Speaker 1: School of Humans. Did you guys know that back in
Speaker 1: the day, boys used to share beds. Oh, but it's true.
Speaker 1: You know, today sometimes the boys don't want to share beds.
Speaker 1: Like I'm going on a trip soon and one of
Speaker 1: my friends was like, I don't want to share the
Speaker 1: bed with this other boy, and I said, fine, you
Speaker 1: guys can have the room with the bunk beds.
Speaker 2: So you know, if he was trying to not touch
Speaker 2: the other boy.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, technically in the bunk beds, they're still going to
Speaker 1: be on top of each other.
Speaker 2: But actually, back in the.
Speaker 1: Day, it was quite normal to be a man sharing
Speaker 1: your bed with another man, and sometimes not even with
Speaker 1: a man you knew, just like a random guy.
Speaker 2: Like maybe you're going to.
Speaker 1: A hostel, a motel, a hotel, and you're in one
Speaker 1: of the cheaper rooms. You might be sharing your bed
Speaker 1: with another guy, just a rando. Yeah, just like you
Speaker 1: might be sleeping and then another man might be slipping
Speaker 1: into your bed and then he might be slipping into
Speaker 1: something else, if you know.
Speaker 2: What I mean.
Speaker 1: Yes, sometimes men would sleep in beds with other men
Speaker 1: just to be practical. But then sometimes they weren't just bedfellows.
Speaker 1: Oh No, sometimes they became headfellows.
Speaker 2: What a good joke.
Speaker 1: As we all know, puns are the most sophisticated type
Speaker 1: of humor. And sure, it's hard to like prove that,
Speaker 1: you know, these men were sleeping together.
Speaker 2: People weren't really.
Speaker 1: Talking about sexuality that much, whether hetero or homo, but
Speaker 1: there is plenty of conjecture and some evidence that some
Speaker 1: notable politicians in fact were headfellows. Again, that's men who
Speaker 1: share beds, who have sex. It's a term I just
Speaker 1: made up, but I am going to submit it to
Speaker 1: the official historical record as a new thing to say.
Speaker 1: And so American Filth we're having our.
Speaker 2: First mini series. That's right.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be looking at several cases of headfellows. And
Speaker 1: first we're gonna start with a pair of spicy, zesty
Speaker 1: letters between two men who would go on to be
Speaker 1: some Southern and Confederate politicians. And these letters, well, they
Speaker 1: prove that some man on man hanky panky was occurring
Speaker 1: during the early nineteenth century.
Speaker 2: You know what to do?
Speaker 1: Cue the theme song. This is American Filth. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Gabby Watts. Every week I tell you a filthy story
Speaker 1: from American history. Today's episode Bedfellows Headfellows Part one. Let's
Speaker 1: get into the meat of this episode and meet one
Speaker 1: of the worst men in American history, James H. Hammond
Speaker 1: ding ding ding Ding ding ding ding ding Ding introducing
Speaker 1: our first headfellow. Yeah, this guy was a huge piece
Speaker 1: of shit, if not maybe one of the worst. One
Speaker 1: historian called him nothing less than a monster. So here's
Speaker 1: some of the horrendous stuff that he did. Ps huge
Speaker 1: trigger warning.
Speaker 2: For sexual assault.
Speaker 1: Hammond was born in South Carolina in the early nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: and he wasn't born well off, but he managed to
Speaker 1: snag himself a wealthy lady named Catherine Fitzsimmons, and through
Speaker 1: her he was able to enter the planter aristocracy. Catherine
Speaker 1: was a shy seventeen year old whose family was convinced
Speaker 1: that Hammond was just after her money, which he probably was.
Speaker 1: As her new husband, he got all her stuff, a
Speaker 1: ten thousand acre plantation, and he had two hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty enslaved people, and oh boy, did he love slavery.
Speaker 1: He's the one who coined the term cottones king. And
Speaker 1: he was also really into states rights, and by the
Speaker 1: mid eighteen thirties he was making political moves He eventually
Speaker 1: went on to be the governor of South Carolina, a congressman,
Speaker 1: and a senator, And if you guys can believe it,
Speaker 1: he didn't have a great personality among the other planters.
Speaker 2: He had a pretty bad reputation. They thought of him as.
Speaker 1: Aloof and vain, willful, proud, moody, reactive, and he seemed
Speaker 1: to have a pretty heavy streak of sadism. He himself
Speaker 1: would frequently beat the enslaved people on his plantation, and
Speaker 1: then he would sometimes send them into malaria infested swamps. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: this guy was absolutely horrendous. But the thing is, his
Speaker 1: bad behavior came to bite him in the back, in
Speaker 1: the leg, in the butt.
Speaker 2: It bit him.
Speaker 1: Somewhere, and his political career was interrupted for fourteen years. Okay,
Speaker 1: So what happened is he was eighteen forty six, he
Speaker 1: was already well on his way into.
Speaker 2: His political career.
Speaker 1: He had served as the governor of South Carolina, and
Speaker 1: at this point, one of South Carolina's senators was about
Speaker 1: to step down and Hammond was going to take his place.
Speaker 1: But suddenly Hammond withdrew from the seat because Hammond's brother
Speaker 1: in law said to him, Hey, if you become Senator,
Speaker 1: I am going to expose some revealing information about you.
Speaker 1: At the time, there were rumors of a sexual scandal
Speaker 1: going on at the Hammonds, but there is no documentation
Speaker 1: of what exactly happened. But some sneaky, sneaky historians published
Speaker 1: his diaries in the nineteen eighties and they revealed what
Speaker 1: that incident was.
Speaker 2: That his brother in law was referring to.
Speaker 1: What had happened is that Hammond had repeatedly sexually abused
Speaker 1: his four teenage nieces And oh, do you think he
Speaker 1: was apologetic about it? Absolutely not. Then his diaries, Hammond
Speaker 1: was like, I'm the victim. He's like, oh, goough, Why
Speaker 1: am I being punished like this? All I did was
Speaker 1: quote a little dalliance with the other sex. He also
Speaker 1: just blamed the girls who he abused over two years.
Speaker 1: He was like, oh, it's their fault. They were extremely
Speaker 1: affectionate with me. They were the ones who permitted my
Speaker 1: hands to stray unchecked, and they did not shrink from
Speaker 1: my touch. I fucking hate this guy. And it was
Speaker 1: even worse than that, because Hammond was also a frequent
Speaker 1: sexual abuser to the enslaved women on his plantation.
Speaker 2: He might have even.
Speaker 1: Sexually assaulted a girl who was his own daughter. After
Speaker 1: all of this sexual abuse, his wife left him and
Speaker 1: took their children with her.
Speaker 2: But as history has taught us again and again.
Speaker 1: It is literally impossible to cancel a powerful white man.
Speaker 1: So like thirteen fourteen years years later, his wife had
Speaker 1: already come back to him, and then he won a
Speaker 1: seat in the Senate in eighteen fifty seven. Yay, nothing
Speaker 1: ever changes. So now that we really hate this guy,
Speaker 1: let's get to the Bedfellows stuff. Also, I do think
Speaker 1: this episode is slightly timely because Taylor Swift just put
Speaker 1: out her album where she had a weird line where
Speaker 1: she's like, I would live in the eighteen thirties without
Speaker 1: all the racist or whatever. Well, this episode is mostly
Speaker 1: set in the eighteen twenties with all sorts of racists,
Speaker 1: so I guess Taylor watched out for the eighteen twenties
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 2: There were also racists.
Speaker 1: Then, so yeah, it's pretty relevant to the modern day. Also,
Speaker 1: I do kind of consider myself the Taylor Swift of podcasting,
Speaker 1: because sometimes I used too many words to describe a
Speaker 1: simpler point and could have been more thoughtful about what
Speaker 1: I said, but instead decided to do quantity words instead
Speaker 1: of quality words?
Speaker 2: Do you guys see what I'm saying? See I'm doing
Speaker 2: it right now.
Speaker 1: But anyway, let's get back to Hammond and start learning
Speaker 1: about this bedfellow's headfellow's stuff. Before he was married, had
Speaker 1: an established political career, and maybe before he was a
Speaker 1: complete pile of shit, he was a young guy and
Speaker 1: had a pretty interesting relationship with another young aspiring politician
Speaker 1: slash lawyer named Thomas Jefferson Withers or just Jeffrey Withers
Speaker 1: or just jeff. Around the time that Withers and Hammond
Speaker 1: became friends, Withers was studying the law and he freaking
Speaker 1: hated it. He was like the time one spends in
Speaker 1: college's time murdered.
Speaker 2: He's like, why do I have to learn all.
Speaker 1: These stupid dead languages like Latin Ugh dumb? But Withers,
Speaker 1: through his own education and education of himself, because school
Speaker 1: is stupid, he was like, I love States rights, national
Speaker 1: power boo. Like Hammond, Withers was pretty unlikable. Some people
Speaker 1: described him as irritable and moody and reactive. And maybe
Speaker 1: it's their general bad attitudes that drew these two South
Speaker 1: Carolinians together and how they ended up being bedfellows. We
Speaker 1: don't know exactly when they were in the same bed
Speaker 1: when they were doing bedfellowing, but it seems that there
Speaker 1: was an opportunity where they were doing that, and they
Speaker 1: were doing a lot more than sleeping. Yeah, as they
Speaker 1: were two ambitious men who were hustling and grinding, they
Speaker 1: might have also brought that hustle and mostly that grind
Speaker 1: to the bedchamber.
Speaker 2: And how do we know this well.
Speaker 1: Because those sneaky sneaky historians who love the hot goss
Speaker 1: they found a couple letters that Withers wrote to Hammond,
Speaker 1: and damn they are freakin' spicy as hell. And after
Speaker 1: these soothing advertisements, I'm gonna.
Speaker 2: Read those letters to you. Brb.
Speaker 1: Are you guys ready for this spice? Not like from Dune,
Speaker 1: but like from the Gossip? Okay, So this is one
Speaker 1: of the letters. On May fifteenth, eighteen twenty six. It
Speaker 1: was sent from one Jeff Withers, our second bedfellow, ding
Speaker 1: ding Ding, to our first bedfellow, Jim Hammond.
Speaker 2: Jeff and Jim how romantic.
Speaker 1: Pammond at the time would have been like nineteen and
Speaker 1: Withers was about twenty two.
Speaker 2: Okay, here's the letter.
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to get into my best like
Speaker 1: saucy Southern man voice.
Speaker 2: Dear Jim.
Speaker 1: No, I'm not gonna do that, Okay, Dear Jim.
Speaker 2: I got your.
Speaker 1: Letter this morning at about eight o'clock from the hands
Speaker 1: of the bearer. I was sick as the devil when
Speaker 1: the gentlemen entered the room, and have been so during
Speaker 1: most of the day. At about one o'clock I swallowed
Speaker 1: a huge mass of epsom salts, and it will not
Speaker 1: be hard to imagine that I have been at dirty work.
Speaker 1: Since I feel partially relieved enough to write a hasty,
Speaker 1: dull letter. Mmm. So yeah, y'all are probably like, Wow,
Speaker 1: this isn't actually that spicy. I don't need to know
Speaker 1: about what he does when he doesn't feel good. But
Speaker 1: also Ebsen salts still using that shit. Okay, whatever, But
Speaker 1: it's about to get very spicy because he's like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna write you a dull little letter, but actually he's
Speaker 1: gonna write him a spicy little sex note. I feel
Speaker 1: some inclination to learn whether you yet sleep in your
Speaker 1: shirt tail and whether you yet have the extravagant delight
Speaker 1: of poking and punching a writhing bedfellow with your long
Speaker 1: flesh and pull the exquisite touches of which I have
Speaker 1: often had the honor of feeling. Let me say unto
Speaker 1: THEE that unless thou changest former habits in this particular,
Speaker 1: thou wilt be represented by every future chum as a
Speaker 1: news sense. And I pronounce it with good reason too. Sir,
Speaker 1: you roughen the downy slumbers of your bedfellow by such hostile,
Speaker 1: furious lunges as you are in the habit of making
Speaker 1: at him when he is least prepared for defense against
Speaker 1: the crushing force of.
Speaker 2: A battering ram.
Speaker 1: Without reformation, My imagination depicts some awful results for which
Speaker 1: you will be held accountable, And therefore it is that
Speaker 1: I earnestly recommend it.
Speaker 2: Indeed, it is encouraging.
Speaker 1: An assault and battery propensity which needs correction. An uncorrected
Speaker 1: threatens devastation, horror, and bloodshed.
Speaker 2: Did you guys get what he's saying.
Speaker 1: He's basically being like, oh, my god, your flesh and
Speaker 1: poll it's like a battering ram. And if you keep
Speaker 1: ramming it, baby, awi aUI aUI, there's gonna be devastation
Speaker 1: and bloodshed Daddy.
Speaker 2: Like this is a real thing that they wrote in history.
Speaker 1: Isn't this amazing? And the rest of the letter it's
Speaker 1: not really that interesting, but they just have this very
Speaker 1: vulgar paragraph. But it ends with Jeff Withers saying, with
Speaker 1: great respect, I am the old stud Jeff. No warm regards,
Speaker 1: no best wishes, just I am the old stud Jeff. Also,
Speaker 1: what I'm getting from this letter is that mister Hammond
Speaker 1: was the top to mister Jeff Withers, unless that battering
Speaker 1: ram was a power bottom. Unfortunately, we do not know
Speaker 1: what Hammond said back to Withers, but Withers wrote again
Speaker 1: to Hammond a few months later, on September twenty fourth,
Speaker 1: eighteen twenty six.
Speaker 2: It reads, my.
Speaker 1: Dear friend, your excellent letter of thirteen June arrived a
Speaker 1: few weeks since, and it's up to our imagination to
Speaker 1: imagine how excellent that letter was. But in this one
Speaker 1: that Withers is writing, he gets pretty saucy.
Speaker 2: Yet again, it.
Speaker 1: Seems that Weathers is trying to warn Hammond that Hammond's
Speaker 1: sexual appetite is maybe a little bit too much. I fancy,
Speaker 1: Jim that your elongated protuberance, your flesh and pull your
Speaker 1: two Latin words indecipherable has captured complete mastery over you,
Speaker 1: and I really believe that you are charging over the
Speaker 1: pine barrens of your locality, braying like an ass at
Speaker 1: every she mail you can discover.
Speaker 2: I should lament to hear of you, feeding upon.
Speaker 1: The dross of the pasture and alarming the country with
Speaker 1: your vociferations.
Speaker 2: The day of.
Speaker 1: Miracles may not be pass and the flaming excess of
Speaker 1: your lustful appetite may drag down the vengeance of supernal power.
Speaker 1: And you'll be damned if you don't marry.
Speaker 2: These horny guys Jesus.
Speaker 1: The historian who found these letters is Martin Duberman, and
Speaker 1: apparently the archivists didn't want to give him these letters
Speaker 1: because they didn't want him to see how gay these
Speaker 1: guys were. He wrote a really excellent essay about these
Speaker 1: letters that he called Writhing Bedfellows. What Duberman was trying
Speaker 1: to understand was are these letters representative of the cultural
Speaker 1: context and attitudes around homosexuality at the time, or was
Speaker 1: this just one specific case of homosexuality that occurred. So
Speaker 1: here's the tea. Back when these were written in the
Speaker 1: eighteen twenties, there was a more relaxed attitude towards sex.
Speaker 1: This was before the second grade Awakening, This was before
Speaker 1: there was a lot of evangelical sentiment in the South.
Speaker 1: I mean, it wasn't completely relaxed or anything, but it
Speaker 1: was pretty common that men, especially planters, were having lots
Speaker 1: of sex outside of marriage. Durroim was also like, well,
Speaker 1: if you look at the tone of these letters, it's
Speaker 1: very casual. It's very flirtatious. You know, Withers isn't ashamed
Speaker 1: of his behavior. He's like, murmurmur, your flesh and poll
Speaker 1: or whatever. And so Duberman's guy of suggesting, like, well,
Speaker 1: they're not trying to hide it. So maybe it was
Speaker 1: actually more common than we think that men would have
Speaker 1: homosexual relationships when they shared a bed when they were bedfellows.
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, maybe homosexuality and that kind of behavior
Speaker 1: was casually tolerated at the time, meaning there might have
Speaker 1: been a lot more headfellow bedfellows out there. But the
Speaker 1: great thing about this is there's no real conclusion because
Speaker 1: there's just not enough evidence out there. But whether or
Speaker 1: not this was a larger trend or whether this was
Speaker 1: an isolated incident Withers and Hammond went on to have
Speaker 1: successful political careers despite their jaunt into homosexuality. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: got to be those eighteen thirties racists that Taylor Swift
Speaker 1: didn't want to have anything to do with. Hammond, as
Speaker 1: we said, was a huge piece of shit. He got
Speaker 1: canceled for like ten years, but then came back because
Speaker 1: again cancelation doesn't work. And his four nieces who he
Speaker 1: sexually abused, they were ruined and they never went on
Speaker 1: to marry. Hammond died shortly before the Civil War, while
Speaker 1: Weathers went on to be part of the Confederate government.
Speaker 1: But don't worry Whethers died shortly after the end of
Speaker 1: the Civil War as a big old loser.
Speaker 2: As always, we learn.
Speaker 1: A lesson from American filth, and I think today's lesson is.
Speaker 2: That you can call your we we a flesh and poll.
Speaker 1: Also, I guess it just reiterates that no one can
Speaker 1: ever be canceled, and we are all alone and there's
Speaker 1: nothing we can do. I know, I know that's not
Speaker 1: a good attitude. I am trying to work on my nihilism,
Speaker 1: I promise. But we are going to have another episode
Speaker 1: about Bedfellows next week.
Speaker 2: And this time it's about none other than.
Speaker 1: Drum roll, drum Roll, Abraham Lincoln. We cue the credits.
Speaker 1: American Field is a production of School of Humans and
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcast. It is produced, hosted, written by me Gabby Watts.
Speaker 1: I also sound designed this episode. Our theme song is
Speaker 1: by me and Jesse Niswanger. Our executive producers are Virginia Prescott,
Speaker 1: Elsie Crowley, and Brandon Barr. Please leave the show a
Speaker 1: review some stars you know, love it, hate it?
Speaker 2: Do whatever help the algorithm.
Speaker 1: Also, you can follow along with the show on Instagram
Speaker 1: at American filth Pod. And just as a special little treat,
Speaker 1: I am going to write a song that's gonna be
Speaker 1: like a parody's Taylor Swift song, but the lyrics are
Speaker 1: going to be the words that we're in Wither's Letter
Speaker 1: to Hammond. Okay, so it's gonna be called Writhing Bedfellow
Speaker 1: or Flesh and Poll or something. But yeah, go to Instagram,
Speaker 1: go see it. Talk at you next time.
Speaker 2: School of Humans