Latest / Ridiculous History / John Wilkes Booth's Brother Saved Abraham Lincoln's Son
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio six.
- 0:27Speaker 1: Simper Tyratus. Welcome to the show, everybody, This is Ridiculous History.
- 0:33Speaker 1: My name is Ben, My name is What was that six,
- 0:35Speaker 1: Simper Tyrannus. Yes, something about tyranny, something about a tyrant. Yes,
- 0:39Speaker 1: thus to all tyrants. Oh, you're talking about old Johnny
- 0:44Speaker 1: Wilkes booth when he when he put one in Abe
- 0:48Speaker 1: Lincoln's Dome at the old theater production of our Country, gentleman,
- 0:53Speaker 1: our American cousins. Whatever difference you got, you got pretty close. Yes,
- 0:58Speaker 1: the spirit of it was with one of my favorite
- 1:02Speaker 1: terrible one liners in elementary school. Other than that, Mrs Lincoln,
- 1:07Speaker 1: how is the play? But it's never too soon to
- 1:12Speaker 1: introduce our our compatriot, our brother in arms. Uh, the
- 1:17Speaker 1: our third half of the podcast if don't think about
- 1:20Speaker 1: the math too much. That's our super producer, Casey Peckram.
- 1:24Speaker 1: Who is back. You were missed, my friends, You were missed.
- 1:27Speaker 1: It's good to be back. How are your travels, sir?
- 1:29Speaker 1: It was a whirlwind, but it was it was a
- 1:31Speaker 1: good time. Did you not hang out with NICKI six?
- 1:33Speaker 1: Is that true? We did? Yeah? We um I got
- 1:35Speaker 1: to high five Nikki six. I got to hear some
- 1:39Speaker 1: some great stories off air that I can't share here.
- 1:41Speaker 1: How is this high five? It was solid man, solid
- 1:44Speaker 1: high five technique. That counts for a lot. Also, just
- 1:47Speaker 1: to be clear, you mean it was a whirlwind and
- 1:49Speaker 1: that things were happening in quick succession, not that you
- 1:52Speaker 1: were in a whirlwind with Nikki six. That is correct. Yes,
- 1:56Speaker 1: we was just a very action packed few days and
- 2:00Speaker 1: Big Apple, Ah and the Big Apple. By way of segue,
- 2:04Speaker 1: New York comes up a little bit intoday's story. You
- 2:09Speaker 1: heard Noel and I alluding to the assassination of President
- 2:15Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln on April four, eighteen sixty. The President was
- 2:21Speaker 1: attending a play I think it's my American cousin at
- 2:25Speaker 1: Ford's Theater in Washington, d C. And that evening, while
- 2:30Speaker 1: watching the play, he is assassinated by the man you
- 2:36Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, Noel John Wilkes Booth. John Wilkes Booth scream
- 2:41Speaker 1: six temper tyrannis, thus to all tyrants, or thus always
- 2:47Speaker 1: to tyrants. And according to John Wilkes Booth, that is
- 2:51Speaker 1: what he shouted after he shot the president. In part
- 2:55Speaker 1: because it was associated with the assassination of Caesar However,
- 3:00Speaker 1: while we all know, at least here in the States
- 3:03Speaker 1: kind of the story of John Wilkes Booth, what a
- 3:05Speaker 1: lot of people don't know is that John Wilkes Booth
- 3:09Speaker 1: had siblings. We've been doing a lot of this lately,
- 3:12Speaker 1: haven't we, Like the lesser known siblings of famous historical figures.
- 3:17Speaker 1: Have we done more than one? I swear we have.
- 3:18Speaker 1: We did. We've done George Washington's brother, We've done Jimmy
- 3:23Speaker 1: Carter's uncle, Jimmy Carter's uncle. Now we're doing John Wilkes
- 3:27Speaker 1: Booth's brother, doing John Wilkes Booth's brother and Abraham Lincoln's
- 3:32Speaker 1: eldest son in a sort of a star crossed star
- 3:37Speaker 1: cross might be No, I'm good with that. I'm going
- 3:39Speaker 1: with the star cross situation where folks from different, like
- 3:42Speaker 1: diametrically opposed worlds somehow intersect to make a difference in
- 3:46Speaker 1: each other's lives for good or for ill. Right, kind
- 3:50Speaker 1: of a cloud Atlas thing. We've got the references, don't
- 3:54Speaker 1: don't know it. I would say the film is imperfect.
- 3:58Speaker 1: Book is great, you're into it. Yeah, the film had
- 4:00Speaker 1: some really bad accents. Is that a thing? Uh? You know,
- 4:05Speaker 1: the thing is part of the film takes place in
- 4:07Speaker 1: the future, and so some of those accent you're hearing
- 4:10Speaker 1: are future accents, so I you know, yeah, there were
- 4:15Speaker 1: some silly parts. The one I'm remembering most specifically is
- 4:20Speaker 1: Tom Hanks, God bless that amazing man to his from
- 4:24Speaker 1: his bones to his soul and beyond. Has has an
- 4:27Speaker 1: accent that did pull me out of the story. When
- 4:30Speaker 1: it's in the far future. They talked about things like
- 4:33Speaker 1: the True True and the Big True True. It's weird
- 4:37Speaker 1: that reminds me, reminds me of Battlefield Earth. Oh gosh,
- 4:40Speaker 1: they say some weird stuff like that, like you slap
- 4:43Speaker 1: happy something or other, like I don't know, there's a
- 4:46Speaker 1: lot based on this scientology and absolutely, yeah, there was
- 4:52Speaker 1: a movie that Alron Hubbard wanted to get made for
- 4:54Speaker 1: a long time and John Travolta made that happen for him.
- 4:56Speaker 1: Was it forced Whittaker in that force Whittakers in it?
- 4:59Speaker 1: John Travolta is in uh, what's that guy's name, Barry Pepper.
- 5:06Speaker 1: Let's get back to the case of John Wilkes Booth's brother.
- 5:11Speaker 1: So we know that John Wilkes Booth was a well
- 5:15Speaker 1: known actor in his time, right, He was regularly landing
- 5:21Speaker 1: these lead roles at the theaters, and our Kentucky gentlemen,
- 5:25Speaker 1: I'm sorry, our American cousin cousin, was he in it.
- 5:29Speaker 1: He was not performing in the play that night, which
- 5:33Speaker 1: makes sense because he would have to sneak off stage
- 5:35Speaker 1: right to perform the assassination. But he was known about
- 5:40Speaker 1: the theater scene right, so he was probably hanging out
- 5:43Speaker 1: at this theater and other theaters on a regular basis.
- 5:47Speaker 1: His brothers Edwin and Junius Junior love the name Junius.
- 5:52Speaker 1: I love the Junior on it. Junius Junior, Oh my god,
- 5:55Speaker 1: I didn't. I don't not even get so caught up
- 5:57Speaker 1: in Junius. That's brilliant. It's j Junius Jr. Edwin and
- 6:02Speaker 1: Junius were also actors, and Edwin was actually more famous
- 6:08Speaker 1: than his brother John, at least before the assassination, and
- 6:13Speaker 1: he was Edwin Booth was often listed as one of
- 6:17Speaker 1: the best American stage actors in history. And our story
- 6:22Speaker 1: doesn't take place, and the that fateful night in the
- 6:26Speaker 1: Ford Theater doesn't know It starts somewhere in what late
- 6:30Speaker 1: eighteen sixty four early eighteen sixty five, on a train
- 6:33Speaker 1: platform in New Jersey, Jersey City, New Jersey. Twenty one
- 6:38Speaker 1: year old Robert Lincoln was trying to buy himself a
- 6:43Speaker 1: ticket for a train journey in a sleeper car um
- 6:46Speaker 1: and he was part of a big crowd and was
- 6:51Speaker 1: kind of smushed up against the idoling train car um
- 6:55Speaker 1: waiting to get this ticket. And as the train began
- 6:58Speaker 1: to move, he actually he fell out of the platform,
- 7:00Speaker 1: which is a fear. They don't how they say mind
- 7:02Speaker 1: the gap, that's what they mean. That's why they tell
- 7:04Speaker 1: you to mind the gap, so things like this don't happen.
- 7:07Speaker 1: But he was kind of being pushed up against it
- 7:09Speaker 1: and then he lost his footing and he fell into
- 7:12Speaker 1: the tracks. Thank god, it wasn't like subway where you
- 7:14Speaker 1: hit that third rail on your toast right. Yeah, but
- 7:17Speaker 1: this still means that serious injury or death could be
- 7:20Speaker 1: in the cards for the unlucky Robert Lincoln until that is.
- 7:26Speaker 1: And imagine some inspiring heroic music playing here. Someone from
- 7:31Speaker 1: the crowd reaches out and they grab Robert Lincoln by
- 7:35Speaker 1: his collar and they haul him back up to safety.
- 7:39Speaker 1: And Robert Lincoln turns around, and who does he see
- 7:43Speaker 1: but Edwin Booth, one of the most famous actors of
- 7:47Speaker 1: the time Robert Lincoln instantly recognizes Edwin Booth. This is again,
- 7:54Speaker 1: uh a few months before he recognizes him for his
- 7:57Speaker 1: acting prowess, right, not for being related the guy who
- 8:00Speaker 1: will one day kill his father. That would have required
- 8:03Speaker 1: some sort of gift of sight, which we have no
- 8:05Speaker 1: record that he had. It's strange because history tells us
- 8:10Speaker 1: that Edwin when he later learned that the man whose
- 8:16Speaker 1: life he saved was Robert Lincoln, Edwin was pretty was
- 8:19Speaker 1: pretty happy with that because his brother was a Confederate
- 8:24Speaker 1: sympathizer right not above assassination, which makes it functionally as Harris.
- 8:28Speaker 1: But Edwin was a New York resident and he was
- 8:32Speaker 1: a huge supporter of the Union cause they had a
- 8:36Speaker 1: they had a pretty complex relationship. I mean, Edwin Booth
- 8:41Speaker 1: voted for Abraham Lincoln in eighteen sixty four, and his brother,
- 8:44Speaker 1: John Wilkes Booth was incredibly disappointed by his brother's vote
- 8:48Speaker 1: and he lectured him. And Edwin was thirty one years
- 8:52Speaker 1: old at the time of that election, but it was
- 8:54Speaker 1: his first time voting, and he felt this amazing pride
- 9:00Speaker 1: swell up inside him because he felt like he was
- 9:02Speaker 1: finally doing what an American citizen is supposed to do.
- 9:07Speaker 1: He wrote to his friend Emma F. Carry in November
- 9:10Speaker 1: of eighteen sixty four, saying, I voted for Lincoln the
- 9:13Speaker 1: other day. That is the apostrophe other the first vote
- 9:17Speaker 1: I ever cast, and I suppose now I am an
- 9:20Speaker 1: American citizen all over as I have ever been in
- 9:23Speaker 1: my heart. So here he got a little southern towards
- 9:25Speaker 1: the end there because he was moved acting acting there was, uh, hey,
- 9:31Speaker 1: do you remember the first time you voted? Yeah, I
- 9:33Speaker 1: think I voted for I think you had something stupid,
- 9:36Speaker 1: like voted for Nader or something. Do you vote your conscience?
- 9:40Speaker 1: I don't know. They call that throwing away your vote.
- 9:42Speaker 1: I think it's what that's called. I don't know. I
- 9:44Speaker 1: voted for some third party like Green Party candidators, and
- 9:47Speaker 1: I can't remember who it was. It's irrelevant. Yeah, I
- 9:49Speaker 1: do remember. It was in a high school gym, not
- 9:51Speaker 1: particularly remarkable, I guess, where a lot of people vote. Yeah,
- 9:53Speaker 1: and you don't. You don't get anything when it's your
- 9:56Speaker 1: first time voting, which I was. I enjoyed it. I
- 9:59Speaker 1: felt like I was doing the right thing. Always grew
- 10:01Speaker 1: up very civic minded, but I kind of thought you
- 10:04Speaker 1: know someone would care. That was my first time voting.
- 10:07Speaker 1: But the people at the counter where your register, they
- 10:11Speaker 1: just wanted the day to be over. They were very nice,
- 10:14Speaker 1: but it's a very long day. What was it like
- 10:15Speaker 1: back then? Did you punch the ticket? You punched it
- 10:18Speaker 1: with like a little pen like okay, like it's like
- 10:20Speaker 1: a like a pokey thing on the front, isn't how
- 10:22Speaker 1: it was? Oh in my day you had to You
- 10:23Speaker 1: had to cut your hands and bleed out onto the
- 10:27Speaker 1: into your candidate of choices. Right, Yeah, that's what they
- 10:29Speaker 1: mean when they say, oh you're conscious, that's what they mean.
- 10:32Speaker 1: That's that's where the that's where the phrase drives. But
- 10:35Speaker 1: you get a sticker though, you do get something. But
- 10:37Speaker 1: everyone gets that. You always get a stick even even
- 10:40Speaker 1: back in those days, you ever thought about just getting
- 10:41Speaker 1: the sticker and not actually voting? You know? Okay, I'm
- 10:44Speaker 1: gonna share this with everyone. There's an unethical life hack
- 10:47Speaker 1: tip that I have done for years. I routinely vote.
- 10:52Speaker 1: I like the feeling and participating in these sorts of
- 10:56Speaker 1: systems and institutions, but I don't put the sticker on.
- 10:59Speaker 1: When I get sticker, I keep it your stockpile stickers
- 11:02Speaker 1: stockpile stickers just in case they don't make it for
- 11:05Speaker 1: a vote. I've never had to use it. You just
- 11:07Speaker 1: outed yourself sign that's because I've never had to use it.
- 11:10Speaker 1: I actually vote. Okay, Well, hook me up with some
- 11:12Speaker 1: of those you know. I'm a voter, dude. I'm a
- 11:15Speaker 1: civic minded guy, just like you know, the best of us. Yeah, yeah,
- 11:19Speaker 1: like Edwin Booth. Edwin indeed, So here's the thing I mean.
- 11:27Speaker 1: Edwin Booth really was kind of beloved because, like he said,
- 11:31Speaker 1: he was a Union supporter, as were his parents, Junius
- 11:35Speaker 1: and Mary Um. He was not anything like his much
- 11:39Speaker 1: more fringe e what we will look at now looking back,
- 11:42Speaker 1: more like terrorist e kind of brother, John Um. And
- 11:46Speaker 1: John was deeply disappointed that his brother voted for the Union. Yeah,
- 11:53Speaker 1: this is strange. When we say deeply disappointed, we don't
- 11:56Speaker 1: mean tis tiss. We mean that John looks. Booth apparently
- 12:00Speaker 1: became livid and said something along the lines of you fool.
- 12:05Speaker 1: One day, that man will make himself king of this country.
- 12:07Speaker 1: That's right. When we say the Union, of course, we
- 12:09Speaker 1: mean Abraham Lincoln Um and our star crossed heroes for
- 12:13Speaker 1: today's story. Well, it might seem like an absolute coincidence,
- 12:16Speaker 1: Maybe not so much, right, There's there's a little bit
- 12:18Speaker 1: more to the story, right, yeah, yeah, So we've run
- 12:22Speaker 1: into this in the past. Sometimes you'll hear historical anecdotes
- 12:26Speaker 1: that sound just too good really to to be to
- 12:30Speaker 1: be true. And this may be one of the exceptions
- 12:36Speaker 1: to that rule. We do know that it really happened.
- 12:39Speaker 1: Maybe maybe there's still some question about the particulars. But
- 12:43Speaker 1: in a letter to the editor of Century magazine, a
- 12:45Speaker 1: guy named Richard Gilder nine Robert Todd Lincoln himself tells
- 12:50Speaker 1: the story of how Edwin Booth had saved his life.
- 12:53Speaker 1: Guilder had wanted to know whether the story was true
- 12:56Speaker 1: because it had already been written about a number of
- 12:59Speaker 1: times up until that point, especially when Booth died. But
- 13:04Speaker 1: the weird thing about it is, in those days, fact
- 13:07Speaker 1: checking was not prioritized as highly as it is today
- 13:12Speaker 1: in theory. As a matter of fact, one could argue
- 13:14Speaker 1: that we're getting back to the days where facts take
- 13:17Speaker 1: the back seat to a good story. We have an
- 13:21Speaker 1: excerpt from Robert Lincoln's version of the story of Edwin
- 13:27Speaker 1: Booth saving his life, and this recollection goes as follows.
- 13:32Speaker 1: The incident occurred while a group of passengers were late
- 13:35Speaker 1: at night purchasing their sleeping car places from the conductor
- 13:39Speaker 1: who stood on the station platform at the entrance of
- 13:42Speaker 1: the car. Some intense descriptive language here, if I if
- 13:45Speaker 1: I do say so myself. The platform was about the
- 13:48Speaker 1: height of the car floor, and there was of course
- 13:50Speaker 1: a narrow space the gap between the platform and the
- 13:53Speaker 1: car body. There was some crowding, and I happened to
- 13:56Speaker 1: be pressed by it against the car body while waiting turn.
- 14:00Speaker 1: This is amazing that this is so visceral. In this situation,
- 14:04Speaker 1: the train began to move, and by the motion I
- 14:08Speaker 1: was twisted off my feet and had dropped somewhat with
- 14:11Speaker 1: feet downward into the open space, and was personally helpless
- 14:15Speaker 1: when my coat collar was vigorously seized and I was
- 14:18Speaker 1: quickly pulled up out to a secure footing on the platform.
- 14:22Speaker 1: Upon turning to thank my rescuer, I saw it was
- 14:25Speaker 1: Edwin Booth, whose face was of course well known to me,
- 14:28Speaker 1: and I expressed my gratitude to him, and in doing
- 14:31Speaker 1: so called him by name, which is a weird detail
- 14:34Speaker 1: to end on, isn't it. It's like end In doing
- 14:36Speaker 1: so called him by name. Sure did thank you, Edwin Booth.
- 14:40Speaker 1: Edwin Booth my hero. Well, it's not for your vigorous
- 14:43Speaker 1: collar pool. Yes, exactly know what I'm saying though, Like
- 14:46Speaker 1: the language is so over the top, area diet and descriptive.
- 14:51Speaker 1: I love it. So we can see the human moment
- 14:55Speaker 1: shining through here. Like imagine that you had so anything
- 15:00Speaker 1: like this, because we've all been around subways before. So
- 15:02Speaker 1: imagine that you are almost falling into the path of
- 15:05Speaker 1: a subway and all of a sudden someone yanks you
- 15:07Speaker 1: from behind and saves your life, and you turn around
- 15:10Speaker 1: and you realize, WHOA, it's Cheryl Crow or something like that.
- 15:13Speaker 1: You know, I'm just working in a Cheryl Crow reference
- 15:16Speaker 1: here because it's been a while, or it's the Quister,
- 15:19Speaker 1: or it's I don't know, Tom Hanks, somebody. You now
- 15:22Speaker 1: have this great anecdote about a celebrity. And as we said,
- 15:27Speaker 1: for a while, Edwin Booth had no idea that he
- 15:31Speaker 1: had saved the life of one of Lincoln's children. He
- 15:35Speaker 1: just thought he was being a stand up dude. He
- 15:37Speaker 1: didn't find out about it until he received a letter
- 15:39Speaker 1: from a Colonel Adam Badeaux, a friend of Booths and
- 15:44Speaker 1: Robert Lincoln had told the colonel this story, and both
- 15:49Speaker 1: Robert Lincoln and Bideaux were members of General Grant's staff
- 15:52Speaker 1: at the time. So here's the question. This is a
- 15:55Speaker 1: little bit of myth busting. We hate to be the
- 15:57Speaker 1: party poopers in the room, but the truth is important.
- 16:00Speaker 1: Did boots action really qualify as saving Robert Lincoln's life?
- 16:06Speaker 1: Lincoln backed away from his claims a little bit later
- 16:10Speaker 1: in his years, and he said that the train had
- 16:13Speaker 1: come to a stop when he fell, so he was
- 16:16Speaker 1: only in danger of falling from the platform to the ground.
- 16:19Speaker 1: And he said, I probably would have been injured, but
- 16:21Speaker 1: I wouldn't have been seriously injured. Not that I'm not grateful,
- 16:25Speaker 1: very grateful, And I love this story. It's an amazing
- 16:29Speaker 1: you know, it's it's an amazing thing to tell people
- 16:32Speaker 1: when I'm when I'm hanging out at dinner parties. So
- 16:35Speaker 1: maybe it was a little bit exaggerated in the beginning,
- 16:38Speaker 1: but you know what wasn't exaggerated the troubles Edwin booth
- 16:42Speaker 1: encountered after his brother shot the president. So after the assassination, Um,
- 16:49Speaker 1: I mean, dude, they had to have seen it coming
- 16:51Speaker 1: a little bit. I mean, this guy was obviously espousing
- 16:54Speaker 1: all of this anti union rhetoric, and he was clearly
- 16:57Speaker 1: the black sheep of the family. But his action John
- 17:00Speaker 1: Wilkes Booths actions at that theater absolutely dragged his family
- 17:05Speaker 1: name through the mud. They were all by proxy persona
- 17:09Speaker 1: non grata. Um. He lost his brother, you know, actually
- 17:12Speaker 1: the life of his brother. Um lost his candidate, his president,
- 17:16Speaker 1: his man who he truly believed in. And he essentially
- 17:20Speaker 1: was almost personally ruined because no one wanted to touch
- 17:23Speaker 1: him with a ten foot pole because he had the
- 17:25Speaker 1: stink of his brother's treason all over him. Right. His
- 17:28Speaker 1: engagement got canceled though family of his fiancee forced her
- 17:33Speaker 1: to break it off. Jeez man. Yeah, and he was
- 17:39Speaker 1: quote stricken to the ground, and only with time and
- 17:43Speaker 1: aid of his friends was he able to make a recovery.
- 17:46Speaker 1: It's it's strange because what they're describing sounds like anywhere
- 17:51Speaker 1: from a nervous breakdown to deep, deep depression. He was
- 17:55Speaker 1: essentially on suicide watch for a while. Yeah. Um. And
- 18:00Speaker 1: even though he and his parents had absolutely nothing to
- 18:04Speaker 1: do with his brother's actions, idiologically, it couldn't have been
- 18:08Speaker 1: further away from him. They were actually arrested by federal officials,
- 18:13Speaker 1: and the public just treated them like lepers, you know, um,
- 18:18Speaker 1: all because of what John Wilkes Booth did. And this
- 18:20Speaker 1: was immediately after he was identified as the assassin. What
- 18:24Speaker 1: a rough lot man like, you know. It's terrible guilt
- 18:28Speaker 1: by association exactly. Edwin eventually makes it back in the
- 18:38Speaker 1: stage and tries to resurrect his career about eight months
- 18:41Speaker 1: after the assassination, which may have been a little too soon,
- 18:45Speaker 1: you think, for sure. I don't know. I mean, I
- 18:47Speaker 1: don't know what the time limit on that would be.
- 18:50Speaker 1: But he came back in January of eighteen sixty six.
- 18:53Speaker 1: And while Edwin was trying to put the pieces back together,
- 18:56Speaker 1: his family withdrew from public life for you and years
- 19:00Speaker 1: and years, and they continue to live with this black
- 19:04Speaker 1: mark on their social record, I guess, their socio political
- 19:08Speaker 1: record for the rest of their lives, despite being ardent
- 19:10Speaker 1: supporters of Lincoln and the Union. While this is still happening.
- 19:15Speaker 1: While all this is happening on one hand, on the
- 19:17Speaker 1: other hand, Edwin is on a mission to get his
- 19:22Speaker 1: brother's remains so that they can bury him at the
- 19:25Speaker 1: family plot. Pretty sad story, and it takes three years
- 19:32Speaker 1: for him to get those remains released. Brother, they grew
- 19:37Speaker 1: up together, They loved each other. I mean, obviously there
- 19:40Speaker 1: was some distance between them, but it does not There's
- 19:43Speaker 1: nothing that indicates that anybody in their family suspected that
- 19:46Speaker 1: he would do anything as radical as he did. And
- 19:49Speaker 1: we do have some documentation about the way that John's
- 19:54Speaker 1: Confederate leanings kind of put put a wedge between him
- 19:57Speaker 1: and his family members. I love the languag in this one.
- 20:01Speaker 1: So he's writing a letter to a guy named Nahame
- 20:04Speaker 1: Capin in a h U. M. Capin in eighteen eighty
- 20:09Speaker 1: one is what we're talking about right where he's describing
- 20:12Speaker 1: his brother. Okay, so all things aside, the language of
- 20:16Speaker 1: this and is amazing. Uh, Dear sir, I can give
- 20:21Speaker 1: you very little information regarding my brother John. I seldom
- 20:25Speaker 1: saw him since early boyhood in Baltimore. He was a
- 20:29Speaker 1: rattle pated fellow filled with exotic notions. While at the
- 20:33Speaker 1: farm in Maryland, he would charge on horseback through the woods,
- 20:36Speaker 1: spouting heroic speeches with a lance in his hand, a
- 20:39Speaker 1: relic of the Mexican War given to father by some
- 20:42Speaker 1: soldier who had served under Taylor. We regarded him as
- 20:45Speaker 1: a good hearted, harmless, the wild brained boy, and used
- 20:49Speaker 1: to laugh at his patriotic froth whenever his secession was
- 20:52Speaker 1: discussed that he was insane. On that one point, no
- 20:57Speaker 1: one who knew him well can doubt. What is rattle painted? Me?
- 21:02Speaker 1: Is it like being Twitter painted? Is it? Yeah? Like
- 21:04Speaker 1: so a paint would be what like your head? Uh?
- 21:08Speaker 1: But isn't twitter painted a thing? Yeah? Twitter page is
- 21:11Speaker 1: when you're very excited. When you're excited, rattle paid, it
- 21:13Speaker 1: means you're very rattled. Maybe I don't know. Yeah, yeah,
- 21:16Speaker 1: what's the context? How's it used here? Yeah? Okay, So
- 21:19Speaker 1: he was a rattle painted fellow with quixotic, quixotic notions,
- 21:22Speaker 1: So I guess that would mean quirky, lofty ideals kind of.
- 21:26Speaker 1: So maybe rattle painted. Maybe it just means kind of
- 21:29Speaker 1: a freaking weirdo. Yeah yeah, maybe a little like jittery,
- 21:34Speaker 1: that's what That's what the word makes me think of. Yeah,
- 21:36Speaker 1: like one edge right, like well, like like prone to
- 21:40Speaker 1: wild outbursts and quixotic notion. According to my very cursory search,
- 21:45Speaker 1: it means lacking discretion. Yeah, exactly. Okay, I like it though,
- 21:49Speaker 1: I love I love it. I don't know if I
- 21:51Speaker 1: could pull that off in conversation. Yeah, you might get
- 21:54Speaker 1: called out on that one, well, because then you would
- 21:56Speaker 1: have to explain it, and then people would say why,
- 21:58Speaker 1: And then we would say, well, you know, me and
- 22:01Speaker 1: my pal's do this show on the internet and we
- 22:05Speaker 1: I'm trying to bring back archaic curse words. I don't know,
- 22:11Speaker 1: and they'll just like be like, you're gonna have to
- 22:13Speaker 1: go yeah, that's like, that's a word. Yeah, in fact,
- 22:18Speaker 1: you should have to pay for the privilege of using
- 22:21Speaker 1: that word. But I love it and fearing yeah, yeah,
- 22:24Speaker 1: you know what, someone else will be able to bring
- 22:28Speaker 1: back rattle paid. Well, maybe this just isn't our fight,
- 22:32Speaker 1: but we do know that when he was talking about
- 22:36Speaker 1: his brother, you can see you can see the affection
- 22:40Speaker 1: that he felt, and you can see the distance and
- 22:45Speaker 1: the rest of his letter, which still long to read,
- 22:47Speaker 1: here is him explaining how that politics drove a wedge
- 22:52Speaker 1: between them and also how little he felt they knew
- 22:57Speaker 1: each other. In the end, he always thinks of them
- 23:01Speaker 1: as that poor crazy boy, that poor crazy rattle paided boy,
- 23:06Speaker 1: Rattle paid. That's right, and thus ends our episode, but
- 23:11Speaker 1: not our show. You're right, No, we have been. We
- 23:15Speaker 1: have been establishing a little bit of a pattern of
- 23:17Speaker 1: looking at lesser known relatives of historical figures. I'm okay
- 23:22Speaker 1: with it. I'm okay with it too. Have we reached
- 23:24Speaker 1: two d episodes? Yeah? You know what we were talking
- 23:27Speaker 1: about this? Did we ever talked about this on their
- 23:29Speaker 1: We did? Or not? Okay? Because I know it was
- 23:30Speaker 1: always we're king up on it, ek eking up eking
- 23:34Speaker 1: e king we're eating up on it. We're we're getting
- 23:36Speaker 1: to the precipice. This might be to oh one. I'm
- 23:39Speaker 1: not sure because I think Casey planted out that we
- 23:41Speaker 1: had released a few creature feature features in the feed,
- 23:46Speaker 1: which up to our number, but we're not going to
- 23:48Speaker 1: count those towards our towards our total. I don't think so.
- 23:51Speaker 1: I think we should do something fun. Yeah, like what
- 23:54Speaker 1: I don't know, Like go to fun hats, go to
- 23:57Speaker 1: Dave and Busters, do a live podcast from David. Yeah,
- 24:00Speaker 1: go to a history museum. I love the New York
- 24:03Speaker 1: Museum of Natural History. That's a great one. I haven't
- 24:05Speaker 1: been to that one in a long time. It's great,
- 24:07Speaker 1: it's a whole we can celebrate separately. Okay, I think
- 24:11Speaker 1: we're both on the road where we're going to be
- 24:13Speaker 1: doing a little traveling together here. Off, I'm not going
- 24:16Speaker 1: to spill the beans on this one that you've got
- 24:18Speaker 1: a serious adventure coming up, don't you got a lot
- 24:20Speaker 1: of stuff I gotta do and I gotta go home
- 24:23Speaker 1: involving sonar pack masks and you're so nar and my sonar. Yes,
- 24:28Speaker 1: but all will be revealed in time. The conversation doesn't
- 24:33Speaker 1: have to stop here. We want to hear your favorite
- 24:35Speaker 1: lesser known relatives or associates of historical figures. You can
- 24:40Speaker 1: tell us about on Facebook. You can tell us about
- 24:42Speaker 1: it on Instagram, you can tell us about it on Twitter.
- 24:44Speaker 1: We especially like to recommend our community page, Ridiculous Historians. Yeah,
- 24:49Speaker 1: it's a great place to catch up with your fellow
- 24:50Speaker 1: listeners and get up on the latest history memes. Are
- 24:53Speaker 1: the oldest history memes. Really, there's no cut off for
- 24:56Speaker 1: history memes except for US Night four. Yeah, nineties, the nineties,
- 25:03Speaker 1: the nineties, everything, everything newer than that is not history
- 25:06Speaker 1: US anyway on this this year's show. Um, but yeah,
- 25:09Speaker 1: if you can also check us out on social media
- 25:11Speaker 1: or Ridiculous History on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and
- 25:14Speaker 1: all that. But Most of the fun happens on our
- 25:17Speaker 1: personal social fees. Mine is at how Now, Noel Brown
- 25:20Speaker 1: and I am at Ben Bolan on Instagram, I'm at
- 25:23Speaker 1: Ben bolland h s W on Twitter. Thinks as always
- 25:28Speaker 1: to our super producer Casey Pegram. Thanks to Alex Williams
- 25:31Speaker 1: who composed that stone cold hit you hear at the
- 25:34Speaker 1: top of every show. Big thanks to our super research
- 25:38Speaker 1: associate Gabe Louisier and Ryan Barrish, who has been on
- 25:41Speaker 1: the show a couple of times was kind of helping
- 25:43Speaker 1: us out as part of a s summer Um. What
- 25:46Speaker 1: do you call it, like a work study kind of
- 25:48Speaker 1: situation right for his degree? Yeah, that's right. That's why
- 25:53Speaker 1: Ryan has such a an authoritative scholarly air because he
- 25:58Speaker 1: is a scholar, is in need a scholar, whereas we
- 26:01Speaker 1: are armchair scholars at best rattle we are rattle paided
- 26:06Speaker 1: uh fake Herman Miller Aaron chair Uh scholars, that's what
- 26:10Speaker 1: we are. Um, but we have a really good time
- 26:12Speaker 1: doing it. We're gonna miss Ryan, but we're gonnafinitely have
- 26:14Speaker 1: him back. Um, have to, we have to have to.
- 26:16Speaker 1: Those were some fun episodes, UM, So thanks to you, Ryan,
- 26:20Speaker 1: here's to you, and here's to your your master's degree
- 26:23Speaker 1: in history. Yes, congratulations, Case. Can we get a wild
- 26:27Speaker 1: applause que? Yes, thank you for classing up the show. Ryan,
- 26:35Speaker 1: Thanks always. Friends of the show, eve's Jeff Cote, Christopher Haciotis,
- 26:39Speaker 1: And to Jonathan Strickland a k a. The Twister. I
- 26:42Speaker 1: feel like we're gonna be hearing from him pretty soon
- 26:43Speaker 1: that our time is up. I felt a fell wind
- 26:47Speaker 1: as I was walking into the studio. Something wicked. Definitely
- 26:50Speaker 1: this way comes. We'll see you next time. Books. For
- 26:58Speaker 1: more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
- 27:01Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
- 27:04Speaker 1: favorite shows.