April 19, 2025 • 34 mins
On April 14th, 1865, John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln in Ford's theatre, escaping shortly thereafter and going on the run. The Federal troops in pursuit of the assassin had orders to bring Booth and any of his conspirators back alive. For most of the soldiers, this wasn't a problem. However, Boston Corbett felt he answered to a higher power -- and this higher power told him that Booth deserved to die. Tune in as we explore the (bizarre) life and times of Boston Corbett. In this weekend's Classic episode, Ben, Noel and Casey ask: "So other than that, Mrs. Lincoln -- how did you find the play?"
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fellow ridiculous historians, Welcome to this week's classic episode. Back
in twenty eighteen, we looked at each other, we had
that Ghostbuster's eye contact moment where they figure out the
statue of Liberty, and we said, how deeply have we
really dove into the infamous tragic story of the Lincoln assassination?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Not nearly deeply enough, Ben, is what our longing gays
told each of us psychically.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Yes, yeah, now we do know knowl that on April fourteenth,
eighteen sixty five, an actor named John Wilkes Booth assassinated
President Abraham Lincoln there in Ford's Theater, watching a play
with his wife. That story aside. We know that Booth
escaped the scene of the crime and he went on
(00:52):
the run. But it turns out there's some more to
the story.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Hm, yeah, more like on the limp. If I'm not mistaken,
I think that's right. We did have a injury can jump,
that's correct. But boy, are we going to dive into
a bit of an assassin meta episode today. We're talking
about everybody loves an assassin, but what about an assassin's assassin? Okay,
maybe everyone doesn't love an assassin, but you get what
I'm getting at.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Yes, so joined us as we dive into the bizarre
life and times of a man named Boston Corbett. Ridiculous
History is a production of iHeartRadio. Today's story kind of
(01:52):
but not really starts in eighteen sixty five. On April fourteenth,
Graham Lincoln is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth while watching
the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theater in DC.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
You think it was any good, Ben, our American cousin?
Uh huh?
Speaker 1 (02:14):
I remember I think hearing about it in school, But
it wasn't my kind of play. And it does remind
me of one of those very tasteless middle school jokes.
Did you ever hear this one?
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Well?
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Other than that, missus Lincoln, how did you find the play?
Oh that's funny, that's terrible. Yeah, too soon, surely not,
surely not.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Ben. You called out the date and it sounded to
me like it was long ago.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Long ago, far away, right. And this is ridiculous history.
It is ridiculous history. And there's our super producer, Casey
Pegram giving us his stamp of approval. Let me lean
by the window and see, I see if we get
a thumbs up. Oh, we got a pretty good thumbs up.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Thumbs up indeed, as you would text me thumbs up
emoji thumb when you do that. Oh thanks man.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, yeah, I want to be clear that it is
an emoji, because you know, some people don't know this,
but emojis translate differently across different folks.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I think, oh, aps, we've talked about Have we talked
about this on this show? I don't, you know, we
just hung out. It's a bit of a blur. We
do talk about all kinds of things. Today we're talking
about Abraham Lincoln getting a bullet to the back of
the dome by a crazed I don't know, maybe it's
not fair to call him craze, but a zealous actor
by the name of John Wilkes booth during said play
(03:38):
that may or may not have been any good, and
then he leapt from the balcony. It was a point
blank shot to the back of the head. Six temper
Tyrannus onto the stage, caught his his pant on something
on the way down and broke his leg and somehow
managed to escape.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, made it seventy three miles to Port Royal, Virginia
while the Feds were chasing him, his accomplices were dropping
out one by one. He eventually was cornered in a
barn surrounded by veterans from the Union Army.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
But wait, we need to back up again.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Yes, beep, beep beep, that's the sound of the history
truck moving back. Because we gave you a little bit
of a I guess, a cold open. We should start
at the as the Mad Hatter says at the beginning
the Mad Hatter, Yes, story, Yes, that's appropriate for this,
isn't it.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
It really is.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Our story starts with a soldier by the name of
Boston Corbette.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Although he was born Thomas Corbett and was not a
soldier out of the womb, as it turns out, his
his initial occupation was as an incorrigible drunk.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yes, Thomas Corbett was a hatter, not yet mad, and
this was a pretty solid job for an upstanding American
in the mid nineteenth century. But his wife and his
first child, a girl, died during childbirth, and this sent
him on a downward spiral.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
He got a lot of death and childbirth things happening
in these last this episode and then the last one
about the Cocklane Ghost it's true. Check it out. Yeah,
if you haven't already, And if you haven't, then shame
on you. But yeah, no, he did not. He did
not do well after this blow from on high and he,
(05:38):
you know, became, like I said before, an incorrigible drunk.
So that wasn't his first profession. His first profession was
a hatter, and then he gave that up for the bottle.
And he lived in New England in Boston and he
would just haplessly stumble around drunk. He was kind of
because he was a vagrant. He became known as kind
of like one of the town shift layabouts, right. And
(06:02):
it was one night late in the eighteen fifties when
he ran into someone that would change his life forever.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Yes, And there's a great recounting of this in the
Washingtonian in an article by Bill Jensen. He meets one
of these proselytizing preachers, a street evangelists, and it gets
to him. Corbett is mesmerized by this word of God.
He becomes a regular at the what they call sidewalk
(06:34):
churches around the city, which was an interesting phrase I
had not heard before. But it's like a regularly occurring
church meetup that doesn't necessarily have its own physical building,
and he became sort of a hype man at these
street preaching get togethers. He stopped drinking and he started
(06:57):
he started being the guy who just yells amen along
with you know, sort of punctuating what the preachers are saying.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Yeah, Hype Manning is is sort of like in the
trap music up today, they's going to go yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Yeah, that was what he would do, except he was
going huck Florid to God free this.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yep, yeah, that kind of thing. And now on speaking
of Jesus, he also grew his hair his man long,
to appear to resemble Jesus Christ himself. He was baptized
in the Methodist faith, and he changed his name to
Boston from Thomas because Boston was the town where he
(07:39):
credited this meeting with the street preacher that turned his
life around.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Right. He was twenty six at this time, and the
ministers eventually said, hey, you should get your own turf.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
In other words, maybe it's sort of like back up
off our turf with Hype Manning. We don't need you anymore.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
I feel like Jesus is leading you to preach elsewhere, elsewhere,
to leading you're to preach down on fourth.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
I think that's right. I think we have to remember
we haven't said this yet, but I'm sure a lot
of people know this already. But hatters used mercury to
treat the felt, to to form the felt, to make
the hats, and as we know, long term exposure to
mercury does have some debilitating effects on the brain.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Yeah, as some debilitating cognitive effects. We do want to
tell you that the next part of this story takes
a brief and grisly turn.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yes, we'll try to make it as brief as possible,
but yeah, it's it's it's not a pleasant image that's
coming up here.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
So he's out ministering to the people in the summer
of eighteen fifty eight when he feels that a pair
of sex workers are googling him or giving him the eye,
and he is discussing with himself when he feels physically
(09:03):
excited to rise us to the occasion, right, So he
proceeds directly home, takes a pair of scissors, and you,
after making an incision in his scrotum, he removes his
testicles and then goes directly to a prayer meeting.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Like you do. It was a different time. Yeah, and
not only that he went to his prayer meeting did
whatever that entails. And then, oh, we should also mention
that he was when he got home from this encounter
with these ladies of the evening, he was in search
of answers and he opened the Bible to It's unclear
(09:46):
if he was looking for this passage because he was
aware of it, or if he was like, you know,
did the old FLIPPERO, and this is what came up
tell me what to do? Yeah, exactly. And the passage
that he encountered was Matthew nineteen twelve, which has a
part that says there are unit who have made themselves
eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom of God. And
that's what he went and did with the snip snip.
(10:08):
So he goes on to the prayer meeting and then what, oh,
he goes to the hospital immediately.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Right, No, he goes the next day after the prayer meeting,
he grabs Denner and takes a walk through the city,
thinking his thoughts.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Surely he's bleeding profusely from his genitals.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
At this point, one would think that he was able
to staunch the wound because otherwise, surely it would have
been noticed during a prayer meeting if the guy's bleeding
through his trousers. But either way, he did eventually check
himself into a Massachusetts general and spent some time trying
to heal. Eventually he says, Okay, I'm better. A few
(10:46):
weeks later and he moves to New York City to
become a hat maker again. But he's still very religious.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Oh boy, is he. Ever? He's possibly the most religious
person we've ever encountered in any story or we've ever
done for this show. Can you think of anyone more
staunchly religious?
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Staunchly religious? Probably not that guy who mooned all those
people now, definitely not who was still unidentified. Yeah, this
guy might take the cake so far. He would often
use his lunch break to go to prayer meetings. So
he still kept these these very i would say, dogmatic
(11:25):
religious practices. And then in eighteen sixty one, the Confederate
Army attacks Fort Sumter, which one was that in the
Civil War nice ironically named uh huh because it because
it was very uncivil. Yes, they were not nice to
each other, they were not. He enlisted in the Union
Army and he had a quotation here that he allegedly
(11:49):
told the women at his church, did you see this one?
Speaker 2 (11:52):
No? I had not been. Oh, give it to me.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
When he told the people as church that he was
going to join up with the Union Army, he said,
when I come eye to eye with my gray suited enemies,
I will say to them, God, have mercy on your souls.
Then pop them off.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Ah. Yes, I do remember this one. And pop them
off is what did it for me? Very slang. You
know what? It reminds me of them. It reminds me
of Samuel L. Jackson's character in pulp fiction, does the
whole And I will smite thee with great anger and
furious vengeance those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers,
you know the one. Yeah, it's good though. I wonder
(12:32):
if he got that idea from from from old Corbett. Uh.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Perhaps perhaps he did. That would be interesting. We'd have
to ask Quentin himself. Right, there was a big bummer
about him joining the army. He had to shave his
Jesus is.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Jesus, jam is Jesus locks.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Yeah, and by most of the accounts we've just got,
he was an ok soldier.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
He could Ryan he could fire a gun pretty good shot,
but uh wasn't uh the wasn't the best at he
answered to a very particular authority, didn't he, man, it
was no, it was not earthly, nor was it his
his commanders. And that's gonna come up time and again
in this man's story. But one funny anecdote in this
Washingtonian article is about the time where when he was
(13:26):
training in Franklin Square in New York, his colonel, a
man by the name of Daniel Butterfield, who they point out,
I did not know this composed TAPS. I didn't think
TAPS was composed. Thought it happened just was you know, yeah,
but no the sky. Butterfield also apparently had a bit
of a potty mouth, because he was just effin and
(13:49):
jeffin and swearing all over town. And Corbett was not
having it.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Was he, No, absolutely not. Corbett, who shall also mention
is still very green his training. Here he when the
courl's yelling at them and cursing, he yells back, Colonel,
don't you know you're breaking God's law. Butterfield is a
gas like he's speechless for a second. This has probably
never happened to him. So what what does he do
(14:15):
in response?
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah, he he reads him in the Riot Act, probably
in a very measured kind of hannibal electric kind of way.
I don't know this guy. Corvett kind of gives me
the creeps, the whole self near relation thing that that's
a that's a bridge too far illness, I think for sure.
And yeah, again we should point out that he had
been exposed to these vapors, these mercury vapors for quite
(14:38):
some time in his in his hatting career, before he
for any of this happened. Yeah, and he says, colonel,
don't you know you are breaking God's law?
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (14:46):
And yeah, Butterfield was probably just like, you know what,
my boy, thank you so much for pointing that out.
Thank you, thank you for saving But no, it's not
he did at all. It's not what he did at all.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
No, h he said, I'm gonna send you to jail.
So Corbette begins loudly singing hymns, pretty much shouting hymns
while he's in jail. He's asked to stop, he won't.
Butterfield eventually throws up his hands and says, look, if
you just say you're sorry, I can let you out
(15:20):
of prison, to which Corbett.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Says, oh. He says a no, sir, I have no
cause to apologize to you, for you are but immortal,
and you half offended the delicate sensibilities of the Lord
thy God. So if you ask God to forgive you,
then maybe I'll ask you to forgive me the Chutzbaugh.
(15:44):
It's out of control for a guy without balls. This
is really ballsy. Seriously, Yeah, no, no doubt about that.
To think it just goes to show that those kind
of balls come from within. My friend. There we go.
So he is released at jail, Yeah, because he's like,
this guy's impenetrable, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Also there's a
war going. Yeah, they probably need him. He's a crack shot.
(16:07):
He's at least a passable soldier. So yeah, they need him.
And okay, let's see, God, this guy's got a really storied,
storied life. Yeah, where do you want to go? Well?
He he. He becomes a pretty important figure in the
Union cause he fights in all these very very deadly
(16:29):
conflicts that most people would not have survived and did
not survive. And I don't know if he had God's
God on his side or whatever, but it's I don't know,
it's hard to not think that his piety maybe had
something to do with it, or maybe it was just
he was stark, raving, mad and fearless and just kind
of like had luck on his side.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah, yeah, Like the New England Historical Society covers a
little bit of his activity in the Civil War. I
did not know that he had enlisted re enlisted three times.
He took to this conflict and he wasn't the best soldier,
but he was consistent. The thing people hated about working
(17:12):
with him is that he was always telling people not
to curse or do sinful stuff.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Sure like you know, like you do in the army. Right.
He sounded like a real killjoy. But he eventually got
captured and sent to Andersonville. Do you know what Andersonville
Prison been? Yes?
Speaker 1 (17:31):
No, Andersonville Prison is a terrible terrible place, or it
was a terrible terrible place.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
We should say. It's here in Georgia, right, hunt.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
It was a Confederate run prison here in Georgia, which
you can visit. I've actually been. It's the Andersonville National
Historic Site now, so it preserves Camp Sumter, which is
also known as the Prison and it held forty five
thousand Union soldiers prisoner during the war. Nearly thirteen thousand
(18:02):
of them died not from execution, but from diseases, scurvy, diarrhea, dysentery,
the bloody flux.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Yeah, is that what it was called. I think that's
what they call it. Yeah, that was the shorthand, although
it's sort of longer. No, just dysentery, the blood deflux,
same number of syllables. But it sounds a lot scarier,
doesn't it. It does, Yeah, because the flux, I guess,
is when you expel blood. Right now.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
The thing about the thing about mister Boston Corbette is
that maybe it's a matter of his faith. Maybe it's
a matter of luck. He survived. Yeah, this man was
nothing if not resilient. I mean, he survived a self
administered castration, first and foremost. He survived you know, drunkenness
in the streets, and he survived some of the most
(18:48):
intense battles of the Civil War. And he survived this prison,
which was built to house ten thousand inmates and ballooned
to over thirty two thousand.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
There was like a little stream that ran through it,
and apparently it had just become a swamp of human filth,
and all of these diseases ran rampant. The guy who
was in charge of this facility was actually brought up
on war crime trials because thousands, if not tens of
thousands of men died in his facility.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Yeah, thirteen thousand that we know of, So that guy
was rightly brought up a war crimes what's his name?
Speaker 2 (19:29):
His name was.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Captain Henry wurrez wr Z. Not only he's tried for
war crimes, but he was executed. So after Corbette gets away,
after he survives this, it.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Convalesces for a bit, one would imagine.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Right, learns to eat solid food again. He still stays
with the army. He had eventually reached the rank of
sergeant in the sixteenth New York Volunteer Cavalry. Now to
the point where we began the story.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Oh man, weren't we having a barn burner? I don't
Maybe we hadn't quite gotten there yet. But our man
John Wilkes Booth, hobbled from his idiotic fall at the
Ford Theater after putting a bullet in Old Abe Lincoln's
head is now hold up in this barn, along with
two accomplices. I want to say, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Everybody else has deserted them. He's seventy three miles away
from the theater and being hunted like a dog. Boston
Corbette is one of the twenty six elite cavalrymen sent
from the unit to pursue John Wilkes.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Booth and pursue him. They did. They got a tip
from a local innkeeper who put them in touch with
a man who kind of cave gave a give it
to us man. I'm I'm not doing a very good
job here. Oh no, you got it. You got it.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
We've got a Booth and his conspirator, David Harold, in
a tobacco farm owned by a guy named Richard Garrett.
So what do the Calvern men do once they have
them cornered in that barn?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Well, they're not coming out right, So they light some
straw and fire and poke it through in anthole in
the in the barn, and you know, like old dry
wood tends to do it. It went up in flames
pretty quickly. And David Harold says, Okay, this is crazy
even for a terrorist like me. I give up Booth,
(21:24):
who has already made his decision made his peace with
whatever powers he thinks exist, stays inside. But as the
barn disintegrates in the conflagration, the soldiers outside can see
Booth's silhouette moving back and forth in the burning barn.
(21:51):
And let's let's just remind our listeners. Maybe not a
really reminder, because we haven't said it yet. The instructions
of this brigade was to bring back these men alive
because the plot against Lincoln there was a good chance
that had been organized orchestrated by forces on the Confederate side,
(22:12):
and they wanted to, you know, get to the top
of this conspiracy. Right, So when our boy Corbett popped
one off, as he would say, right at John Wilkes
Booth as he hobbled away, people were understandably annoyed, right.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
And another government employee says, what on earth did you
shoot him for? And he's rushing to yank Booth out
of the burning barn. They wanted him alive to you know,
run up the ladder of the conspiracy, and Corbett refused
to apologize. Booth dies around seven am the next day,
(22:56):
and the government forces are are wondering why this guy
is completely contradicting his orders. And all he says is
that God Almighty directed me to So instead of John
Wilkes Booth going back to DC, they take Corbett.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Yeah, and Edwin M. Stanton, who's the Secretary of War
who had issued a reward the War Department of one
hundred thousand dollars fifty for Booth, twenty five for Surrat
and twenty five for Harold, and a total of one
hundred thousand dollars. And this guy questioned Corbett personally, and
(23:40):
I think he sort of decided it wasn't worth pursuing that.
You know, the guy's dead. The justice has been served.
This guy's going to be kind of a national hero.
Let's it. Let's let it slide.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Yeah. Even though Corbette kind of changes his message at
the trial, and he says, I didn't fire the ball
from fear. I was under the impression that he, meaning Booth,
had started to the door to fight his way through,
and I thought he would do harm to my men
if I didn't fire. So it changes a little bit.
He's not quite as self righteous about it. But how
(24:16):
does his story end, Noel, he doesn't get the whole
fifty grand, No, he gets a portion of it, though
I think he gets a little over sixteen hundred, and
then he asked if he can take his horse home,
which I thought was pretty sweet. He says, he's not valuable,
but I'm attached to him and I'd like to take
him home.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
He's a sentimental man. He's a sentimental eunuch mad hatter.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Later he is largely forgotten. He starts initially going back
to work as a silk hat finisher, then he turns
to being a lay preacher, making two hundred and fifty
a year, two hundred and fifty dollars dollars, yes, not thousands,
of course, And by eighteen seventy four he has his
(25:01):
mental state has further deteriorated. He is convinced that John
Wilkes Booth is actually still alive, and that Booth has
sent people from the former Confederacy to kill him.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
That being said, though he was not a popular man
among his cohorts, for the reason we talked about earlier,
that he's always in people's faces preaching the Holy Roller line.
But also like even the other troops that he was
with in his unit, they would have been irritated with
him because he kind of stole their glory, right Yeah,
that could have been any of them. Also, it would
(25:32):
have been much more of a group victory if they
had brought the man back alive like they were supposed to,
but instead he took it upon himself to pop one off. Yeah,
and so he was getting threatening letters, right, that was real. Yes,
he was getting threatening letters. Don't know if they were
meant just to torture him, but some were signed Jay
(25:55):
Wilkes Booth. So in his mental state, he felt that
these really were from this guy, and there was this
overarching conspiracy to assassinate him. By eighteen seventy eight, increasingly unpopular,
despised by half the country, strongly disliked by his colleagues,
(26:16):
he hops in a wagon and says that he's going
to head west. Where's it go, Ben?
Speaker 1 (26:22):
He goes to a place called Cloud County, Kansas and
starts the homestead on eighty acres.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Yeah. Unfortunately, that doesn't go super well, and because of
some pretty intensely erratic behavior, he does not get to
continue in that endeavor. Some of that behavior includes, in
eighteen eighty seven, he holds the Kansas House of Representatives
(26:52):
hostage basically using two revolvers and a sword, and then
he declares that the session has been adjourned, and then
he has various in sundry run ins with the law,
and in eighteen eighty seven October, that is, he is
declared insane and he is committed to a Kansas asylum.
But that's not the end.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
That is not quite the end. He escapes from the
asylum on May twenty sixth, eighteen eighty eight, because he
sees somebody making deliveries and tethering a horse to the
front of the building. So he breaks away, jumps on
the horse, and takes off all the way to Neodesha, Kansas,
(27:35):
home of a fellow veteran and survivor of Andersonville, a
guy named Richard Thatcher.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
And that caused this kind of bolo letter to be
generated with the heading insane man escaped Topeka, Kansas, May
twenty sixth, eighteen eighty eight. Dear Sir Boston Corbett, an
insane man escaped from the insane asylum at Topeka this
morning and is supposed to be heading for Cloud County.
He's about fifty five years old and five feet four
(28:04):
inches tall. It is a clever detail. This is a
smart move. He has plucked all his beard out down
to the lower part of his ears, his gray chin, whiskers,
and mustache, gray hair cut square at bottom and parts
his hair in the middle. He wore a dark jeans
suit and black soft hat and was riding a bay
or a sorel pony with a boy's saddle. So keep
(28:28):
a lookout for that guy.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
He is regarded as a dangerous man, but was unarmed
when he escaped. If he comes your way, arrest him
and return him to the asylum at once, or telegraph
doctor B. D. Eastman, Superintendent Insane Asylum, Topeka for orders.
What happens when he meets up with his old pal
Thatcher or when he reaches Thatcher's property.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
We should say, well, the first thing he did when
he got there to Neodosha, Kansas, was he he took
that stolen horse that he referred to as a borrowed horse,
and he tied a note onto it and slapped on
the button and send it on its way. And it
was quite a ways of way, so it's unclear if
that horse made it to its rightful owner. But the
note kind of was like, sorry, I just had to
(29:08):
do it here, Please take this horse back. I didn't
I wasn't stealing it. But yeah, he went to a
train station and was trying to get to Mexico. And
that is the last anyone ever heard from him.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Right, Rumors still trickle in after that. You'll see a
lot of people list his death as eighteen ninety four.
One theory says that he was targeted by people who
were bitter over the various battles he had had in
his time in the Union Army. Someone else said he
died the Great Hinckley Fire, and then there were people
(29:47):
who would point out other possibilities. You know, in the
early nineteen hundreds, the Federal Prison Bureau heard about a
Boston Corbette who claimed he was alive and well and
wanted his pension. But the problem was that the guy
who claimed to be Boston Corbette, who also went by
the nickname Old Trapper Old Trapper, only gave vague descriptions. Yeah,
(30:15):
I think he was taller, and he was taller, Yeah,
like a lot taller, I believe full eight inches or so.
And then people thought that would be the last they
heard of him, But more and more stories poured in.
They just became less and less credible, if that makes sense.
It does, and now he is largely lost to history
(30:40):
except for one one thing that remains.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Right. Yeah, it's like a weird kind of memorial. It's
just a pen like a like a fenced area that
marks where his final home was. And in this Washingtonian
article they wrap up talking about how in nineteen fifty
there was a boy Scout troop that made a stone
plaque to put there and they called it the Boston
(31:07):
Corbett Dugout. And there are two revolvers embedded in the rock.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
And here ends the strange story of Boston Corbette war.
He wrote a sum a villain to others, but clearly
a man in need of medical care of some sort.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Yeah. Absolutely, who left a pretty fascinating mark on history.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
And if you'd like to read more about Boston Corbette,
you can check out the book The Madman and the Assassin,
which has a pretty snappy chronicle of his time, both
his normal life leading up to the Civil War and
his earlier struggles all the way to that fateful day
(31:55):
when he shot John Wilkes Booth. I felt like a
very definitive ending. Usually we get to a segue or something.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Huh, yeah, No, that's good. That's good where it's almost
like we're getting a little bit better at this. Well,
let's jakes ourselves fair enough, fair enough, But we hope
you enjoyed this story. We were surprised in the course
of our research to learn that, you know, a lot
of people haven't heard of this guy. I hadn't.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Yeah, they don't really teach you about it in school,
you know.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Well, you know, it's like, I think this is an
interesting slice of life of the time too, in terms of, like,
you know, the way mental illness was handled, the whole
idea of me. There's just so many interesting little twists
in this story, the way the whole Andersonville incarceration thing.
And I knew a little bit about that, but this
was a really interesting inside perspective, like from someone who
lived through it, the whole, you know, coming to Jesus stuff.
(32:43):
It's just this is like, why is there not a film.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
About this guy who would play him, Crispin Glover?
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Yes? Can I tell you that My friend Matt saw
Crispin Glover on the subway in New York for like
an hour, just sitting by himself, wearing a really nice
black suit and listening to earbuds.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
I think you may have mentioned that it was he
actually going somewhere, just writing the subway, I.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Think he was going. He said, well, Matt works way uptown,
and his his theory was maybe that he was shooting
something in Harlem, because that's sort of the direction.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Yeah, so I think Crispin Glover would be a good pick.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
He would be awesome. I mean, I mean, look, if
you look at this guy at listeners, if you want
to check it out, tell us what you think. Who
would play Boston Corbett, Oh, Crispin Glover all day long?
You know who else would be good? Norman Ritas dead
in the States.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Also, my favorite moment in the guy's biography is definitely
the Other Street evangelists saying God has called you to
preach my son about four blocks that way.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
That's still my favorite. That's good.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
We want to know what you thought about this episode,
and as always, some of our best ideas come from you,
fellow ridiculous historians. So let us know what other tremendously
important characters in American history or in the history of
your own country seem to be largely obscured today. We'd
like to shed some light on them. As always, thank you,
(34:07):
for checking out the show. Thank you to our super producer,
Casey Pegram.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Thanks to Alex Williams who composed our theme, and thanks
to Christopher Haciotis for being our researcher extraordinaire on this episode.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
And by this time, longtime listeners you know the Drill
will find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. You can
also check out our community page, Ridiculous Historians, which is a.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Hoot, a real hoot and hot and haller a brewhaha.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Sure are we just going to toss synonyms?
Speaker 2 (34:39):
We have to get out of here. We do toss synonyms, huh.
I like it. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Fellow ridiculous historians, Welcome to this week's classic episode. Back
in twenty eighteen, we looked at each other, we had
that Ghostbuster's eye contact moment where they figure out the
statue of Liberty, and we said, how deeply have we
really dove into the infamous tragic story of the Lincoln assassination?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Not nearly deeply enough, Ben, is what our longing gays
told each of us psychically.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Yes, yeah, now we do know knowl that on April fourteenth,
eighteen sixty five, an actor named John Wilkes Booth assassinated
President Abraham Lincoln there in Ford's Theater, watching a play
with his wife. That story aside. We know that Booth
escaped the scene of the crime and he went on
(00:52):
the run. But it turns out there's some more to
the story.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Hm, yeah, more like on the limp. If I'm not mistaken,
I think that's right. We did have a injury can jump,
that's correct. But boy, are we going to dive into
a bit of an assassin meta episode today. We're talking
about everybody loves an assassin, but what about an assassin's assassin? Okay,
maybe everyone doesn't love an assassin, but you get what
I'm getting at.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Yes, so joined us as we dive into the bizarre
life and times of a man named Boston Corbett. Ridiculous
History is a production of iHeartRadio. Today's story kind of
(01:52):
but not really starts in eighteen sixty five. On April fourteenth,
Graham Lincoln is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth while watching
the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theater in DC.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
You think it was any good, Ben, our American cousin?
Uh huh?
Speaker 1 (02:14):
I remember I think hearing about it in school, But
it wasn't my kind of play. And it does remind
me of one of those very tasteless middle school jokes.
Did you ever hear this one?
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Well?
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Other than that, missus Lincoln, how did you find the play?
Oh that's funny, that's terrible. Yeah, too soon, surely not,
surely not.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Ben. You called out the date and it sounded to
me like it was long ago.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Long ago, far away, right. And this is ridiculous history.
It is ridiculous history. And there's our super producer, Casey
Pegram giving us his stamp of approval. Let me lean
by the window and see, I see if we get
a thumbs up. Oh, we got a pretty good thumbs up.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Thumbs up indeed, as you would text me thumbs up
emoji thumb when you do that. Oh thanks man.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, yeah, I want to be clear that it is
an emoji, because you know, some people don't know this,
but emojis translate differently across different folks.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I think, oh, aps, we've talked about Have we talked
about this on this show? I don't, you know, we
just hung out. It's a bit of a blur. We
do talk about all kinds of things. Today we're talking
about Abraham Lincoln getting a bullet to the back of
the dome by a crazed I don't know, maybe it's
not fair to call him craze, but a zealous actor
by the name of John Wilkes booth during said play
(03:38):
that may or may not have been any good, and
then he leapt from the balcony. It was a point
blank shot to the back of the head. Six temper
Tyrannus onto the stage, caught his his pant on something
on the way down and broke his leg and somehow
managed to escape.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, made it seventy three miles to Port Royal, Virginia
while the Feds were chasing him, his accomplices were dropping
out one by one. He eventually was cornered in a
barn surrounded by veterans from the Union Army.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
But wait, we need to back up again.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Yes, beep, beep beep, that's the sound of the history
truck moving back. Because we gave you a little bit
of a I guess, a cold open. We should start
at the as the Mad Hatter says at the beginning
the Mad Hatter, Yes, story, Yes, that's appropriate for this,
isn't it.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
It really is.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Our story starts with a soldier by the name of
Boston Corbette.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Although he was born Thomas Corbett and was not a
soldier out of the womb, as it turns out, his
his initial occupation was as an incorrigible drunk.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yes, Thomas Corbett was a hatter, not yet mad, and
this was a pretty solid job for an upstanding American
in the mid nineteenth century. But his wife and his
first child, a girl, died during childbirth, and this sent
him on a downward spiral.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
He got a lot of death and childbirth things happening
in these last this episode and then the last one
about the Cocklane Ghost it's true. Check it out. Yeah,
if you haven't already, And if you haven't, then shame
on you. But yeah, no, he did not. He did
not do well after this blow from on high and he,
(05:38):
you know, became, like I said before, an incorrigible drunk.
So that wasn't his first profession. His first profession was
a hatter, and then he gave that up for the bottle.
And he lived in New England in Boston and he
would just haplessly stumble around drunk. He was kind of
because he was a vagrant. He became known as kind
of like one of the town shift layabouts, right. And
(06:02):
it was one night late in the eighteen fifties when
he ran into someone that would change his life forever.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Yes, And there's a great recounting of this in the
Washingtonian in an article by Bill Jensen. He meets one
of these proselytizing preachers, a street evangelists, and it gets
to him. Corbett is mesmerized by this word of God.
He becomes a regular at the what they call sidewalk
(06:34):
churches around the city, which was an interesting phrase I
had not heard before. But it's like a regularly occurring
church meetup that doesn't necessarily have its own physical building,
and he became sort of a hype man at these
street preaching get togethers. He stopped drinking and he started
(06:57):
he started being the guy who just yells amen along
with you know, sort of punctuating what the preachers are saying.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Yeah, Hype Manning is is sort of like in the
trap music up today, they's going to go yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Yeah, that was what he would do, except he was
going huck Florid to God free this.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yep, yeah, that kind of thing. And now on speaking
of Jesus, he also grew his hair his man long,
to appear to resemble Jesus Christ himself. He was baptized
in the Methodist faith, and he changed his name to
Boston from Thomas because Boston was the town where he
(07:39):
credited this meeting with the street preacher that turned his
life around.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Right. He was twenty six at this time, and the
ministers eventually said, hey, you should get your own turf.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
In other words, maybe it's sort of like back up
off our turf with Hype Manning. We don't need you anymore.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
I feel like Jesus is leading you to preach elsewhere, elsewhere,
to leading you're to preach down on fourth.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
I think that's right. I think we have to remember
we haven't said this yet, but I'm sure a lot
of people know this already. But hatters used mercury to
treat the felt, to to form the felt, to make
the hats, and as we know, long term exposure to
mercury does have some debilitating effects on the brain.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Yeah, as some debilitating cognitive effects. We do want to
tell you that the next part of this story takes
a brief and grisly turn.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yes, we'll try to make it as brief as possible,
but yeah, it's it's it's not a pleasant image that's
coming up here.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
So he's out ministering to the people in the summer
of eighteen fifty eight when he feels that a pair
of sex workers are googling him or giving him the eye,
and he is discussing with himself when he feels physically
(09:03):
excited to rise us to the occasion, right, So he
proceeds directly home, takes a pair of scissors, and you,
after making an incision in his scrotum, he removes his
testicles and then goes directly to a prayer meeting.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Like you do. It was a different time. Yeah, and
not only that he went to his prayer meeting did
whatever that entails. And then, oh, we should also mention
that he was when he got home from this encounter
with these ladies of the evening, he was in search
of answers and he opened the Bible to It's unclear
(09:46):
if he was looking for this passage because he was
aware of it, or if he was like, you know,
did the old FLIPPERO, and this is what came up
tell me what to do? Yeah, exactly. And the passage
that he encountered was Matthew nineteen twelve, which has a
part that says there are unit who have made themselves
eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom of God. And
that's what he went and did with the snip snip.
(10:08):
So he goes on to the prayer meeting and then what, oh,
he goes to the hospital immediately.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Right, No, he goes the next day after the prayer meeting,
he grabs Denner and takes a walk through the city,
thinking his thoughts.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Surely he's bleeding profusely from his genitals.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
At this point, one would think that he was able
to staunch the wound because otherwise, surely it would have
been noticed during a prayer meeting if the guy's bleeding
through his trousers. But either way, he did eventually check
himself into a Massachusetts general and spent some time trying
to heal. Eventually he says, Okay, I'm better. A few
(10:46):
weeks later and he moves to New York City to
become a hat maker again. But he's still very religious.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Oh boy, is he. Ever? He's possibly the most religious
person we've ever encountered in any story or we've ever
done for this show. Can you think of anyone more
staunchly religious?
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Staunchly religious? Probably not that guy who mooned all those
people now, definitely not who was still unidentified. Yeah, this
guy might take the cake so far. He would often
use his lunch break to go to prayer meetings. So
he still kept these these very i would say, dogmatic
(11:25):
religious practices. And then in eighteen sixty one, the Confederate
Army attacks Fort Sumter, which one was that in the
Civil War nice ironically named uh huh because it because
it was very uncivil. Yes, they were not nice to
each other, they were not. He enlisted in the Union
Army and he had a quotation here that he allegedly
(11:49):
told the women at his church, did you see this one?
Speaker 2 (11:52):
No? I had not been. Oh, give it to me.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
When he told the people as church that he was
going to join up with the Union Army, he said,
when I come eye to eye with my gray suited enemies,
I will say to them, God, have mercy on your souls.
Then pop them off.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Ah. Yes, I do remember this one. And pop them
off is what did it for me? Very slang. You
know what? It reminds me of them. It reminds me
of Samuel L. Jackson's character in pulp fiction, does the
whole And I will smite thee with great anger and
furious vengeance those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers,
you know the one. Yeah, it's good though. I wonder
(12:32):
if he got that idea from from from old Corbett. Uh.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Perhaps perhaps he did. That would be interesting. We'd have
to ask Quentin himself. Right, there was a big bummer
about him joining the army. He had to shave his
Jesus is.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Jesus, jam is Jesus locks.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Yeah, and by most of the accounts we've just got,
he was an ok soldier.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
He could Ryan he could fire a gun pretty good shot,
but uh wasn't uh the wasn't the best at he
answered to a very particular authority, didn't he, man, it
was no, it was not earthly, nor was it his
his commanders. And that's gonna come up time and again
in this man's story. But one funny anecdote in this
Washingtonian article is about the time where when he was
(13:26):
training in Franklin Square in New York, his colonel, a
man by the name of Daniel Butterfield, who they point out,
I did not know this composed TAPS. I didn't think
TAPS was composed. Thought it happened just was you know, yeah,
but no the sky. Butterfield also apparently had a bit
of a potty mouth, because he was just effin and
(13:49):
jeffin and swearing all over town. And Corbett was not
having it.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Was he, No, absolutely not. Corbett, who shall also mention
is still very green his training. Here he when the
courl's yelling at them and cursing, he yells back, Colonel,
don't you know you're breaking God's law. Butterfield is a
gas like he's speechless for a second. This has probably
never happened to him. So what what does he do
(14:15):
in response?
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah, he he reads him in the Riot Act, probably
in a very measured kind of hannibal electric kind of way.
I don't know this guy. Corvett kind of gives me
the creeps, the whole self near relation thing that that's
a that's a bridge too far illness, I think for sure.
And yeah, again we should point out that he had
been exposed to these vapors, these mercury vapors for quite
(14:38):
some time in his in his hatting career, before he
for any of this happened. Yeah, and he says, colonel,
don't you know you are breaking God's law?
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (14:46):
And yeah, Butterfield was probably just like, you know what,
my boy, thank you so much for pointing that out.
Thank you, thank you for saving But no, it's not
he did at all. It's not what he did at all.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
No, h he said, I'm gonna send you to jail.
So Corbette begins loudly singing hymns, pretty much shouting hymns
while he's in jail. He's asked to stop, he won't.
Butterfield eventually throws up his hands and says, look, if
you just say you're sorry, I can let you out
(15:20):
of prison, to which Corbett.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Says, oh. He says a no, sir, I have no
cause to apologize to you, for you are but immortal,
and you half offended the delicate sensibilities of the Lord
thy God. So if you ask God to forgive you,
then maybe I'll ask you to forgive me the Chutzbaugh.
(15:44):
It's out of control for a guy without balls. This
is really ballsy. Seriously, Yeah, no, no doubt about that.
To think it just goes to show that those kind
of balls come from within. My friend. There we go.
So he is released at jail, Yeah, because he's like,
this guy's impenetrable, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Also there's a
war going. Yeah, they probably need him. He's a crack shot.
(16:07):
He's at least a passable soldier. So yeah, they need him.
And okay, let's see, God, this guy's got a really storied,
storied life. Yeah, where do you want to go? Well?
He he. He becomes a pretty important figure in the
Union cause he fights in all these very very deadly
(16:29):
conflicts that most people would not have survived and did
not survive. And I don't know if he had God's
God on his side or whatever, but it's I don't know,
it's hard to not think that his piety maybe had
something to do with it, or maybe it was just
he was stark, raving, mad and fearless and just kind
of like had luck on his side.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah, yeah, Like the New England Historical Society covers a
little bit of his activity in the Civil War. I
did not know that he had enlisted re enlisted three times.
He took to this conflict and he wasn't the best soldier,
but he was consistent. The thing people hated about working
(17:12):
with him is that he was always telling people not
to curse or do sinful stuff.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Sure like you know, like you do in the army. Right.
He sounded like a real killjoy. But he eventually got
captured and sent to Andersonville. Do you know what Andersonville
Prison been? Yes?
Speaker 1 (17:31):
No, Andersonville Prison is a terrible terrible place, or it
was a terrible terrible place.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
We should say. It's here in Georgia, right, hunt.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
It was a Confederate run prison here in Georgia, which
you can visit. I've actually been. It's the Andersonville National
Historic Site now, so it preserves Camp Sumter, which is
also known as the Prison and it held forty five
thousand Union soldiers prisoner during the war. Nearly thirteen thousand
(18:02):
of them died not from execution, but from diseases, scurvy, diarrhea, dysentery,
the bloody flux.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Yeah, is that what it was called. I think that's
what they call it. Yeah, that was the shorthand, although
it's sort of longer. No, just dysentery, the blood deflux,
same number of syllables. But it sounds a lot scarier,
doesn't it. It does, Yeah, because the flux, I guess,
is when you expel blood. Right now.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
The thing about the thing about mister Boston Corbette is
that maybe it's a matter of his faith. Maybe it's
a matter of luck. He survived. Yeah, this man was
nothing if not resilient. I mean, he survived a self
administered castration, first and foremost. He survived you know, drunkenness
in the streets, and he survived some of the most
(18:48):
intense battles of the Civil War. And he survived this prison,
which was built to house ten thousand inmates and ballooned
to over thirty two thousand.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
There was like a little stream that ran through it,
and apparently it had just become a swamp of human filth,
and all of these diseases ran rampant. The guy who
was in charge of this facility was actually brought up
on war crime trials because thousands, if not tens of
thousands of men died in his facility.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Yeah, thirteen thousand that we know of, So that guy
was rightly brought up a war crimes what's his name?
Speaker 2 (19:29):
His name was.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Captain Henry wurrez wr Z. Not only he's tried for
war crimes, but he was executed. So after Corbette gets away,
after he survives this, it.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Convalesces for a bit, one would imagine.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Right, learns to eat solid food again. He still stays
with the army. He had eventually reached the rank of
sergeant in the sixteenth New York Volunteer Cavalry. Now to
the point where we began the story.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Oh man, weren't we having a barn burner? I don't
Maybe we hadn't quite gotten there yet. But our man
John Wilkes Booth, hobbled from his idiotic fall at the
Ford Theater after putting a bullet in Old Abe Lincoln's
head is now hold up in this barn, along with
two accomplices. I want to say, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Everybody else has deserted them. He's seventy three miles away
from the theater and being hunted like a dog. Boston
Corbette is one of the twenty six elite cavalrymen sent
from the unit to pursue John Wilkes.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Booth and pursue him. They did. They got a tip
from a local innkeeper who put them in touch with
a man who kind of cave gave a give it
to us man. I'm I'm not doing a very good
job here. Oh no, you got it. You got it.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
We've got a Booth and his conspirator, David Harold, in
a tobacco farm owned by a guy named Richard Garrett.
So what do the Calvern men do once they have
them cornered in that barn?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Well, they're not coming out right, So they light some
straw and fire and poke it through in anthole in
the in the barn, and you know, like old dry
wood tends to do it. It went up in flames
pretty quickly. And David Harold says, Okay, this is crazy
even for a terrorist like me. I give up Booth,
(21:24):
who has already made his decision made his peace with
whatever powers he thinks exist, stays inside. But as the
barn disintegrates in the conflagration, the soldiers outside can see
Booth's silhouette moving back and forth in the burning barn.
(21:51):
And let's let's just remind our listeners. Maybe not a
really reminder, because we haven't said it yet. The instructions
of this brigade was to bring back these men alive
because the plot against Lincoln there was a good chance
that had been organized orchestrated by forces on the Confederate side,
(22:12):
and they wanted to, you know, get to the top
of this conspiracy. Right, So when our boy Corbett popped
one off, as he would say, right at John Wilkes
Booth as he hobbled away, people were understandably annoyed, right.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
And another government employee says, what on earth did you
shoot him for? And he's rushing to yank Booth out
of the burning barn. They wanted him alive to you know,
run up the ladder of the conspiracy, and Corbett refused
to apologize. Booth dies around seven am the next day,
(22:56):
and the government forces are are wondering why this guy
is completely contradicting his orders. And all he says is
that God Almighty directed me to So instead of John
Wilkes Booth going back to DC, they take Corbett.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Yeah, and Edwin M. Stanton, who's the Secretary of War
who had issued a reward the War Department of one
hundred thousand dollars fifty for Booth, twenty five for Surrat
and twenty five for Harold, and a total of one
hundred thousand dollars. And this guy questioned Corbett personally, and
(23:40):
I think he sort of decided it wasn't worth pursuing that.
You know, the guy's dead. The justice has been served.
This guy's going to be kind of a national hero.
Let's it. Let's let it slide.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Yeah. Even though Corbette kind of changes his message at
the trial, and he says, I didn't fire the ball
from fear. I was under the impression that he, meaning Booth,
had started to the door to fight his way through,
and I thought he would do harm to my men
if I didn't fire. So it changes a little bit.
He's not quite as self righteous about it. But how
(24:16):
does his story end, Noel, he doesn't get the whole
fifty grand, No, he gets a portion of it, though
I think he gets a little over sixteen hundred, and
then he asked if he can take his horse home,
which I thought was pretty sweet. He says, he's not valuable,
but I'm attached to him and I'd like to take
him home.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
He's a sentimental man. He's a sentimental eunuch mad hatter.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Later he is largely forgotten. He starts initially going back
to work as a silk hat finisher, then he turns
to being a lay preacher, making two hundred and fifty
a year, two hundred and fifty dollars dollars, yes, not thousands,
of course, And by eighteen seventy four he has his
(25:01):
mental state has further deteriorated. He is convinced that John
Wilkes Booth is actually still alive, and that Booth has
sent people from the former Confederacy to kill him.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
That being said, though he was not a popular man
among his cohorts, for the reason we talked about earlier,
that he's always in people's faces preaching the Holy Roller line.
But also like even the other troops that he was
with in his unit, they would have been irritated with
him because he kind of stole their glory, right Yeah,
that could have been any of them. Also, it would
(25:32):
have been much more of a group victory if they
had brought the man back alive like they were supposed to,
but instead he took it upon himself to pop one off. Yeah,
and so he was getting threatening letters, right, that was real. Yes,
he was getting threatening letters. Don't know if they were
meant just to torture him, but some were signed Jay
(25:55):
Wilkes Booth. So in his mental state, he felt that
these really were from this guy, and there was this
overarching conspiracy to assassinate him. By eighteen seventy eight, increasingly unpopular,
despised by half the country, strongly disliked by his colleagues,
(26:16):
he hops in a wagon and says that he's going
to head west. Where's it go, Ben?
Speaker 1 (26:22):
He goes to a place called Cloud County, Kansas and
starts the homestead on eighty acres.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Yeah. Unfortunately, that doesn't go super well, and because of
some pretty intensely erratic behavior, he does not get to
continue in that endeavor. Some of that behavior includes, in
eighteen eighty seven, he holds the Kansas House of Representatives
(26:52):
hostage basically using two revolvers and a sword, and then
he declares that the session has been adjourned, and then
he has various in sundry run ins with the law,
and in eighteen eighty seven October, that is, he is
declared insane and he is committed to a Kansas asylum.
But that's not the end.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
That is not quite the end. He escapes from the
asylum on May twenty sixth, eighteen eighty eight, because he
sees somebody making deliveries and tethering a horse to the
front of the building. So he breaks away, jumps on
the horse, and takes off all the way to Neodesha, Kansas,
(27:35):
home of a fellow veteran and survivor of Andersonville, a
guy named Richard Thatcher.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
And that caused this kind of bolo letter to be
generated with the heading insane man escaped Topeka, Kansas, May
twenty sixth, eighteen eighty eight. Dear Sir Boston Corbett, an
insane man escaped from the insane asylum at Topeka this
morning and is supposed to be heading for Cloud County.
He's about fifty five years old and five feet four
(28:04):
inches tall. It is a clever detail. This is a
smart move. He has plucked all his beard out down
to the lower part of his ears, his gray chin, whiskers,
and mustache, gray hair cut square at bottom and parts
his hair in the middle. He wore a dark jeans
suit and black soft hat and was riding a bay
or a sorel pony with a boy's saddle. So keep
(28:28):
a lookout for that guy.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
He is regarded as a dangerous man, but was unarmed
when he escaped. If he comes your way, arrest him
and return him to the asylum at once, or telegraph
doctor B. D. Eastman, Superintendent Insane Asylum, Topeka for orders.
What happens when he meets up with his old pal
Thatcher or when he reaches Thatcher's property.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
We should say, well, the first thing he did when
he got there to Neodosha, Kansas, was he he took
that stolen horse that he referred to as a borrowed horse,
and he tied a note onto it and slapped on
the button and send it on its way. And it
was quite a ways of way, so it's unclear if
that horse made it to its rightful owner. But the
note kind of was like, sorry, I just had to
(29:08):
do it here, Please take this horse back. I didn't
I wasn't stealing it. But yeah, he went to a
train station and was trying to get to Mexico. And
that is the last anyone ever heard from him.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Right, Rumors still trickle in after that. You'll see a
lot of people list his death as eighteen ninety four.
One theory says that he was targeted by people who
were bitter over the various battles he had had in
his time in the Union Army. Someone else said he
died the Great Hinckley Fire, and then there were people
(29:47):
who would point out other possibilities. You know, in the
early nineteen hundreds, the Federal Prison Bureau heard about a
Boston Corbette who claimed he was alive and well and
wanted his pension. But the problem was that the guy
who claimed to be Boston Corbette, who also went by
the nickname Old Trapper Old Trapper, only gave vague descriptions. Yeah,
(30:15):
I think he was taller, and he was taller, Yeah,
like a lot taller, I believe full eight inches or so.
And then people thought that would be the last they
heard of him, But more and more stories poured in.
They just became less and less credible, if that makes sense.
It does, and now he is largely lost to history
(30:40):
except for one one thing that remains.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Right. Yeah, it's like a weird kind of memorial. It's
just a pen like a like a fenced area that
marks where his final home was. And in this Washingtonian
article they wrap up talking about how in nineteen fifty
there was a boy Scout troop that made a stone
plaque to put there and they called it the Boston
(31:07):
Corbett Dugout. And there are two revolvers embedded in the rock.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
And here ends the strange story of Boston Corbette war.
He wrote a sum a villain to others, but clearly
a man in need of medical care of some sort.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Yeah. Absolutely, who left a pretty fascinating mark on history.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
And if you'd like to read more about Boston Corbette,
you can check out the book The Madman and the Assassin,
which has a pretty snappy chronicle of his time, both
his normal life leading up to the Civil War and
his earlier struggles all the way to that fateful day
(31:55):
when he shot John Wilkes Booth. I felt like a
very definitive ending. Usually we get to a segue or something.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Huh, yeah, No, that's good. That's good where it's almost
like we're getting a little bit better at this. Well,
let's jakes ourselves fair enough, fair enough, But we hope
you enjoyed this story. We were surprised in the course
of our research to learn that, you know, a lot
of people haven't heard of this guy. I hadn't.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Yeah, they don't really teach you about it in school,
you know.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Well, you know, it's like, I think this is an
interesting slice of life of the time too, in terms of, like,
you know, the way mental illness was handled, the whole
idea of me. There's just so many interesting little twists
in this story, the way the whole Andersonville incarceration thing.
And I knew a little bit about that, but this
was a really interesting inside perspective, like from someone who
lived through it, the whole, you know, coming to Jesus stuff.
(32:43):
It's just this is like, why is there not a film.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
About this guy who would play him, Crispin Glover?
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Yes? Can I tell you that My friend Matt saw
Crispin Glover on the subway in New York for like
an hour, just sitting by himself, wearing a really nice
black suit and listening to earbuds.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
I think you may have mentioned that it was he
actually going somewhere, just writing the subway, I.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Think he was going. He said, well, Matt works way uptown,
and his his theory was maybe that he was shooting
something in Harlem, because that's sort of the direction.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Yeah, so I think Crispin Glover would be a good pick.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
He would be awesome. I mean, I mean, look, if
you look at this guy at listeners, if you want
to check it out, tell us what you think. Who
would play Boston Corbett, Oh, Crispin Glover all day long?
You know who else would be good? Norman Ritas dead
in the States.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Also, my favorite moment in the guy's biography is definitely
the Other Street evangelists saying God has called you to
preach my son about four blocks that way.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
That's still my favorite. That's good.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
We want to know what you thought about this episode,
and as always, some of our best ideas come from you,
fellow ridiculous historians. So let us know what other tremendously
important characters in American history or in the history of
your own country seem to be largely obscured today. We'd
like to shed some light on them. As always, thank you,
(34:07):
for checking out the show. Thank you to our super producer,
Casey Pegram.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Thanks to Alex Williams who composed our theme, and thanks
to Christopher Haciotis for being our researcher extraordinaire on this episode.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
And by this time, longtime listeners you know the Drill
will find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. You can
also check out our community page, Ridiculous Historians, which is a.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Hoot, a real hoot and hot and haller a brewhaha.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Sure are we just going to toss synonyms?
Speaker 2 (34:39):
We have to get out of here. We do toss synonyms, huh.
I like it. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.