker 1: were allowed to be police officers in our country. And
31:32
Speaker 1: it's also worth noting that Pinkerton was named as the
31:36
Speaker 1: head of the Union Intelligence Service, which did eventually become
31:40
Speaker 1: the Secret Service, So it is not a stretch at
31:42
Speaker 1: all to say that Kate Orn really was that first
31:45
Speaker 1: Secret Service agent. And this is this is fascinating because
31:49
Speaker 1: we do and with questions and we do have a mystery.
31:55
Speaker 1: I mean, the relatively uh scant details we know are
32:00
Speaker 1: pretty astonishing, Like you said, Joe, first female Secret Service agent,
32:04
Speaker 1: first female detective in the US, at least oddly enough,
32:11
Speaker 1: the Pinkerton Detective Agency. The the collections that you can read, Uh,
32:17
Speaker 1: they don't have a ton of references to war not
32:20
Speaker 1: nearly as many as you would think, especially considering that
32:24
Speaker 1: her boss and everybody else seemed so captivated, whether on
32:28
Speaker 1: on multiple levels. Uh. There is one pamphlet that describes
32:35
Speaker 1: Kate Warren, but it's it's a pamphlet that was published
32:39
Speaker 1: entirely to repudiate the claims of a another detective force,
32:45
Speaker 1: right and also ran detective Force who said, you know
32:48
Speaker 1: that whole Lincoln thing. And I was like, maybe a
32:50
Speaker 1: little Pinkerton, but it was mainly us, like it was
32:53
Speaker 1: it was the John A. Kennedy Detective Force, and so Pinkerton,
32:57
Speaker 1: you know, in in the way we would say today
33:00
Speaker 1: Pinkerton clapped back and they said, no, we saved the
33:04
Speaker 1: day and we did it, uh with it was several agents,
33:08
Speaker 1: including Kate Ward And I like to imagine a little
33:12
Speaker 1: mic drop where they're like, maybe you've heard of her
33:15
Speaker 1: m And one thing you might not know, Um, I
33:18
Speaker 1: didn't know until very recently is the slogan for the
33:21
Speaker 1: Pinkerton Agency. Uh. And this remains of this day, the
33:24
Speaker 1: Pinkerton's are still around. Um again, after some of those
33:27
Speaker 1: nasty strike breaking periods in their career, there was actually
33:30
Speaker 1: something called the Pinkerton Act that forbade them from like
33:34
Speaker 1: holding certain positions and you want, associated with the Pinkerton
33:36
Speaker 1: Detective Agency. So they really were like you know, officially
33:40
Speaker 1: persona non grad after that kind of rough patch, but
33:43
Speaker 1: they are around to this day. It became kind of
33:45
Speaker 1: a private security agents, you almost like Blackwater, not not
33:48
Speaker 1: quite as uh quite as divisive, but definitely in the
33:52
Speaker 1: same vein where you think you could hire them out
33:54
Speaker 1: to you know, protect a famous person or something like that.
33:57
Speaker 1: But to this day, their slow and we never sleep
34:01
Speaker 1: remains on their site. And the idea of a private
34:04
Speaker 1: eye um embodied with kind of an unblinking eye. That's
34:08
Speaker 1: in their logo still to this day. Uh. There's a
34:11
Speaker 1: lot of speculation that that traces back to that night
34:15
Speaker 1: where um Kate watched over Lincoln potentially while sipping some
34:20
Speaker 1: whiskey uh grip and a pistol um and and not
34:24
Speaker 1: closing her eyes. Yeah. And one last thing I just
34:26
Speaker 1: want to note that I think is so important and
34:29
Speaker 1: we shouldn't class over is that she then trained other women.
34:33
Speaker 1: One of the things that we do in Fierce is
34:36
Speaker 1: we talk about a historical woman that history has forgotten,
34:39
Speaker 1: and then the next part of the episode we talk
34:41
Speaker 1: about a modern woman who is standing on that historical
34:43
Speaker 1: woman's shoulders. And like we mentioned earlier, history doesn't happen
34:47
Speaker 1: in a vacuum. Everyone needs a hand up, and everyone
34:51
Speaker 1: is standing on someone else's legacy. And Kate Warren made
34:54
Speaker 1: sure to pass her legacy onto generations of women who
34:58
Speaker 1: wouldn't have to fight as hard to get to do
35:00
Speaker 1: what she did. But she opened those doors for them.
35:02
Speaker 1: She started putting tiny little cracks in the glass ceiling
35:06
Speaker 1: such that then a hundred years later, yeah, we did
35:08
Speaker 1: have women patrolling the streets in Philadelphia and all of
35:10
Speaker 1: our country. And now we have women leading leading police departments,
35:14
Speaker 1: for better or worse, and we'll see what happens to
35:16
Speaker 1: all of them. And I think that is the perfect
35:20
Speaker 1: note for us to end on today. This has been
35:25
Speaker 1: a wild ride. Hopefully this has been one that is
35:29
Speaker 1: inspiring to our listeners out there, especially especially you younger
35:36
Speaker 1: ridiculous historians who are contemplating your next life steps. Whether
35:42
Speaker 1: you want to be Awarewolf fast or not, or whether
35:44
Speaker 1: you want to be a p I, whether you want
35:47
Speaker 1: to change the world you can't, you can, you can
35:49
Speaker 1: do so. Um, I have to say, Joe, Noel Casey,
35:54
Speaker 1: I'm pretty much sold on the TV. It's gonna be
35:57
Speaker 1: so good, guys, I can't wait. I think everybody should
36:00
Speaker 1: be by now, because again, like it's perfect because of
36:02
Speaker 1: the mystery. It allows you to take some creative license.
36:05
Speaker 1: It can be a combination of historical fact, a little
36:09
Speaker 1: bit of embellishment, maybe a little over the top Tarantino nous,
36:13
Speaker 1: which she really gets to like blow some bad guys away.
36:16
Speaker 1: That's just me, that's just my two cents. This is
36:19
Speaker 1: your thing, Joe, but I for one can't wait to
36:21
Speaker 1: see it. Um, and I for one want to thank
36:23
Speaker 1: you for coming on this show and being part of
36:25
Speaker 1: this awesome too. Parter. I think we all learned a lot.
36:28
Speaker 1: I for one, learned the word cockade. I had to
36:30
Speaker 1: say it again, thank you for having me. I also
36:33
Speaker 1: learned cockade and this was a bus I mean, it
36:36
Speaker 1: gave me. There's there's not a lot of times that
36:38
Speaker 1: I get to express my love for the Pinkerton album,
36:41
Speaker 1: and this was one of them. So this it just
36:43
Speaker 1: feels really special to me. We contained multitudes Joe, So, Joe,
36:48
Speaker 1: thank you so much again for I greatly appreciate your
36:52
Speaker 1: time and for going on this journey with us. For
36:56
Speaker 1: everyone who has through some woeful oversight not yet listen
37:01
Speaker 1: to Fierce, where can they find it? Where can they
37:04
Speaker 1: learn more about you? And where can they learn more
37:06
Speaker 1: about your work? Oh? So yes, the Fierce Podcast. We
37:09
Speaker 1: now have eight episodes out in the world, and like
37:12
Speaker 1: I said before, each of them feels like a mini documentary.
37:15
Speaker 1: You will walk away feeling like you know so much
37:18
Speaker 1: about these historical women that you may some of them
37:21
Speaker 1: you may have heard of more than others. But I
37:23
Speaker 1: mean each of each of them just just deserves chapters
37:26
Speaker 1: and chapters and history books of course, which they did
37:28
Speaker 1: not get. Um. You can find Fierce on the I
37:31
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to
37:34
Speaker 1: your podcasts. You can follow me on Instagram at Joe
37:37
Speaker 1: Piazza Author, or my website www dot Joe Piazza dot com. Well.
37:42
Speaker 1: First off, huge thanks once again to Joe Piazza for
37:45
Speaker 1: joining us today. Big massive thanks to super producer Casey
37:47
Speaker 1: Pegram Alex Williams. Who composed our theme, Christopher has Ciota's
37:50
Speaker 1: here with us in spirit. Huge, huge thanks to Hate Warren.
37:55
Speaker 1: Uh you know, I'm just going to reiterate what I
37:57
Speaker 1: think already said. No, big thanks to case E Pegram
38:01
Speaker 1: for if we're nailing the sound cue Ciprianto Ferandini. Oh
38:05
Speaker 1: you got it. I can't believe you got that one too. Okay, no, no, no,
38:10
Speaker 1: it's it's a complex relationship. But thank you as well,
38:14
Speaker 1: of course, to Gabe Lizier. Thank you to Eve's Jeff Coach.
38:19
Speaker 1: Check out our peer podcast Eaves does this day in History. Uh,
38:23
Speaker 1: it's it's quite good and it's uh, it's something that
38:27
Speaker 1: we recommend listening to after you have listened to Fierce
38:32
Speaker 1: also right to us and let us know, um, let
38:34
Speaker 1: us know what other what other stories you've heard about
38:38
Speaker 1: that you think your fellow ridiculous historians should learn about?
38:41
Speaker 1: You can find us. We're just like we're all over
38:43
Speaker 1: the internet. We're basically on everything except um uh live
38:48
Speaker 1: journal and Pinterest. We're gonna get to Pinterest one day.
38:51
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, people even use Pinterest anymore? Is it?
38:54
Speaker 1: Is it? I don't know. I just I still understand
38:56
Speaker 1: what it's for I only just now figured out Snapchat,
38:58
Speaker 1: and then Instagram started doing stories and that's like Snapchat.
39:01
Speaker 1: So why do people use Snapchat now? I think I
39:04
Speaker 1: know why. Is it's porn, isn't it. That's exactly what
39:07
Speaker 1: it is. And with that, I bid you all a
39:11
Speaker 1: fair farewell. Oh man, I just shouted out the youth
39:15
Speaker 1: of America. We'll see you next time, Youth of America.
39:26
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
39:28
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to
39:31
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.