The Confederacy's Drag Queen Hero

On June 28, 1861 Confederate pirates led by Captain George Hollins and Lt. Colonel Richard Thomas Zarvona captured a passenger steamer on the Potomac with an unusual plan of deception. Learn how these men and a flirtatious "mystery woman" became heroes in the south in one of the lesser known conquest of the American Civil War.

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Rob Fox
https://www.instagram.com/robfoxthree/
https://twitter.com/RobFoxThree
https://www.tiktok.com/@robfoxthree

Dan Regester
https://www.instagram.com/danregester/
https://twitter.com/dan_regester

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You. I'm now listening to soft core History.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Welcome back to self core History. I'm your host for
the week Damage Jester, joined as always by Rob Fox.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
What's going on?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Hey, Rob?

Speaker 1 (00:23):
How you doing? Said?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
You're feeling good.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yeah, I got some big news. I got some big news.
Fourth kid. No, no, no, I would kill myself that
you wouldn't the new You would find out the news
via my obituary would.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Be great news for me because the only way I
could afford a fourth child is for my life insurance
to kick in. Well, the life insurance, but also I
took a policy out on Yeah, I wouldn't have to
do this anymore.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
Everyone would just everyone just to be a whole lot
better off. I've never been born, That's what it is.
That's what I got a little wonderful life.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yeah, thing there gonna understand that?

Speaker 1 (00:58):
No. Uh told my wife the other day, I was like,
you need to you gotta get a job. These kids
are too goddamn your wife got a job. No, well
better yet than that. She comes back out and she's like, Okay,
I will actually start working on selling ads for you guys.
I will fully start contacting advertisers and so you're not

(01:20):
just having to do it yourselves in your spare time.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Okay, I got all day. So she has a hobby,
Yeah cool, cool, Well it benefits us, Yeah exactly. Maybe
if she's good at her hobby.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
If well, if she doesn't do it, then I'm gonna
be back to like I think it's time to feed
the children.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Now, she just has an excuse to not look after
the kids.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
And it's us.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Look, if it's getting fucking boner pills and protein supplements on,
we'll do it. Yeah, that's all I want. That's all
I want.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
It's the American dream.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
What kind of advertisers do you want? I was like,
I don't know, just google Boner and like gains.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
We're also joined by one mister Scott Lopez.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Hey, hot dog suit.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
I'm also doing really fucking good right now. Your fucking
car broke down on the way here as I pulled
into the parking lot, my car once again broke down
after it being in the shop for the last two weeks.
And uh yeah, that's a lot of fucking money.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Here's what I think you should do with that car
now at this point, you know, get it fixed ish,
just so it moves and then use it as a
tank in paintball. Ah. Yes, And the only way to
kill a tank in paintball is to build a pretty
big potato gun. I'm talking with some hefty PVC pipe

(02:40):
and you fire a full paint can out of it,
and it's got to hit the tank.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
Ooh. I was thinking more of like a drone cover
a drone in paint fly. The drone into the kyo
also works. Yeah, yea, yeah, yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Just have somebody blow up your car collect the insurance
like regular paintball.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
I'm about to do that with myself in it because
it's not fun.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Okay, So two suicidal co hosts with me today like that.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
I mean, I was doing great until thirty minutes ago.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
I only said side if my mofe was another kid.
But she's got an IUD so I'm good.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Solve that problem. Yeah, that's that's news.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
It's good news too. It helps tell the world. It
helps me a lot too, because, like.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
A little piece of plastic in your wife.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
If we do get you know, divorced, or God forbid,
she passes away. You know, I think I think like
a big cock block for me, BacT on the open
market would be that I couldn't provide another woman with children,
like I wouldn't do it, but I would want them
to think I might. But with the exectomy, there's just
no I wouldn't lie about it, you know what I
mean to lie about having a vasseectomy. So just keeps

(03:40):
doors open.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah, you don't have to spend the weekend with peas
on your nuts.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Also that yeah, with my children absolutely stomping their feet
straight into my nuts at just jumping lap and when
they do it every day, the amount of times I've
been hitting the ball, I shouldn't be able to have children.
They just take abuse con instantly.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Abuse your children back, dude, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
That's what I have to do. I do push them
a lot, like not hard, but enough to make them
like fall backwards, like get off of my balls, please,
just go And they fall on their butt and they're
like haha, and then they pop back up and just
start stomping the grapes again like a fucking Italian woman
in a bucket.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
Not quite as bad of abuse as us on the
Patreon playing the game Successors.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Yeah, but close. That was. I mean, we should do
that to like terrorists we capture.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
I had a fun time spectating that I thought it
was great.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Did you. We couldn't tell yea because we were in hell.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
It's maybe the worst board game I've ever played. We
literally check it out on the Patreon, Pictreon dot com
s left Softcore History or you can't check it out
right now because Scott, we're playing success or now. Yes,
that is not today's episode. Actually, today's episode is a
pretty uh minuscule event, all things considered. Happy during the
Civil War we specialized in the characters. You know, they're

(05:04):
not major players.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
What you can do Gettysburg today? No, it feels like
I'm about to get out.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
This means nothing in the actual war.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
War has no effect on it? No, okay, But does
it start it?

Speaker 3 (05:17):
No?

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Okay, but it is a funny story. Okay, Okay, I didn't.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
Again, I didn't. If were gonna get this switch, we're
or not because Fort Sumter really had no effect on
the war except for starting it. But nothing happened.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
We're going to go into the kind of backstory of
two major characters of this specific story, and then we're
going to get into the actual plot of what they did. Okay,
So let's just get into it. George Hollins was born
in Baltimore, Maryland, on September twentieth, seventeen ninety nine. His
uncle was Major General Samuel Smith, a hero of the

(05:49):
Baltimore defense during the British attack in September of eighteen fourteen.

Speaker 1 (05:54):
So when the Star Spangel Banner was written, Fort McHenry.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Smith ranged his nephew George's appointment as a midshipman. That
very same year, Hollins was first detailed in the USS Erie.
When Erie failed to escape the British blockade at the
Chesapeake Capes, Hollins transferred to the uss President, commanded by
Commodore Stephen Decatur.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
Which you know it's the early eighteen hundreds, obviously you
need tweens in your military.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
Work in the docks.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
Yeah, fifteen probably right fifth either way, Well he was
born in ninety nine, Yeah, so he was about fifteen
fourteen years old. You need those people.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
Diketter attempted to break out from New York with the
squadron up the Long Island Sound in January of eighteen fifteen.
During a heavy snowstorm, the President ran aground and was
captured by several British warships. Hollins was a pow in
Bermuda with Decatur, and of course the War of eighteen
twelve ends a month later in February.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
That's when they signed the Treaty of Ghent. Right, but
it still kept going because the Battle of New Orleans
happens after that, and I gotta think, you gotta think
what they were POWs for months afterwards?

Speaker 2 (07:13):
News travel slowly, Yeah, news traveling.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
I wonder what that pod is like, because we just
did an episode on American Revolutionary War POWs. Do you
know that more POW's died in the American Revolution? American
POWs died in the American Revolution than on all the
battlefields combined.

Speaker 3 (07:29):
I don't think there was rules back then, so I
guess it makes sense.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
Oh boy, it was a straight up float. It was
a floating concentration here.

Speaker 3 (07:35):
There was no like, oh we should treat them good.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
Yeah, well they they actually there were rules, but they
were like, you're not real combatants because you're rebels.

Speaker 3 (07:44):
Oh whoa, that makes sense. That's why we have Guantanamo
Bay right now. Yeah, because they're like, Taliban isn't really
an army.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
I guess we're just paying it forward. Yeah, And one
day when the Taliban is the greatest nation on Earth soon, hopefully.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
About fifty years or so.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, they'll they'll pay it forward to like a German
resistance group that's tired of like being oppressed by you know,
some Islamic caliphate that's swept over the globe.

Speaker 3 (08:12):
And they're all wearing roller blades.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah. Yeah, that's how they get so sick, dude, that's
the next s Blitzkreek.

Speaker 3 (08:18):
Yeah, so cool.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
Do you know how hard it would be for a
drone to get you if you're blading.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
Dude, and there was like high on opiums, Like the
drone takes like five drones just to kill you. Yeah. Yeah,
because you don't feel anything, keep going.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yeah, it's all a dream.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yeah. Modern problems require throwback solutions. Yes, ancients, get on
those blades.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
It's the way to go.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
Just pop in brink, dude.

Speaker 3 (08:40):
And is either the eighties or the nineties. The Marine
Corps tested skateboards for like urban warfare stuff to like
be fast.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:48):
Yeah, it didn't work out because if you hit a rock,
you just ate shit.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
Yeah, there's a lot of rubble, But there's just.

Speaker 3 (08:52):
Earth pictures of like nineties era marines with skateboards like
practicing and trying to see if that works for like close.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
That's why the Nordic countries are so good at the
Winter Olympics. They have the ski and shoot events. They've
just been doing that their whole lives, and generation after generation.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
Reigns for Yeah, skiing and shooting.

Speaker 3 (09:12):
Yeah, it's pretty fucking cool.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
So Hollins eventually gets out of being a pow when
the war ends, serves again with the Commodore. During the
Second Barbary War. On June seventeenth, eighteen fifteen, they encounter
an Algerian squadron commanded by the infamous pirate race Hammadu.
They killed Hamadu and captured his ship. Decatur picked up

(09:35):
the pirates commander's sword and gave it to Hollands for
his actions.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
Hell yeah, so you gonna just be cutting rebels down
with a Muslim pirate's sword, the curvious sword you've ever
seen in your life.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
Do you think I'm hyping up a Union soldier or
a Confederate soldier?

Speaker 1 (09:52):
Well, you said Baltimore, so I lean Union on that,
but oh boy, he went Confederate. Look, Maryland was a
border state.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
A lot of slaves there were. We're going to the
backstory of two Confederate soldiers okay. He then took command
of the Susquehanna and the Mediterranean Sea. When he learned
of the Civil Wars outbreak on May fifteenth, eighteen sixty one,
he steamed his ship back to Boston, where he resigned
his commission.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
I will say, uh, being in the Confederate choosing the
Confederate Navy is choosing to play on hard because they
didn't have one.

Speaker 3 (10:30):
That's why you steal pirate ships. I guess you can
just make it work.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah, like they had like that one iron clad, but
like the rest of that, like one of the reasons
we won the Civil War really is just because we
had a navy. Yeah, we were the only side with
a navy. Yeah, it really helped a lot. Like they
were kind of fucked from the jump.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
Maybe they were inspired by like a John Paul Jones
that it's.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
The only remote way they could have done navies. And
that's really what kind of what the Merrimack was. The
first iron clad just one they were like they know,
like they couldn't even do it with a wooden ship, Like
we gotta just put metal on something.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
They had a little submarine just popping around yeah, I
didn't do much, didn't do anything.

Speaker 3 (11:06):
Yeah, it struck fear.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
It was not accepted by the US Navy, and he
was ordered to be arrested. In the midst of confusion,
Hollins escaped and joined the Confederacy. Richard Thomas Junior was
born on October twenty seventh, eighteen thirty three, in southern Maryland.
His family was big in Maryland politics, and Richard Junior
was an excellent sailor, marksman, and skilled horseman. He attended

(11:32):
the US Military Academy in eighteen fifty and left after
one year before going to California to survey government land.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
Now I know this didn't happen, but I wish it had.
Is that he was in a naval battle and being
both a skilled sailor and horseman, they boarded a ship
and he was on horseback leading his troops from boat
to boat.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
He jumped the horse, yeah, onto another boat.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
Just like a civil war, like fast the furious, like
flying the car from one building into the windows of
another type of thing.

Speaker 3 (12:05):
That's like the uh I think it's seventeen ninety five
of the Battle of like Texel or Trexel, something like that.
The French versus the Dutch. It's the first ever and
the only time a cavalry ever like beat a navy.
That's because the Dutch ships were just frozen in the harbor.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
Hell yeah.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
And the French were like, oh yeah, we like put
cloth over the hoofs of the horses and snuck in
there and raided them. And the Dutch were like, yeah,
we just gave up because what can we do. We
didn't do I mean, I guess written by the victory
of thing.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
The thing too is like, as long as the cavalry
doesn't charge at the side with the cannons, yeah, you know,
if you go at the front of the back, there's
still like a couple cannons on the front and back,
but nothing major. Yeah, you're fine.

Speaker 3 (12:44):
That's how they were like, oh yeah, we stormed their ships.
In the Dutch book, we gave up. We couldn't go
any we didn't, So technically a cavalry beat a navy once.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
Richard Junior's next stop was China during the Taiping Rebellion,
where he helped fight pirates and for the Qing dynasty.
He then became extremely enthralled by the exploits of Giuseppe
Garibaldi during the Uruguayan Civil War and the wars of
Italy's Unification.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
Garibaldi is their George Washington sort of. I guess it
didn't last long. No kiss, Mussolini swoops in there.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
Thomas went to Italy in eighteen fifty nine to join
Garibaldi's Red Shirts, but instead he became a lieutenant in
the Imperial Suave during the French invasion of Italy, so
he gets.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
Caught up with the French on the other side.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
I imagine he's on Garibaldi's side.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
Okay, then they were with the French, and they were
probably republic at the time, because monarchists typically would look
out for other moees.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
I don't think he's inspired by a man. And then
he goes directly to the opposition.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
Sound like he's just looking for a fight kind of
what like literally he's fighting to put down rebels in
China and then goes to Italy and is like rebels.

Speaker 2 (13:57):
Hell, yeah, dude, Giuseppe could just you know, speak to
his heart. I guess Giuseppe just sounds like a guy
that's working a gelato cart outside of you know, the
Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Speaker 3 (14:10):
Yeah. I can't take that person seriously at all.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
You're not a serious.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
It's the Italian equivalent of like, like every race or
every ethnicity I should say, has it. Like if you
meet like a genuine Mexican guy named Juan, I was.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
Gonna say Pedro, or I can't take up Pedro.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
Right right right, or like I don't even know what
an Irish would be, like Patrick o'patricky or something like
you know what I mean, or just Mick yeah yeah yeah, yeah,
yeah yeah, or a German guy named Hans. You're like, no,
it's too on the nose, No, No.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
The Second Italian War of Independence was fought between the
French Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Austrio
Hungarian Empire. While serving in the Imperial Suave, Richard Thomas
foam love with a French lady who later died in
his arms. He mourned her and even changed his name
in her honor and became Richard Thomas Zavona.

Speaker 1 (15:06):
He took her name.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
I guess, yeah, you.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
Know anyone who's done that, who's done the double, who's
done who hyphened his wife's last name.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
It's not even a hyphen name. He just Thomas became
his middle name as Zarvona.

Speaker 3 (15:19):
You've seen the hyphen on Facebook. I don't know if
they go by it, but I have some friends that
have both names on their Facebook profile.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
I have a couple of friends, not close friends, who've
like done that, and I'm just like, come bad. Yeah,
just keep she doesn't want to take your name. I
guess fine, but just just keep it at that.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah, you don't have to, you know, go above and beyond.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
You can just you could have made the easy, normal choice,
but you didn't.

Speaker 3 (15:50):
I've seen like growing up football players having like both
their parents hyphen names on the back of their directions.
But that's cool. And then you see someone get married
and have a hyphen name. Not as cool.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
Dude, There's just ways to show that you have no
say in the relationship.

Speaker 1 (16:06):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, like, I'm I'm not even against this,
but if you are inclined to say that a dude
who gets pegged is problematically not in charge of that relationship,
wherever you think pegging is, put that like one hundred
feet below it.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
I would rather get peg than take a woman's last name.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
Yeah. Yeah, because that's your soul getting pegged.

Speaker 3 (16:37):
That's fucking great.

Speaker 2 (16:38):
That's generational.

Speaker 1 (16:40):
That's generational pegging.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
Richard Thomas Zaravona returned to Maryland to join the Confederacy.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
By the way, I want to go back to what
we just talked about for a second. If you're on
the fence about doing that and you don't, you really
don't want to, but you're kind of like trying to
figure out a way to argue with your wife. Take
her to your grandfather's grave with a bag, don't tell
her what's in the bag. Then when you get there,
your your paternal grandfather, open the bag, pull out a

(17:12):
just gratuitous strap on the biggest thing you've ever seen
in your life, something that could never fit inside of
a human being, and say, here you go, fuck his grave.
That's what you're doing. Fuck his grave. If you want
my name, if you want your name on my body,

(17:34):
fuck my grandpa's grave. Like fucking no, no lube, no,
not what you need it for. Well, I don't know
was that symbolic? Yeah, saltburn berry keyogin, fuck the grave,
Fuck his grave, and I'll do it because that's what
you're asking. So just do it. Put your words into actions,

(17:56):
and if that doesn't work, then I guess just take it,
take the name, but that should send a message. Okay,
I'm done.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
He wanted to steal the USS Pawnee to terrorize the
Chessbeak because obviously the confederataty again doesn't really have a
navy zero navy.

Speaker 1 (18:13):
So that is actually one interesting thing about the Confederacy
because if you we've talked about this before, we've never
done an episode on it. But leading up to the
Civil War, Jefferson Davis was I think SECTEF and or
maybe Secretary of State. Whatever he was, he was in charge.
He was like the cabinet position, basically in charge of
the military. I don't know if SECTIF existed yet, it
would have been secretary of War. I think it was

(18:33):
a secretary of War.

Speaker 3 (18:34):
Yeah, that sounds right.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
But whatever he was, he kind of charged the military,
and he made sure to put people he knew. He
was like it's common and he made sure to put
people who he knew would go over to the South
in charge of important forts that were in the South
and all this stuff, you know what I mean, And
they just to my knowledge, forgot to do that. With

(18:57):
the navy. There is a different Secretary of Navy though
there was a secretary, so maybe that's why. But like
they did a really good job in Buchanan just wasn't
paying attention, didn't give a fuck, which is one of
the reasons he's the worst president of all time.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
And or actually like let it slide.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
Or yeah, which is even worse. And uh even though
from Pennsylvania, but like but he was still like so yeah,
But like they did a good job of taking a
lot of arsenals and forts and stuff like that, like
having it ready to go, having a guy there to
just unlock the doors and surrender the troops and all
this shit. But it just like didn't happen with the Navy,

(19:40):
Like they didn't get a fleet that was like based
in Norfolk, Virginia or something, you know what I mean,
Like they just didn't get a lot of that. It's
just odd. I need to look in to that more.
But my recollection off top of my head is they
did a good job with the army and just like
forgot that was water surrounding their country.

Speaker 3 (20:04):
Keep it on that big overside.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
They're like imagine like he started to award a You're like, oh, fuck,
we forgot the air Force. Ah shit, Well be we'll
probably be fine.

Speaker 2 (20:20):
He goes to Richmond to meet with Governor John Letcher,
and during the meeting, Letcher thought that Sarvona was somewhat eccentric,
but saw some merit to his plan and promoted him
to lieutenant colonel and gave him one thousand dollars to
execute a scheme.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
See's why they lost the war. Huh Sarvona's nation name,
where'd you get it? I took it from my dead wife.

Speaker 2 (20:42):
Wasn't his wife either.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
I took I took it from a dead woman I loved.
Huh hmmm. Have you ever thought about just being a
private in the infantry.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
Just like a French woman he had a fling with.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
Yeah, okay, I did name my last car off of
a chick I met at the airport, like a decade ago.

Speaker 1 (21:03):
It's an object at the same now, it's an object.
That's fine.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
Sarvona then met with Commander Matthew Fontaine Murray and Captain
George Hollins, who I talked about a little bit earlier.
There reviewed Sarvona's concept and agreed that it could work.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
I don't know how Maryland stayed in the Union, like
I know how Missouri did, and I kind of remember
how Kentucky did, like all the border states and stuff
like that. But I wonder if Maryland was just fully
at gunpoint, yeah, because because if Maryland got over to
the South, then the capitol is surrounded by the Confederacy.
Like I wonder if Lincoln was just like kill anyone

(21:40):
in Maryland. That speaks out, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:44):
One of the weirdest things I ever like noticed was
when I lived in Indiana for a couple of years.
That was the most Confederate flags I've ever seen in
my life, so fucking and I never understood it.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
Oh, I can actually give you a good.

Speaker 3 (21:55):
I didn't know what they did in the war, but
it was very strange just as a state.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
It was in the Union, and it gave a lot,
gave a lot of troops the Union. But I can
tell you maybe why that happened. We did an episode
on how Notre Dame football fought the Clan m hm,
the Klan, the fighting Irish. Yeah, that's how I got
the nickname. What. Yeah, they got in a fist fight
with the Klan. That's cool because the clan hated Catholics, right,

(22:19):
So Indiana was the biggest KKK state in the United
States in the twenties.

Speaker 3 (22:28):
I'm sure it still is a lot of races.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
So that might be why they've adopted that to a
large extent.

Speaker 3 (22:36):
Particularly that's wild. Yeah, I would see. I lived in
the middle of nowhere, so almost every house, yeah, had
either in their garage or just hanging up on their driveway.

Speaker 1 (22:47):
I didn't understand, which is funny because I feel like
rural Indiana, Indiana's back in the Civil War probably hated
slavery because they were doing like non slave agriculture, you
know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (22:59):
Crazy.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
But by the way, another fun fact about that, a
lot of people contribute like, oh, with the KKK, they're
all they were all Democrats or whatever, which is in
the South is true one hundred percent, but for whatever reason,
in Indiana it was the Republican Party. Like the Republicans
in Indiana were very that was the KKKA affiliation. I
don't know why. I don't know what the difference is,

(23:20):
but yeah, it was just an interesting little little bit. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:24):
Fun.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
Zaravona would go to Baltimore and purchase weapons and recruit
men for the venture. They would book passage on the
steamer Saint Nicholas.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
How dare they know? This is just a lot of
callbacks to a lot of episodes here a little bit. Yeah,
because we did an episode on Saint nick Bones and
it's grave or something. I did it.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
This packet boat had a regular run from Baltimore to Washington, DC,
with stops at various landings to pick up goods and passengers. Meanwhile,
Hollins was to secure a group of Confederate naval officers
and engineers to meet the plotters along the trip. Once
all were aboard, they would take the Saint Nicholas by surprise.
The Confederates were to then pick soldiers from the first Tennessee.

(24:07):
Once reinforced, the Confederates would use some type of trick
to capture the Pawnee. That's cool, They're gonna They're gonna
capture the boat, take it hostage. And then yeah, the operators.

Speaker 3 (24:16):
Yeah, you know what I mean, these are the first seals.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
Yeah. Literally, Hey, should we make I know, we shut
down our store, but should we reopen it? And you
know how like everyone like like the our employers, for example,
make like hyper patriotic shit. Should we just make hyper
patriotic shit? But for all of America's enemies like an
Isis shirt that says like club and seals since twenty eleven.

Speaker 2 (24:40):
I mean, I'm just not gonna open up the store
for them.

Speaker 3 (24:43):
I support this, I'm the veteran.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
Yes, I'm fine with you making the shirts, but you're
gonna have to sit on that inventory and I'm not
gonna contribute fair enough, fair enough.

Speaker 3 (24:52):
Yeah, it's like a Taliban flag give us fifty years.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
Yeah, it's like come and take it. But it's I
don't even know what to tell, like just a mudd hut.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
Yeah, okay, it's a goat with like C four strapped
to it.

Speaker 1 (25:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, a goat and address exactly would come
and take it.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
On the evening of June twenty eighth, eighteen sixty one,
about sixty passengers book their passage, including a very stylish
young lady speaking only broken English with a thick French accent.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
Oh no, oh, dude, don't get traded.

Speaker 3 (25:24):
No.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
Her name was Madame la Force.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
Great name.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
Oh I thought we were going like with the with
the trans like he disguised himself as a hot babe.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
We'll get to that. We'll figure out who Madame la
Force is. Okay, okay. She had several heavy, large trunks
with her that were going to help her start a
business in Washington, because, of course.

Speaker 1 (25:50):
Well yeah, by low, great time to buy property in DC.
You want to start a business.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
When the steamer departed Baltimore, she emerged from her stateroom
and flour shamelessly fluent French gushed from her lips. She
radiated charm. A veil covered her eyes and cheeks, but
not her red ended lips. She tossed her fan about
and cocked her head at an angle toward any gentleman
who occupied her attention at the moment. She meandered from

(26:19):
salon to dance hall, flirting as she went from ship
officer to ship officer.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
Dirty girl, I can do this right now, A veil,
yeah now.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
Captain Kerwin's take of everything was I didn't like the
appearance of the French woman at all. She sat right
next to me at dinner, and so close that our
legs touched. I thought she looked mighty queer. That young
woman behaved just means weird, just means weird. That young
woman behaves so scandiusly that all the other women on

(26:52):
the boat were in a terrible state.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
They were just like fuck this dirty. I mean shit,
don't change right. One chick is flirting with all the dudes,
and all the dudes you're like, yeah, oh you're so funny.
Oh man, she's so cool at all the other all
the other girls are like bad.

Speaker 3 (27:10):
You bring an outside girl to any group with women
that know each other and they hate them immediately.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
Yeah, women hate other women. Yeah, they never support each other.

Speaker 1 (27:19):
With dudes, it's like, what's up. You're like football team,
you're fo oh cool.

Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yeah, you connect over the smallest thing.

Speaker 3 (27:26):
And those guys my team, so cool, we're friends.

Speaker 1 (27:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:30):
It is said that one crew member, utterly mesmerized by
the lady, leaned over for a kiss, but was caught
with a hand slap on his cheek. Saint Nicholas continued
it's run toward the Potomac. About midnight, several men, including
elderly gentlemen with a cane, came aboard at point Lookout Marylyn.

(27:51):
By this time, one of the volunteers, George Watts, noted
that none of the men acted as if they knew
each other. All our boys gathered about that frisky French lady.
She looked at me as I came in, Lord, I
knew those eyes in a minute. It was the colonel.
He then shed his bonnet, wig and dress and stepped

(28:14):
forth in a brilliant new suave uniform.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
I need to see a picture of this guy. What's
his name again? Which one is it?

Speaker 4 (28:25):
So this is the guy that took the the woman's
last name.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
What's it? Just give me the name because I gotta
see a picture. It's if he doesn't look feminine in
the least.

Speaker 2 (28:33):
It's Richard Thomas Junior. But it's Richard Thomas Zarvona.

Speaker 3 (28:38):
This is me in my hotdog suit with the veil,
trying to flirt with dudes, and everyone's like, that girl's crazy.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
I don't know if there are pictures, there's probably not photos,
damn it. Yeah. The first one that came up, I
was like, oh my god, but it's not it's not him,
shows Hollands and I just really wanted to see.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
So the men quickly opened the trunks and found them loaded,
you know, to the gills, with just guns good to go,
and uh yeah, they.

Speaker 3 (29:11):
Those are big trunks. Those are big ass guns.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
Yeah, they take them go to the main deck. They're
the captain.

Speaker 3 (29:18):
Now, dude, this is literally the first like American seals
besides the air part so like cells.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
But that was a scene in Munich as well. The
Stevens people were moving about the massade. Couldn't killing all
the uh killing all the Palestinians for the Olympic slaughter
or whatever. It's like Daniel Craig and someone else, uh
just walk up to this group of like Palestinians like
in drag and they're like and then like they get

(29:47):
the Palestinians are like, oh what up girl, and they
get closer and Daniel Craig's just like.

Speaker 3 (29:53):
Cool, it was pretty. It's a pretty Yeah, you can
hide some guns and ethos dresses. Yeah, sure yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
As Arvona's men based onto the deck, the old man
with a cane slipped off his wig and it was
none other than Captain George Hollins. Took over command of
the Saint Nicholas. He steemed the ship to the mouth
of the Cohen River on Virginia's side of the Potomac,
where he picked up about thirty Tennessee infantrymen. With these reinforcements,

(30:18):
Hollins had up the Potomac in search of the ten
gun Uss Pawnee, but the gunboat had already returned to Washington.
The other vessels of the Potomac had attempted to capture
the Confederate water batteries commanded by Colonel Daniel Ruggles at
Mathis Point, Virginia. The squadron leader, Commander James Harmon Ward

(30:39):
of the USS Thomas Freeborn, had sent two landing parties that.

Speaker 1 (30:43):
Had been repulsed.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
As Ward was citing a shell gun to cover the
Union withdrawal, he was mortally wounded by a sniper.

Speaker 1 (30:52):
This in particular, or anything like this would be a
sweet movie, because like, our only view of the Civil
War is like giant engagements, you know what I mean.
You only think about like Antietam and Gettysburg and Vicksburg
stuff like that. But like like any war, there was
lots of like small unit action like that, like rating
of fare of a dock or whatever to like steal

(31:15):
one boat where people died. Like it was a small unit,
small arms fire action where people died, but it was
with you know, flintlock rifled muskets instead of you know
today's small arms and shit like, but it still happened.
It's fucking fascinating.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
Ward's death prompted both USS Thomas Freeborn and the USS
Reliance to return to Washington so that Ward could have
a state funeral as well. So the Saint Nicholas was
in search of Union warships without success because everybody had
already packed up shop and.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
Gone back to a safe harbor.

Speaker 2 (31:48):
Yeah Hollins realized that the missing steamer would be would
soon be discovered by the Unionist and an overwhelming force
would try to recapture the ship. He took the Saint
Nicholas out of the Potomac and into the Chesapeake Bay.
The Confederates came across a large brig the Monticello, loaded
with thirty five thousand bags of coffee, headed from Brazil

(32:10):
to Baltimore. Holland sent this ship to Fredericksburg. One hour later,
Saint Nicholas took the Mary Pierce filled with ice. Lieutenant
Robert D. Minor was placed in command of this vessel,
and he sailed to Fredericksburg. The steamer was by now
running low on coal. However, they conveniently came across a

(32:31):
coal ship and towed the Margaret to Fredericksburg as well.
Saint Nicholas was later commissioned into Confederate service as the
CSS Rappahannock Rappahannock.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
So it captures like three merchant ships, gets coffee, ice,
and coal.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
Not a bad haul.

Speaker 3 (32:51):
Yeah, pretty sweet, I mean.

Speaker 1 (32:54):
And also they get the ships which they have the
ship none of yeah, not really. So they're building out
their nave, yeah, because I think like one another big
problem with the navy part for the for the South
was that like almost like all the major ports were
in the north pretty much attract New Orleans was probably
the biggest southern port if I had to guess ahead.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
When Hollins and Zarvona reached Fredericksburg, a ball was given
in their honor. They then moved on to Richmond, where
even more celebrations were held. George Hollins was promoted shortly
after the capture of the Saint Nicholas to flag officer
and sent to New Orleans to command the Confederate naval forces.
He gained additional laurels with his October eleventh, eighteen sixty

(33:40):
one victory during the Battle of the Head of Passes.
Richard Thomas Zarvona was not as fortunate. Even though Zarvona
was called a great hero throughout the South for this plan,
he was labeled a pirate in the North. Federal forces
in Maryland were on the lookout for the French Lady's
next exploit.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
You can't whip that out again. No, that's one and done.

Speaker 3 (34:05):
Yeah, it's a cool nickname though. Yeah, I'm the French Lady. Yeah, yoh.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
Zarvona attempted to come up with the scheme to take
over the Debate steamer Mary Washington, but he was captured
on July ninth, eighteen sixty one, when the steamer reached
the dock at Fort McHenry. There was talks of hanging
Colonel Zarvona as a pirate, but instead he was imprisoned

(34:32):
at Fort Lafayette in New York Harbor. He was ultimately
exchanged in April of eighteen sixty three. By this time,
Zarvona was suffering from like a severe nervous condition because
he was when he was a prisoner of war for
the Union, he was in like tight spaces. Yeah, they
kept him in uh, you know, not the best prison.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
He was dealing with pow stuff.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
So he goes to Europe to he gained his health,
doesn't really work, ends up back in Maryland and he
is kind of living the rest of his life with
like nervous breakdowns and poor health at his brother's house.
He ultimately dies March seventeenth, eighteen seventy five in Maryland.

(35:20):
Governor John Letcher of Virginia wrote a memorial in his honor.
Colonel Zarvona was an extraordinary man. If any man has
ever lived, of whom it can be said he was
insensible to fear, Zarvona was undoubtedly that man.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
Well, he died of fear. So yeah, there was nary
a clever a man who fought to keep slaves.

Speaker 2 (35:45):
He was somewhat eccentric, but his eccentricies did not render
him disagreeable. On the contrary, tended to inspire regard for
an excite interest in him. I don't like how they
talk back then.

Speaker 1 (36:01):
I just don't. They talked dumb as hell, like quite
a bit more eloquent. It's a very odd like way
things have gone, like much worse literacy and spelling even
for the literate, but like much more eloquent. Somehow, They're like, look,
only eight people know how to read and write. If

(36:22):
I'm gonna write something down, it's gonna be pretty yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
But even the people like didn't know how to read
or write. They would be writing back to their sweety
back home. Yeah, and then my dearest Virginia.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
That's one of my favorite stand ups as a kid.
I think it was. Uh. I wasn't greg Gyaroldo. I
was somebody else, but he was just like he was like,
he's write so beautifully. And if you read like a
letter home from desert storm. This is even before we
invade Iraqt. You read a letter home from desert storm,
it's like, Dear Sandra, it's hot as fuck here, my
balls keep sticking to my legs.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
I miss your titties.

Speaker 1 (36:54):
Yeah, like it's just the dumbest shit. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
But back in the Civil war'd be like I want
to caress.

Speaker 3 (36:59):
You'll breast.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
That'd probably get you in jail. Yeah, maybe I can't
write the word breast. You're right.

Speaker 3 (37:06):
I told my girlfriend like before I went to Afghanistan,
I'm like, oh, yeah, I'll write you letters because it's
like romantic, you know, dear John and shit, yeah you know.
I texted her on Facebook Messenger once a week telling
her I was still alive. I never wrote a letter,
never said anything besides like, hey, I'm good. It was
about it the whole time. Then didn't have a single

(37:30):
conversation with her. Anyone in my family, my mom ould
be the same way. Like every few days, I text
my mom saying I'm alive. That was it.

Speaker 1 (37:39):
Did she appreciate that, hey, not dead?

Speaker 4 (37:42):
No?

Speaker 1 (37:42):
I don't.

Speaker 3 (37:43):
I don't know. Maybe I never asked my child, the girlfriend,
the ex. I couldn't till we broke up as soon
as I got back, So I have no idea. But
I never asked my mom like, hey, were you worried
about me? Because like I was just chilling. You know,
it's on YouTube a lot.

Speaker 1 (38:01):
That was nice of her to not dump you during
the deployment. Yeah, but I feel like that's the same
as like dumping you know, your boyfriend with cancer, yeah,
or something like you're like, I'm just gonna have to
stick this out to it.

Speaker 3 (38:15):
It was literally the next weekend, yeah, maybe two weekends
after I drove up to see her, we broke up.
And I was like, all right, technically my bad. I
guess because we were at the time too. It was
my longest relationship just because that was gone for so long.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:28):
Yeah, I knew her for maybe a month in person total.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
You know, I'm sure she was loyal.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
I feel like if you were only dating for a
month before you deployed, she's got the green light to
bring Yeah, she feels.

Speaker 2 (38:40):
Like it you're not together.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
Yeah, it just made you feel good going.

Speaker 3 (38:45):
It's also why it felt weird because like I asked
her out and then three days later, Hey do you
want to go to Afghanistan tomorrow? And I was like yeah,
And so I'd be like, hey, I know, we've just
been dating for like three weeks. I'm going for an
unknown amount of time. I would just text here once
a week. I'm good. That was literally it.

Speaker 4 (39:03):
It's like getting engaged to somebody with stage four cancer. Yeah, yeah,
you know how this sounds.

Speaker 1 (39:07):
Yeah. Wait, what did you do in Afghanistan? Again?

Speaker 3 (39:10):
Nothing? I was in the infantry. We just like hung out.

Speaker 2 (39:14):
What just throwing the football?

Speaker 1 (39:15):
You were in the infantry and you didn't do anything?

Speaker 3 (39:18):
Well, dude, the war was kind of over. It was
like twenty fifteen, okay, And so we would like help out,
like SF dudes, like drive them around while they did
cool stuff. Okay, because I was attached to like a
whole SF unit, Seals, Green Berets, Delta guys, you name it.
And they they'd walk up and be like, you guys
want to kill someone today and we're like yeah, and
they'd be like cool, hop in and we just like
we would just drive them around while they did the stuff.

Speaker 2 (39:37):
Was it like jar Head where you had a shot
and they caught it off.

Speaker 1 (39:40):
No, nothing like that.

Speaker 2 (39:41):
Never fired your gun.

Speaker 3 (39:42):
No, we fired guns. We weren't allowed to. Sometimes you
couldn't shoot a fifty cow inside the city, which was weird.

Speaker 1 (39:50):
Huh.

Speaker 3 (39:50):
You're like, there's rules to that. Yeah, that's fucking insane.

Speaker 1 (39:54):
Anytime anyone wants to talk shit on the US military, like,
no one else has as rules, dude.

Speaker 3 (40:00):
The British, the fucking British. They have some essays guys
talking shit to me and they're like, your rules of
engagement suck. You guys can't do anything unless you're getting
shot at, And we're like thanks, the British are making
fun of us, fuck you. Yeah, that's true. Like if
if they point a rye flatch, you technically have to
like watch them do it until they shoot, and then
now I can legally do this.

Speaker 2 (40:19):
I think we have to handicap the war to make
it kind of fair.

Speaker 1 (40:23):
Yeah, yeah, yep, that's exactly what it is. It's like
that you know, you know, the famous Battle of the
Sexes tennis match, the one everyone talks about because it's
the one that a woman won.

Speaker 4 (40:34):
Yeah, we're forty five point favorite Billy Gene to give
them the Billy Jean King one.

Speaker 1 (40:38):
Well, there was a bunch of other ones that they
don't talk about, where the dudes won, like a bunch
and one of them was Martina Navratralova playing maybe Bjorn
Borg who was elite back in the day.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
None of this matters, and.

Speaker 1 (40:54):
He got he got only second serves, so if he
didn't hit the first, if he didn hit his survey
and it was an amba a point against him, and
she got to use the double lines, so she got
a bigger court. He wiped her, wiped her anyway. That's
America and Afghanistan apparently.

Speaker 3 (41:11):
Yeah, what are they.

Speaker 1 (41:13):
Gonna do to us?

Speaker 2 (41:14):
Yeah, I know we have air superiority, We have every superiority.

Speaker 3 (41:19):
Yeah. The biggest threat was just like IED's and stuff. Yeah,
and like vehicle bombs and then like Afghan army guys
just shooting you on accident or on purpose. Right, feels
like a lot of them were on The biggest threat
was like being on base, like having an Afghan guy
walk past you and you're like, no, fuck, we're getting
Pat Tillman. Yeah, oh that's my favorite family guy bit.

(41:40):
If do you remember that one? It's and anyways, he
repeats this thing over and over again. But they're like, hey,
we're gonna go attack the enemy, and he's like, we're
gonna go over the hill and kill Pat Tillman. They're
like no, we're gonna go flank the enemy and then
kill Pat Tillman. He just says that like ten times
in a row.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
Jesus Christ.

Speaker 3 (41:57):
It was amazing.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
So yeah, this was just kind of an interesting story.
I thought about two Confederate officers that scheme up a
plan to hijack a passenger ship to then ultimately try
to take over another gunship. It's a little special Forces
up in the Civil War and a little cross dress

(42:22):
in action.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
Yeah, Madame la Force, it's not gay if it's for
your country. Yep, it's a solid name, Madame la Force.
That should have been he that should have been a
dead giveaway one. I don't even realize that people were
too naive and sweet back then. Like now, if you're
like my name is madame, Like what's death in French

(42:44):
fire May. Yeah, my name is Madame Mailed. Your name
is Madam Death. Let me just check your hair and
genitals real quick.

Speaker 3 (42:53):
Darth Vader.

Speaker 1 (42:54):
Yeah yeah, yeah, although Lady.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
Death was the uh that sniper for the Soviet and then.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
Yeah, what did she do? Just killed the enemy the
whole time.

Speaker 4 (43:05):
Yeah, you had to feel pretty clownish or you know,
pretty silly if you're one of those.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
Those sailors that went in for a kiss with Madame LaForce.
Oh my god, they wanted to fuck her. She was
being so flirty.

Speaker 1 (43:19):
By the way, let's talk about that for a second.
He didn't need to do any of that.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
He went above and beyond.

Speaker 3 (43:27):
Yeah, he.

Speaker 1 (43:30):
Was having fun. And he's like the cop in South
Parker posts as a hooker, but like Fox all the
johns before dressing them like, that's what this guy did.

Speaker 3 (43:39):
Essentially, his fifteen boys made it on perfectly fine. All
the weapons are there, and he wanted to dress up
like a chick. All he had to do.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
He can still druggle your ship, but all you do
is be like I am making so steet. I'm going
to go to my crew and sleep. Okay, Madam the Force,
you have a good time, you know, have a good trip,
happy to have your board, and then that's it. That's it,
I mean, is it? Instead he spends hours flirting, canoodling,

(44:08):
being so flirty. He's pissing off every other woman.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
There, rubbing legs with the captain, like trying to jack
them off on under the table.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
Yeah, there's a lot of questions, far more questions than answers.

Speaker 3 (44:21):
Maybe it's a confident confidence boost before you go into battle.

Speaker 2 (44:25):
He's getting into characters. Yeah, that's really it.

Speaker 3 (44:27):
He needs that support. But to be like, oh yeah,
I can't do this, that's probably what it is.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
I'm not missing. Yeah, not like in Ocean's eleven. If
they all just like played the black like played like
craps in one all night and then just pulled out guns.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
Yeah, I feel like he could have just been like
George Hollins being an old man.

Speaker 1 (44:46):
Yeah. Like, here's like the plan is. They're like, all right,
we're just gonna pose his passengers, you know, normal guys.
We're gonna start a business. We'll bring our trunks on
and then he's like no, no, no, no, no no
no no, I'm gonna wear dress, I'm gonna put on lipstick.
I'm gonna have every single guy on that boat wanting
to eat my figurative pussy my box. Yeah, and they're like,

(45:10):
but we don't. That seems like you're gonna get a
lot of attention. And I know you, I guess speak French,
but you're not a woman. You have a man's voice,
a man's body, man's feet. In Adam's apple, this seems
like a horrible idea. Trust me, it'll work. It's the
Las Vegas shooter, but with more steps.

Speaker 3 (45:33):
Take these, He was.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
Pan homage to the woman that died in his arms
in Italy.

Speaker 1 (45:40):
The randomly Yeah, they fucked like twice.

Speaker 2 (45:44):
Probably even fucking honestly, yeah, honestly.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
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(48:01):
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(49:16):
That's f I T B O D DOT M E
slash softcore. It seems like a horrible plan that worked
out incredibly well.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
And honestly, it didn't really work that well. They got
three four boats.

Speaker 3 (49:30):
Yeah, he didn't do a whole lot of circumstands.

Speaker 2 (49:32):
Right, they're all merchant boats. Though, what are you gonna
do with merchant boats? They need any boat, I guess transportation.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
They need any boat.

Speaker 3 (49:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
Well, they had a big thing of like getting supplies
into the South was literally blockade running. So yeah, anything
you can get, you gotta fucking take it at that point,
because again, they just forgot about the water. Yeah, they
forgot about it, which is why one of the first
things the Union did after they blocked hated the entire South.

(50:01):
People forget like people act like, oh man, the South
was fucking wiping the North the whole time until Gettysburg.
Not true, we were killing in the West like uh
Shiloh was eighteen sixty two. We were doing well in
the West the whole time, pretty much. But the blockade
was a problem from the beginning, and b the Americans
made it a priority to be like, let's take their
one good port which is New Orleans. Yeah, and we

(50:24):
took it in eighteen sixty two. I like just fucking
came in and fucking smashed them and controlled New Orleans
for the rest of them from eighteen sixty two on
controlled New Orleans. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:33):
So you know who was in charge of our navy
at the time, who our boy Gideon Wells.

Speaker 1 (50:39):
Oh hell yeah, he knew what he was doing, so he.

Speaker 2 (50:43):
Maybe wasn't compromised by Jefferson Davis clearly, Yeah, or they
didn't even try to attempt to.

Speaker 1 (50:49):
Yeah, they're like, fuck, fuck, we're not gonna get it.
We're not gonna get a navy. But yeah, like they
made it. They had it. They did a pretty good
job of prioritizing strategic things at the beginnings of a
war the Union did. The only problem really in the East,
the primary theater was execution. But in navy and in

(51:09):
the West, no problem, no problems from the start, no problems.

Speaker 3 (51:14):
I like to think of like there's a Confederate blockade
somewhere in the Union ships stressing out about passing through it,
and as they get closer they realized, oh that's an
ice ship. Yeah, that's that's a coal ship. But They're like,
oh God, we're about to go through those blockade and
it's just merchant ships.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
With like eight cannons.

Speaker 3 (51:31):
All right, hey, you can't pass here. Fuck all right,
they passed.

Speaker 1 (51:34):
God damn it. No, yeah, I mean the main the
main thing defending New Orleans wasn't even boats. It was
that there was a fort further up the river, basically
at the mouth of where Thessissippi hits the Gulf of Mexico.
I think maybe Fort Moultrie, I don't remember off the
top of my head, but that was the main thing.
Protecting New Orleans from the Navy was just a land

(51:56):
Ford and the Navy came in and just fucking smashed
it and then got to New New Orleans. My favor
this is one of the favorite things Civil Wars. It
got to New Orleans. They didn't even really bother to
invade the city. They were just like, surrender or we'll
blow the levees. Yeah, like, we'll just shoot our cannons
at the fucking levees and then anchor in the French quarter.

(52:16):
You fucked New Orleans is like God, all right, God
damn it, Well you got us. Yeah, So that is
our story for today. What did you boys learn everything?
I learned that this guy was playing out his kinks
on the battlefield. There was more to that motivation than mirror.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
Yeah, he just wanted to do it.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
Yeah, it was. It was a fetish, like absolutely superfluous.

Speaker 2 (52:47):
He was getting off just being in somebody else's skin
like a tennis rentals.

Speaker 1 (52:52):
How far did he go?

Speaker 3 (52:53):
It was hard on just poking through the dress.

Speaker 1 (52:55):
Yeah, we only know the story that was told. We
don't how many sailors did he jack, Like he might
have blown a sailor just for the sake of the story,
I think we can confirm he he blew, He blew
a sailor, He blew a sailor.

Speaker 2 (53:14):
He was gang banged.

Speaker 1 (53:16):
Because here's here's why it would be smart to blow
as many sailors as possible if you're this guy, because
then if someone accuses you of not being a woman,
twenty people for their own self preservation.

Speaker 2 (53:31):
That's a woman.

Speaker 1 (53:31):
No, no, no, no, that's a chick. I didn't fuck it, dude, Yeah,
that's a check and obviously a chick. They have to
like it. Doesn't even even if they no one else
knows that they got blown. They for their own peace
of mind will demand that everyone agree he was a woman.

(53:52):
So if he was a true strategist, a true clever
you know, proto Confederate Navy seal, which I believe he was,
he sucked a lot of dick that night.

Speaker 3 (54:04):
Yeah, I think I learned the origins of why they
say the Navy is gay.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
This is where that comes from the Confederates. Though, yeah,
it doesn't count.

Speaker 3 (54:16):
They're the first dude.

Speaker 1 (54:18):
At one point they're just like, you gotta stop, it's
time to open the guns.

Speaker 4 (54:23):
He's like just a two bule, Like we could have
taken this ship over hour Yeah, hours ago, we could
have taken this ship.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
But you you're playing out your sick fan.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
But also they really kind of could have, like the
moment they got on the boat, just taking it over
it as.

Speaker 2 (54:42):
Soon as they take off. Yeah, all right, like stay
in your room, fan yourself whatever. You don't have to
actually be so flairtaous.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
This guy's playing shit out. Yeah, and he blew at
least five sailors.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
I just like that the captain could just you know,
sniff it on him, just like something about this this woman.
I don't like.

Speaker 1 (55:06):
Yeah, maybe it's true.

Speaker 3 (55:11):
For a huge feet and the fact that she's got
like five o'clock shadowy, hairy hands and ship.

Speaker 2 (55:17):
But you know, it kind of passes for a French woman.
Back then, they don't know that is true.

Speaker 1 (55:21):
It kind of does. Yeah, you don't have to shave
your armpits or anything.

Speaker 4 (55:25):
They probably hear stories they're like, oh, the hairy woman,
but also your average like you know, bottom of the
barrel sailor, especially a river sailor.

Speaker 2 (55:34):
Oh you gotta think he was like shaving his legs
and stuff for this role.

Speaker 1 (55:37):
No, not back then.

Speaker 2 (55:39):
Maybe a little because like women don't have the hair.

Speaker 1 (55:42):
We have, that's true.

Speaker 3 (55:45):
He had to do something.

Speaker 1 (55:46):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean he's wearing a full length dress,
I assume, and if he's just doing mouthwork, they're not
going to get.

Speaker 3 (55:53):
To his body. You're right, I mean women might have
the leg hair we have. Do you think he wore
like a corsette?

Speaker 2 (55:59):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (55:59):
Absolutely? First off, do I think he did? Yeah, he
went the full nine. His hips were popping, dude, he
did everything everything.

Speaker 3 (56:13):
He was a woman that'll blush on the cheeks, lipstick,
He had red lips.

Speaker 2 (56:18):
Right, what's worse him doing this and going all out
as a French woman or taking a French woman's name.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
I'm taking the name I am now actually of the
opinion that he longed to assume her identity. This guy
wanted to steal this woman's ideity. I think it killed her.
Actually was in his arms. Yeah, yeah, she did die
in his arms. It's another way to say strangled.

Speaker 2 (56:51):
Yeah, I mean strangling is dying in someone's arms.

Speaker 1 (56:53):
Yeah. So he killed her. Dreamed of being her as
soon as he saw her, dreamed of being her.

Speaker 2 (57:00):
I wanted to live a day in her skin.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
Finally got his chance. His mental breakdown actually began when
he realized he could no longer live as her and
must go back to his life as a naval officer.

Speaker 2 (57:12):
Yeah, you gotta look out for the French lady taking boats.

Speaker 1 (57:15):
Yeah yeah, And for one magical night that was his peak.
For the only night of his life he ever truly lived, he.

Speaker 3 (57:23):
Was her, Madame LaForce.

Speaker 1 (57:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:27):
Yeah, so uh, let's put a statue for her, Yeah,
bringing back Confederate statues. Let's bring back Madame LaForce.

Speaker 1 (57:36):
We should build the statue. Wait, we should actually like
go to a small southern town and be like, fuck,
fuck the woke piecy bullshit, We're gonna build. We want
to raise funds to build a Confederate statue for this person,
you know, and say it's him too, and then when
the statue comes up, it's just a man in a

(57:59):
dress with a raging erection.

Speaker 3 (58:03):
Next. Okay, so we reopened the softcore site that wasn't
gay shit. Well, this is full Confederate hero.

Speaker 2 (58:09):
This is Richard Thomas Ervona.

Speaker 1 (58:10):
That's what he did.

Speaker 3 (58:12):
We do a full camo shirt right for the for
the soft coore website, Confederate flag giant and it just
says La Force underneath it. Softcore history merchant yck.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
No one will know we said we do patriotic gear
for all of America's enemies.

Speaker 3 (58:30):
Exactly.

Speaker 2 (58:31):
Yeah, I just I really want to get a petition
going for the statue. Yes, I want a Confederate statue
of Madame.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
LaForce full dress again, needs a musket erect with two
Union sailors, just like you know that Teddy Rosevelt statue.
They get taken down where the black dude and the
Native American were next to him as he rode a horse.
This one is like the same thing as Madame LaForce
with a sailor in each arm, and they're just like
groping him again, but they're looking up at her face

(59:00):
and those beautiful red lips, huge erection protruding out of
the they don't notice.

Speaker 2 (59:06):
Because I want a redneck to have to defend that statue,
because one of the big.

Speaker 1 (59:10):
Big arguments is like, hi kind of rice history. Well,
well I dare you to use that line now? All right,
dare you to go against that line?

Speaker 2 (59:20):
Now, let's see how much you really care about the sea.

Speaker 3 (59:25):
You gotta have the statue.

Speaker 2 (59:26):
Yeah, Who's who's today's hitler the North?

Speaker 1 (59:34):
Obviously I'm gonna go with this guy for killing a
French lady and stealing her identity, and also for just
doing an over complicated plan.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
Yeah, you could have just been an old guy like Hollins.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
Yeah, well you could have even been the French lady
and just been like most tie up to my room
and then and then you roll out the guns immediately.

Speaker 2 (59:56):
You don't have to go to every guy there.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
And I guarantee a little No one in his unit
was like let him cook. No one they were all like.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
Let's see how this plays out.

Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
Yes, what is happening? When are we going to do this?
Every minute we are not taking over this ship is
another minute think of for real life.

Speaker 3 (01:00:18):
I mean, they're worried he's getting compromised. He went all
in so much that uh, like the guy who was
like a what Watts, he went all in. So the
guy Watts was just like, where's our colonel where? And
then he finally like you know, he d wigs and
it's like, holy shit. It must have been so easy

(01:00:42):
to just fool people back then, Rubes.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
A lot of them. What we talked about on a
Patreon episode the other day about how one of the
biggest parts of the GDP up until like the eighteen
fifties was just lotteries. There were lotteries constantly.

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
Also, women was just ugly. Yeah, so yeah, like a
handsome fella and drag might do it for them, that's
the thing, doesn't for me.

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
Now, let's be honest, fair enough, if you have any
if you have any gay friends who do drag, suggest
the name Madame LaForce.

Speaker 3 (01:01:13):
Madame LaForce. I gotta get back into the scene.

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
I was.

Speaker 3 (01:01:16):
I was big into going to drag shows Indiana because
it was just fun, Like Redneck's doing that. I gotta
get into the Austin scene. I'm sure it's a lot
I'm sure it's vibrant.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
Even better than the statue. Drag Queen's story Hour at
a Southern library, Madame.

Speaker 3 (01:01:33):
LaForce, you can't stop it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
Yeah, but they're reading pro Confederate literature.

Speaker 1 (01:01:38):
Yeah. I just want to see people.

Speaker 4 (01:01:42):
I want to break everyone's brains. Yeah, yeah, that's that's
all I want to do, is just glitch everyone. Possibly,
I want everyone to be mad. Then it's me and
like a crop top and George with like an ar
out front of the library, like you can't come in
here and disrupt. You to be so confused?

Speaker 3 (01:01:57):
Free speech, motherfucker.

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
And actually, if anyone wants to disrupt it, accuse them
of being woke because it's pro Confederate.

Speaker 3 (01:02:07):
Yeah, like what are you, Marry not woke?

Speaker 1 (01:02:10):
It's a fucking dragquin there, that's a drag queen talking
about the glory of the Confederate States of America.

Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
Then you're just raising money for the statue.

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
Yeah, they're like, just have a stroke.

Speaker 3 (01:02:23):
Oh, we need to make this happen.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
This is my goal. Now.

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
I just want to Madam the four statue and drag
Queen in like Birmingham, Alabama.

Speaker 3 (01:02:33):
We got biscuits and gravy come on down. You can't
stop it, dude.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
Anyway, Lopez, thank you so much for you know, risking
it all coming here, having a car breakdown.

Speaker 3 (01:02:45):
Yeah, I gotta get towed out of here.

Speaker 4 (01:02:47):
Super excited when you get like a pig fucking gofund
me for your goddamn vehicle.

Speaker 3 (01:02:52):
Dude, it sucks. Then I got a yeah, rent a
car to go to work. I'm super excited for it, guys, yep.
Should I'm just glad I made it because the last
twenty minutes getting here was terrifying. Yeah, if I can
just make it six more miles, I can at least
go on the show.

Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
And honestly, just doing this episode was worth it. For
the last five minutes, it just happened.

Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
Yeah, we just came up with just the greatest idea
of gold that we've ever had.

Speaker 2 (01:03:20):
So thanks for tuning in.

Speaker 1 (01:03:22):
Guys.

Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
Make sure to check out our Patreon, where you have
two additional episodes every week every Wednesday and Friday, and
at this point three and a half years of evergreen
content so much including our our Game of Successors, which went.

Speaker 1 (01:03:36):
So well, that's what that is.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
Yeah, it was terrible and we will never open that
box again.

Speaker 1 (01:03:42):
No, no. If you want to bring a gun next
time and we can just shoot the box.

Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
Play a little Russian Roulette, I'd rather play that. That
would rather successors Scott working, the good people find you?

Speaker 3 (01:03:56):
Uh yeah, last ro Lopez on Instagram. That's it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:00):
Peep him, peep his ship.

Speaker 3 (01:04:02):
Send send me money from my.

Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
Car ven Veno same thing, lest Lopez.

Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
Do that.

Speaker 3 (01:04:11):
I'm scared.

Speaker 2 (01:04:12):
Five dollars a month. Join our Patreon. Get just so
much unlimited content. Everything we keep it going. We don't miss,
we don't miss baby. But for rough focks Scott Lopez,
I'm damn regester. You just got sauce served