Speaker 1: Welcomed unobscured a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky.
Speaker 1: He rushed to embrace his father, but as he neared
Speaker 1: the figure, it faded and disappeared. All of it was
Speaker 1: a shock, of course, because Henri's father was dead. He
Speaker 1: collected himself and moved forward, but the experience left outs.
Speaker 1: You see, before this moment, Henri hadn't believed in spiritualism.
Speaker 1: He'd heard the stories and visited a seance once to
Speaker 1: see if there was anything to it. He, even so,
Speaker 1: his story goes, managed to levitate a table at that sitting,
Speaker 1: but he walked away unconvinced that there was something supernatural
Speaker 1: going on the madness of some people, he laughed. After
Speaker 1: his father's death, though, that encounter with the vanishing figure
Speaker 1: made him reconsider. It made him go back and start
Speaker 1: to think again about what he had experienced in that seance.
Speaker 1: It made him decide to turn to it. He scheduled
Speaker 1: an appointment with a New Orleans medium who called herself
Speaker 1: Sister Louise. When they finally sat down together and formed
Speaker 1: a harmonious circle, Sister Louise said she felt something. Ri's
Speaker 1: hand was trembling, so she handed him a pencil, then
Speaker 1: any other context to shaky hand might be a reason
Speaker 1: to stop writing. But sister Louise saw things with the
Speaker 1: eyes of a spiritualist. As soon as the pencil was
Speaker 1: in his fingers on reset and invisible hand wrapped around
Speaker 1: his own and then started to write. Here's historian Emily Clark,
Speaker 1: and at his first meeting with Louise, he just writes
Speaker 1: and writes and writes and writes and writes, all under
Speaker 1: the powerful influence of spirits. And as he starts to
Speaker 1: get tired, I mean, we don't do a lot of
Speaker 1: handwriting anymore. We're always on our computers. But handwriting pages
Speaker 1: and pages and pages, your arm gets tired. He begins
Speaker 1: to get tired. In the spirit of his father, Bartholomy
Speaker 1: comes to him and assures him, you can keep writing.
Speaker 1: You're not really tired. Me and the other spirits will
Speaker 1: sustain you. And so it's sort of this progression of
Speaker 1: experiences that convinced him Henri would follow the spirit's command
Speaker 1: to write for the rest of his life. At first,
Speaker 1: his seances were private. He started recording messages from the
Speaker 1: spirits in a registered book marked Soul or Solo, but
Speaker 1: he quickly received instructions to open his visitations to others.
Speaker 1: You see, Henri was part of the Afro Creole community
Speaker 1: in New Orleans. They spoke French, where Catholic educated, and
Speaker 1: came mostly from families who were freed from slavery during
Speaker 1: the colonial era. Both of Andre's parents had come from
Speaker 1: Haiti after the revolution and became some of the most
Speaker 1: respected among their Catholic neighbors in New Orleans. They found
Speaker 1: that they enjoyed some of the freedoms denied to other
Speaker 1: black neighbors, like owning property and serving as witnesses in court,
Speaker 1: but they were subject to many of the same disc
Speaker 1: dominations that made publishing black newspapers and organizing religious groups illegal.
Speaker 1: Even so, on Re followed the instructions of the spirits,
Speaker 1: obeying their voices. He held a series of seances with
Speaker 1: Sister Louise for members of his social circle, and soon
Speaker 1: enough spiritualism was bridging divides in New Orleans. Spiritualists around
Speaker 1: on reconnected with mediums like JB. Valmore, who had been
Speaker 1: holding seances in the city for years, and the spirits
Speaker 1: came to speak. But the entries and on Ree's registered
Speaker 1: book came to an end in April of eighteen sixty
Speaker 1: and we know why too. The voices of the spirits
Speaker 1: had been drowned out by the march of boots and
Speaker 1: the shouts of officers as the Southern States seceded. A
Speaker 1: battle for a different nation and a different world swept
Speaker 1: over them. In the opening clashes of conflict. The Civil
Speaker 1: War had begun. This is unobscured. I'm Aaron Manky. They
Speaker 1: were scattered to the winds of war. But the New
Speaker 1: Orleans Sean Circle was only one of many things that
Speaker 1: broke apart when shells fell on Fort Sumter in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty one. When the fighting began, un Re walked into
Speaker 1: the crowded room at a school his father had founded.
Speaker 1: The other leaders there of the Afro Creole community had
Speaker 1: gathered to decide how to wield their resources in the
Speaker 1: coming conflict. They had also been teachers and administrators in
Speaker 1: the school. Now they would be soldiers. Henri and a
Speaker 1: thousand other free men of color joy into the Native
Speaker 1: guards for on Re. This brought him a captain's commission
Speaker 1: with the Confederacy. Here's Emily Clark once again. So on
Speaker 1: Re and his brother Octave and others, many other Afro
Speaker 1: Creole men in the city joined the war effort, but
Speaker 1: intel New Orleans was seized by the Union in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty two. When they joined the Louisiana Native Guards the
Speaker 1: Black Regimen for the city, they had to muster for
Speaker 1: the Confederacy, which was not what they wanted. That much
Speaker 1: was clear when the officers and staff of the regiment
Speaker 1: gathered to celebrate Christmas at the end of the year,
Speaker 1: their service was compelled again to serve a social power
Speaker 1: built to exploit them. Their property, their families, and their
Speaker 1: lives were subject to violent retaliation if they didn't step
Speaker 1: forward for service. But when they gathered on re raised
Speaker 1: his glass and a toast to all revolutions. He said,
Speaker 1: for they give birth the progress of man and lead
Speaker 1: him on the way of true fraternity. It was a
Speaker 1: message that had come to him straight from beyond death,
Speaker 1: against the institution of slavery that structured Southern society. On
Speaker 1: ri and Valmore received from the spirits what they called
Speaker 1: the idea. They received so many messages that made mention
Speaker 1: of the idea, And when you put all these together,
Speaker 1: it becomes clear that this was a concept that meant
Speaker 1: humanitarian progress, brotherhood, egalitarianism, equality, harmony. It was similar to
Speaker 1: some other ideas that are going around nineteenth century America,
Speaker 1: ideas of millennial progress. This desire to build the Kingdom
Speaker 1: of God here on earth in the US, the idea
Speaker 1: would require work to make. The idea of reality on
Speaker 1: Earth would not just happen. The triumph of the idea
Speaker 1: would require free thought, democracy, equality, The progressive march of
Speaker 1: humanity is not going to happen on its own. Gathered
Speaker 1: around that revolutionary idea, they took an aim for themselves
Speaker 1: that represented the world they fought for. They became the
Speaker 1: Cirque Harmonique. To them, spiritualism was the key to making
Speaker 1: a fair and just world. It opened the doors to
Speaker 1: the revolutionary leaders and thinkers who had otherwise been lost
Speaker 1: to time. The idea, the revolutionary spark of the cirk Harmonique,
Speaker 1: was lit from the flame of the Haitian Revolution, but
Speaker 1: was smothered by the darkness of war. But it's still
Speaker 1: smoldered under the cloak of Confederate service. In the coming months,
Speaker 1: on Ri would publish a letter in the Afro Creole
Speaker 1: newspaper The Union that celebrated the Native Guards. He wrote
Speaker 1: that anyone watching his troops in parade, would see men
Speaker 1: of all races carrying the same bayonets, gleaming in the sun.
Speaker 1: Be informed. He wrote that we have no prejudice. We
Speaker 1: receive everyone in the camp, but that the sight of
Speaker 1: a human salesman of flesh makes us sick. Statements like
Speaker 1: that were clear challenges to the white supremacy of slave power,
Speaker 1: and once the Native Guards were armed and trained, those
Speaker 1: challenges became more frequent and more fierce. Their agenda was
Speaker 1: to defend their families and homes from whoever threatened them,
Speaker 1: once more from Emily Clark. They joined the war effort
Speaker 1: because they felt strongly about defending their home, but they
Speaker 1: disobeyed the Confederacy's orders. As the Union was approaching the
Speaker 1: city in eighteen sixty two, the Confederacy orders all of
Speaker 1: the troops out and the Black troops stay. They disobey,
Speaker 1: and they want to stay with their homes and protect
Speaker 1: their homes and protect their families. A committee of four
Speaker 1: in the Louisiana Native Guards, including Onri and his brother Octave,
Speaker 1: were the group that surrendered their weapons to the Union
Speaker 1: when the Union comes into New Orleans. But then they
Speaker 1: quickly got them back because now they were able to
Speaker 1: serve on the side they wanted to, so Onri and
Speaker 1: the Louisiana Native Guards took up the work of supporting
Speaker 1: the Union army in their region, and that's when on
Speaker 1: Re met Colonel Nathan Daniels, the white Union officer given
Speaker 1: command of Henri's regiment. You see, Daniels was a spiritualist,
Speaker 1: and his diary includes the notes of his many sittings
Speaker 1: with mediums throughout the city. It's through Daniels that we
Speaker 1: learned that even though the Sir Carmonique wasn't meeting during
Speaker 1: the years of war service, that didn't stop on Ree's
Speaker 1: work as a medium, and an excellent one. In Nathan's words,
Speaker 1: the Native Guards worked as engineers for the Northern troops.
Speaker 1: They built fortifications, chopped wood, fetched and carried Daniels wasn't
Speaker 1: able to keep his command, though he was arrested and discharged.
Speaker 1: The official military record says it was for mishandling lumber
Speaker 1: used in construction. Daniels believed that was because he defended
Speaker 1: his black troops against the racism of their white officers.
Speaker 1: After his discharge, though Daniels continued to sit for seances
Speaker 1: with Henri and velmore while they waited to see if
Speaker 1: the Native guards would be used for anything other than
Speaker 1: manual labor by the Union Army. They were no killer angels,
Speaker 1: but the spirits continued to speak throughout the war, and
Speaker 1: as they did, thousands were added to their number. Nettie
Speaker 1: was close to spiritualism's beating heart. That is, she was
Speaker 1: in Albany, New York, when troops clashed at bull Run
Speaker 1: Creek near Manassas Junction. It was July of eighteen sixty one.
Speaker 1: As Nettie recalled it, The air in New York was
Speaker 1: full of heady optimism. The call had gone out for
Speaker 1: seventy troops to join the Union Army. Despite the previous
Speaker 1: efforts of New York City political and business leaders to
Speaker 1: oppose the war, they sent eight thousand volunteers to the front.
Speaker 1: Once the fighting began. Nettie wasn't far from those concerns.
Speaker 1: In fact, she was close to the Governor of Connecticut,
Speaker 1: Thomas Seymour. It was after sitting with him that Nettie
Speaker 1: received entry into the capital of New York State. Nettie
Speaker 1: Colburn was a twenty year old medium in the Fox
Speaker 1: Sisters Mold. Her story began as so many others did,
Speaker 1: with a spirit rattling through her family's house. It began
Speaker 1: when her grandmother died, and they guessed that it was
Speaker 1: the old woman's spirit, striking dead clocks and frightening Nettie's
Speaker 1: grandfather with ghostly whispers, inviting him to join her in death.
Speaker 1: Others answered that call as well, though, when the Civil
Speaker 1: War started, her father and all four brothers were enlisted.
Speaker 1: Soon enough, they were preparing to head south towards Virginia
Speaker 1: and the coming fight. By that time, Nettie had become
Speaker 1: well known. One of her first supporters was a local
Speaker 1: silver plater and merchant who put his money behind her mediumship.
Speaker 1: In that way, Nettie's rise looks a lot like that
Speaker 1: of Daniel Hume, when she found powerful, willing friends to
Speaker 1: lift her into the world of the upper crust, and
Speaker 1: once she was sitting with governors and their cohorts, she
Speaker 1: found herself controlled by prominent spirits to deliver lectures, give advice,
Speaker 1: and even make political predictions. She was the kind of
Speaker 1: spiritualist and elected official could love. But even though there
Speaker 1: was optimism in the air, the spirits wore Nettie against
Speaker 1: a sunny disposition. She didn't record which voices warned her
Speaker 1: away from celebrating the war's beginning, but she remembered them
Speaker 1: telling her that the war would last for four years.
Speaker 1: With her family at the front, this would have been
Speaker 1: a chilling thought. In the following months, Nettie started to
Speaker 1: get messages describing a congress of spirits. There were statesmen
Speaker 1: and public figures who wanted to return to the material
Speaker 1: world and offer their guidance over the affairs of a
Speaker 1: nation at war. Nettie started telling people in her Albany
Speaker 1: circle that the spirits were demanding she speaked directly with
Speaker 1: the President. The messages Nettie shared with her friends told
Speaker 1: her to arrange a trip to Washington. The instructions were
Speaker 1: too ridiculous to obey, though, so Nettie stayed in New York.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until she received a note from her brother
Speaker 1: the following November that she decided to go south. He
Speaker 1: was in a war hospital and the waves of injured
Speaker 1: soldiers coming back from the front meant that he was
Speaker 1: poorly cared for. He needed someone to help him get
Speaker 1: a military furlough, and that was the spur she needed.
Speaker 1: Nettie set out for Baltimore and then on to Washington.
Speaker 1: Through spiritualist connections, she met Thomas Gayle's Foster, a spiritualist
Speaker 1: lecturer who also happened to be a clerk in the
Speaker 1: War Department. Foster welcomed Nettie to Washington and hosted her
Speaker 1: in his home. He heard her case and her brother's position,
Speaker 1: and got to work turning the wheels of bureaucracy in
Speaker 1: their favor. Soon enough, Nettie was catching a train to
Speaker 1: the war hospital to pass along the good news to
Speaker 1: her brother in person. That night, when she returned to
Speaker 1: the Foster's house, Nettie joined a seance that included officials
Speaker 1: from across the government. During that session, Foster turned to
Speaker 1: her while in a trance. Through him, the voices of
Speaker 1: the spirits told Nettie that she would succeed in sending
Speaker 1: her brother home, but that she had other greater work
Speaker 1: to do in the capital. In the following days, he
Speaker 1: pressed the furlough order from official to official, while in
Speaker 1: the evening, the spirit messages became more insistent. During these sittings,
Speaker 1: Nettie said she met the most powerful physical mediums in
Speaker 1: Washington through introductions to Foster's friends, until finally Nettie herself
Speaker 1: was overcome During a seance, an unknown spirit announced to
Speaker 1: the circle that Nettie should go to Lincoln herself. The
Speaker 1: officials in the seance circle took this message seriously, as
Speaker 1: they had all the other lectures and communications. They urged
Speaker 1: Nettie to arrange a meeting with the presidents, and they
Speaker 1: even offered to help her. She's still declined, but they
Speaker 1: were convinced of the faded nature of the spirit's instructions.
Speaker 1: It was only a matter of time before the circle
Speaker 1: made the arrangements anyway. Among Nettie's new spiritualist acquaintances were
Speaker 1: the medium's Cranston Laurie and his daughter Belle Miller, who
Speaker 1: knew the Lincoln's personally through Kentucky friends. Cranston had worked
Speaker 1: in the Post Office when it was building experimental telegraph
Speaker 1: lines between baltim Or and Washington. By befriending Nettie, it
Speaker 1: seems that he also decided to open a depot in
Speaker 1: his own home for a spiritual telegraph between heaven and Earth,
Speaker 1: and it was through Cranston that Nettie finally received word
Speaker 1: Mary Todd Lincoln had asked to see a trance medium.
Speaker 1: Nettie could not be pushed. That much was clear, but
Speaker 1: this was a poll and one that she could not decline.
Speaker 1: As far as Cranston and Bell were concerned, Nettie Colburn's
Speaker 1: moment had arrived. Spiritualists had to keep up the fight
Speaker 1: even as the war raged on Ohio. Spiritualist author Hudson
Speaker 1: Tuttle wrote Reams of anti radical, anti reform articles in
Speaker 1: May of eighteen sixty two. He complained that the universal
Speaker 1: grasp of spiritualism has gathered the floating rubbish of the
Speaker 1: seas of mankind. This was his view on spirit messages
Speaker 1: that argued for liberty. The land reformer was sure the
Speaker 1: spirits were land reformers, he wrote. The advocate of women's
Speaker 1: rights was equally sure that they advocated his hobby. And
Speaker 1: even in the midst of the conflict, The Banner of
Speaker 1: Light published Tuttle's opinions. He wasn't alone north or South
Speaker 1: on the matter of slavery and abolition. Reformers like Sojourn
Speaker 1: or Truth and the Posts faced comments from Christian spiritualists
Speaker 1: who believed that God permitted slavery and that it was
Speaker 1: part of a divine law. They were the kinds of
Speaker 1: positions that had pushed Isaac and Amy Post out of
Speaker 1: their religious tradition in the first place. The anti reform
Speaker 1: impulse of men like Tuttle was echoed and reinforced among
Speaker 1: many of the mediums we've already met. Cora, for example,
Speaker 1: hosted the spirit of Thomas Jefferson at One Spirit Lecture
Speaker 1: in May of eighteen sixty one. Through her, his voice
Speaker 1: criticized radicals and told them to stop fighting against slavery.
Speaker 1: When his persona argued that the war was the result
Speaker 1: of slaveholders bigotry clashing with the reformers fantasism, Cora's Thomas
Speaker 1: Jefferson offered listeners the sort of blame for both sides
Speaker 1: that's all too familiar and disheartening today. And just like
Speaker 1: the pulpits and public squares across the nation, the seance
Speaker 1: table and the Spiritualist lecture were battlegrounds. The grip of
Speaker 1: slaveholder power and white supremacy still choked out real condemnations
Speaker 1: of the expansion of slavery that came with the Kansas
Speaker 1: Nebraska Act, the Fugitive Slave Act, the Annexation of Texas,
Speaker 1: and the Mexican War, and everywhere it traveled. Both in
Speaker 1: the United States and across oceans. Spiritualism was deeply and
Speaker 1: inescapably political. As the question of slavery split the nation,
Speaker 1: so it split spiritualists as well. So it's not so strange,
Speaker 1: after all that spiritualist believers in positions of power would
Speaker 1: turn to the other world for guidance. In Washington, d c.
Speaker 1: Those spiritualists heard the voices of dead soldiers, dead presidents,
Speaker 1: and lamenting profits. But when Cranston Laurie pulled up to
Speaker 1: the Foster's house in an unusually elegant carriage to bring
Speaker 1: Nettie to a seance, it was a surprise to her.
Speaker 1: Cushioned by Crimson Satin on the road, Nettie would later
Speaker 1: write that she should have known what was coming, but
Speaker 1: she was so distracted by the trouble of getting her
Speaker 1: brother the proper travel papers that she barely noticed that
Speaker 1: the carriage door was opened for her by a well
Speaker 1: dressed footman. When she arrived at the Laurie's house, Nettie
Speaker 1: was greeted by a circle of new faces. The Secretary
Speaker 1: of Interior, the Chief Clerk of the Treasury, a Commissioner
Speaker 1: of Agriculture, a congressman from Maine, and of course Mary
Speaker 1: Todd Lincoln. From their very first meeting. The thing that
Speaker 1: Nettie remembered was Mary Lincoln's eagerness. She was determined to
Speaker 1: hear from the spirits. In fact, it made Nettie so
Speaker 1: nervous that Mrs Lincoln spent the first few minutes trying
Speaker 1: to calm the medium by assuring her that her family
Speaker 1: would be taken care of. Her brother was sure to
Speaker 1: get his furlough and travel home. When Nettie had settled
Speaker 1: into a seat and the believers gathered around her, a
Speaker 1: new and powerful influence took possession of her body. It spoke,
Speaker 1: she later wrote, with great clearness and force. When Nettie
Speaker 1: finally came back to herself, Missus Lincoln was exclaiming to
Speaker 1: the men in the room, this young lady must not
Speaker 1: leave Washington. She must stay here, and mister Lincoln must
Speaker 1: hear what we have heard. To keep Nettie in the capital,
Speaker 1: Mary Lincoln turned to the Commissioner of Agriculture and told
Speaker 1: him to find Nettie a position in his department, but
Speaker 1: she hardly had time to claim the role. Two days later,
Speaker 1: Nettie received a second invitation from the First Lady, this
Speaker 1: time to hold a seance inside the White House, if
Speaker 1: her memory was right. When she finally wrote her memoir,
Speaker 1: she arrived in the Red Parlor for the first time
Speaker 1: in December of eighteen sixty two. When the group filed in,
Speaker 1: Mary Lincoln met them. Cranston Laurie's daughter, Bell was with them,
Speaker 1: and while the group talked, she sat down at the piano.
Speaker 1: A march began to play, and soon, as the piano
Speaker 1: so often did under Bell's hands, the whole instrument began
Speaker 1: to rise from the floor, but everything fell silent, and
Speaker 1: the instrument landed back on the floor the moment Abraham
Speaker 1: Lincoln stepped into the doorway. One by one, the mediums
Speaker 1: were introduced to the President. As Nettie describes it, he
Speaker 1: laid his hands on her head, saying, so this is
Speaker 1: our little Nettie. Is it that we have heard so
Speaker 1: much about? The pair talked for a few minutes, Lincoln
Speaker 1: asking about Nettie's understanding of spiritualism, although she was hardly
Speaker 1: able to squeak out more than a yes or no.
Speaker 1: Cranston Laurie stepped forward to explain how they ordinarily conducted
Speaker 1: their seances, but even as he did, Nettie fell into
Speaker 1: a trance, it was time for the Congress of the
Speaker 1: Spirits to be heard. In her memoir, Nettie wrote that
Speaker 1: the spirits lectured through her for more than an hour,
Speaker 1: and they urged the President to go forward with something
Speaker 1: that he was already considering, the Emancipation Acclamation. He was charged,
Speaker 1: she later wrote, with the utmost solemnity and force of manner,
Speaker 1: not to abate the terms of its issue, and not
Speaker 1: to delay its enforcement as a law beyond the opening
Speaker 1: of the year, and he was assured that it was
Speaker 1: to be the crowning event of his administration and his life.
Speaker 1: Nettie never forgot what she saw when she came back
Speaker 1: to herself. She stood in front of the President, who
Speaker 1: was sitting back in his chair with his arms folded
Speaker 1: on his chest, looking intently at her. Silence had settled
Speaker 1: like a blanket over the room. Eventually the others began
Speaker 1: to question Lincoln. They circled him and muttered commentary that
Speaker 1: Nettie couldn't hear, but Lincoln said very little until the
Speaker 1: flurry died down. Then he approached Nettie and thanked her.
Speaker 1: He shook her hand, kindly, bowed to the rest, and
Speaker 1: then vanished from the room. It wasn't the last time
Speaker 1: Neddie would see Lincoln. Of course, there was no question
Speaker 1: that it was Mary Lincoln who was the most enthusiastic
Speaker 1: about spirit communication, but that impulse had been planted by
Speaker 1: her friend Elizabeth Keckley. Here's historian Margaret Washington. Abraham Lincoln,
Speaker 1: after his son Willie died, went to a spiritualist. His
Speaker 1: wife convinced him to go, and she became interested in
Speaker 1: spiritualism because her what would you call this woman dressmaker?
Speaker 1: She was more than a dressmaker. She was a confidance.
Speaker 1: She was a dressmaker. She dressed her hair. But she
Speaker 1: was a former slave. Her son had passed for white
Speaker 1: so he could join the Union Army at a time
Speaker 1: when they weren't taking black people, and and he was
Speaker 1: killed almost immediately. And that was her only child. So
Speaker 1: spiritualism was very important to her. And then after Willie
Speaker 1: Lincoln died, then she introduced Mary Todd Lincoln to spiritualism,
Speaker 1: and Mary Todd Lincoln took it very seriously. Lincoln, for
Speaker 1: his part, seems to have indulged his wife's enthusiasm at times.
Speaker 1: He even made playful examinations of the spirit manifestations in
Speaker 1: Cranston Laurie's circle. Most famously, in the winter of eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty three, he appeared with Mary unexpectedly at a seance
Speaker 1: circle that was being hosted at the Laurie's home. Neddie
Speaker 1: was there that night too, and she was controlled by
Speaker 1: the spirit of a doctor who recommended that Lincoln take
Speaker 1: a tour of the battle front to raise the dwindoline
Speaker 1: morale of the Union troops. But she wasn't the only
Speaker 1: medium working that night. Cranston's daughter Bell had once again
Speaker 1: sat down at the piano. As she played, under the
Speaker 1: control of the spirits, her piano began to rise and
Speaker 1: fall in time with the music. Then Bell stood up
Speaker 1: and rested an outstretched arm on the piano as it
Speaker 1: continued to move on its own. That's when Lincoln stepped
Speaker 1: toward it. He leaned down to see what he could
Speaker 1: detect beneath it. He swept his arm under the raised
Speaker 1: legs of the piano, but didn't find anything. Turning to
Speaker 1: the group with a mischievous smile, he said, I think
Speaker 1: we can hold down that instrument, and he turned and
Speaker 1: jumped on top of the piano. A congressman from Mayne
Speaker 1: followed his lead along with a few others, but even
Speaker 1: with the added weight, the piano kept rising and falling
Speaker 1: in time with the music. No one in the group
Speaker 1: could find a hidden device causing the motion either. The
Speaker 1: spiritualists there later remembered hearing Lincoln say that he was
Speaker 1: perfectly satisfied that the movement was caused by some invisible power.
Speaker 1: In a later conversation with Cranston Laurie, Lincoln would say
Speaker 1: that he could neither confirm nor deny the spiritual origin
Speaker 1: of the powers he had seen, whether they spoke through
Speaker 1: Nettie or levitated a piano. From time to time, though
Speaker 1: he would pause from his duties to hear a spirit
Speaker 1: lecture from Nettie if she was visiting Mary Lincoln in
Speaker 1: the White House. In his loyally way, this was the
Speaker 1: most Lincoln ever seemed to say about the question of spiritualism. Usually,
Speaker 1: it seems he was merely a silent spectator. Looking back,
Speaker 1: we can see how other concerns must have required his
Speaker 1: full attention. The word eventually got out, though, that the
Speaker 1: President was sometimes willing to hear from the spirits. Even
Speaker 1: before that, rumors with a venomous tone were often launched
Speaker 1: by his critics who saw an opportunity to accuse the
Speaker 1: president of demonizing the country. In eighteen sixty three, one
Speaker 1: anonymous author published a short book under the title Interior
Speaker 1: Cause of the War, The Nation Demonized and its President
Speaker 1: a spirit Rapper. It may have pushed some away from Lincoln,
Speaker 1: but it also brought spiritualists to his cause. The various camps,
Speaker 1: from trans lecturers to the traveling healers and the private mediums,
Speaker 1: finally drew together enough to hold a National Spiritualist Convention
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty four, bringing members from across the Northern States,
Speaker 1: and it served a fuel Lincoln's reelection campaign because it
Speaker 1: wasn't just one meeting, but tides of rallies and conventions
Speaker 1: that gathered spiritualists together. And once they were under one roof,
Speaker 1: they talked just as much about politics as they did
Speaker 1: about theology. Just as they had in Rochester in eighteen
Speaker 1: forty eight, the Spiritualists agreed on a thunderous call for
Speaker 1: perfect and entire equality of rights between the sexes. Liberty
Speaker 1: was the responsibility of the harmonious men and women who
Speaker 1: followed the spirits. Like the front page of Frederick Douglas's
Speaker 1: North Star from sixteen years before they rejected the idea
Speaker 1: that sex, in any instance whatever confers the slightest authority.
Speaker 1: The remaining spiritualist who rejected the reform causes of Lincoln's
Speaker 1: platform withdrew from the public meetings as the war advanced,
Speaker 1: but some warmed up to his leadership. Cora, who had
Speaker 1: begun the war by channeling a Thomas Jefferson who pitted
Speaker 1: both sides against each other, was channeling different voices. By
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty three. She found herself frequently under the control
Speaker 1: of a popular Boston abolitionist who had died in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty one of the men whose fantasism had been condemned
Speaker 1: by her, Thomas Jefferson. By eighteen sixty three, with two
Speaker 1: years of the war behind her, Cora now channeled the
Speaker 1: spirit that cried out for and I quote, a holy
Speaker 1: crusade to eliminate slavery and redeemed the land from its
Speaker 1: bondage and its sin. This new message directly aligned her
Speaker 1: with the radical Republicans and their liberal social reforms, and
Speaker 1: with President Lincoln's rhetoric about the war. In fact, Lincoln
Speaker 1: spoke of the fighting as a national blood sacrifice that
Speaker 1: might cover the nation's sins of slavery, which of course
Speaker 1: had been sojourner Truth's message for years. In fact, few
Speaker 1: traveling speakers campaigned harder for Lincoln's reelection than she did,
Speaker 1: but other spiritualists did join her at meetings across the Northeast.
Speaker 1: Once Neddie Colburn was a featured speaker at a camp
Speaker 1: Pane rally. In her trance, the Spirits offered his gathered
Speaker 1: supporters the kind of certainty that forecasters today are always
Speaker 1: hoping for. The spirits were certain that Lincoln would win. Later,
Speaker 1: Sojourner traveled to Washington and met with Lincoln, but their conversation,
Speaker 1: as far as we know, was little more than a
Speaker 1: brief exchange of courtesies. Other mediums, though, would get far
Speaker 1: closer to the president, and not always for the best.
Speaker 1: His first seances were sensations. They were less your loving
Speaker 1: father wants to tell you he loves you, and more
Speaker 1: a wealthy murder victim can guide you to their buried treasure.
Speaker 1: But the instructions he offered led his visitors to nothing
Speaker 1: more than New York dirt. In his early days as
Speaker 1: a medium, John Conklin was an object of mockery, but
Speaker 1: he blamed the impish spirits. They were tricking him as
Speaker 1: well as his visitors, or so he said, at least
Speaker 1: the dead word. Just having a laugh at the expense
Speaker 1: of the living. That was what Conklin claimed about the spirits.
Speaker 1: But I think it tells us more about his own
Speaker 1: way of thinking. Even though he tried to pass the buck,
Speaker 1: John still got out of town and he made his
Speaker 1: way to New York City. That's where, in his first
Speaker 1: campaign for the presidency, Abraham Lincoln anonymously visited John Conklin
Speaker 1: several times. It might have been just a meaningless lark,
Speaker 1: but a report on this visit was published in December
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty as one of the early attempts to discredit
Speaker 1: Lincoln by connecting him to spiritualism. Some of lincoln spokespeople
Speaker 1: denied the stories, of course, but Lincoln himself never tried
Speaker 1: to fight them, and why should he. There were plenty
Speaker 1: of people who spent a free afternoon or two sitting
Speaker 1: with a medium in New York City. For his part,
Speaker 1: John Conklin had managed to work his way into a
Speaker 1: mix of mediums and performers who entered tourists with their seances.
Speaker 1: It hadn't been easy, but he had a special talent
Speaker 1: for it and a taste for magical performances that outpaced
Speaker 1: the religious devotion of other spiritualists. Here's historian John Busher.
Speaker 1: He was sailor baker. He had various odd jobs. He
Speaker 1: was born well and up in New York I mean
Speaker 1: Upper New York City, near Bronx, and spent a long
Speaker 1: time working on the docks and in the ships. And
Speaker 1: he'd always been fascinated by magic performing magic. Apparently he
Speaker 1: was an early adopter and transformed himself into a medium
Speaker 1: who used it to make a living. He also set
Speaker 1: up a kind of exhibition space, performance space, I guess
Speaker 1: quite near Arnemus Museum, and he would come to that
Speaker 1: as part of their experience of the big city. They
Speaker 1: would visit Arms Museum, uh, they might take in some
Speaker 1: other sites, but they would also visit his spirit room.
Speaker 1: John Conklin's spirit room would become the place where plenty
Speaker 1: of curious visitors would have their first encounters with the spirits.
Speaker 1: In fact, it was at John Conklin's table that Emma
Speaker 1: Harding had sat for that shocking seance that sent her
Speaker 1: running from the room in horror. While some spiritualists turned
Speaker 1: their attention to troubling national matters. New York was different.
Speaker 1: John and others joined together to put on a sort
Speaker 1: of spiritualist variety show. One medium might give a lecture,
Speaker 1: then a performer like Emma would play some music. Someone
Speaker 1: like John Conklin might even step up and invite some
Speaker 1: audience participation. John's spirit demonstrations always came with a dramatic twist.
Speaker 1: When he received spirit messages, they were written backwards on
Speaker 1: sheets of paper, so they'd have to be held up
Speaker 1: to the light, and when the spirits would tilt and
Speaker 1: turn tables around him. They would also ask him to
Speaker 1: do other things like open combination locks, channel spectral winds,
Speaker 1: and answer questions that curious visitors carried and sealed envelopes,
Speaker 1: lead boxes, or inside bars of soap, as you might
Speaker 1: be able to tell. His claims about spirit power were
Speaker 1: more than a little slippery, but they were also undeniably fun.
Speaker 1: By the end of the eighteen fifties, though, John Conklin
Speaker 1: wasn't just doling out his blend of performance, magic and
Speaker 1: spiritual assayance in New York City. He had stints in Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland,
Speaker 1: and more. He even took a short trip south to Nashville.
Speaker 1: In eighteen sixty two, Conklin followed the Congress of the
Speaker 1: Spirits and the rumors of Influence to Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: At least once he'd heard generals and other government officials
Speaker 1: tried to use Neddie Coulvern as a means of getting
Speaker 1: their concerns in front of President Lincoln. John Conklin thought
Speaker 1: that he had an even better idea, So he sat
Speaker 1: down at his desk in his boarding house room and
Speaker 1: started to write. Somehow, perhaps through one of Mary Lincoln's
Speaker 1: spiritualist friends, Conklin got a letter dropped into Abraham Lincoln's hand.
Speaker 1: It was written backwards, of course, and it was signed
Speaker 1: by Colonel Edward Baker, a senator who had died while
Speaker 1: commanding Union Army forces. His seats in the Senate had
Speaker 1: been Oregon's, but he had started his political career in Illinois,
Speaker 1: where he and Lincoln had been close friends. Apparently that
Speaker 1: note was enough to get Conklin a meeting with Lincoln. Soon,
Speaker 1: other mediums and writers were reporting that the New York
Speaker 1: magician turned spiritualist showman was in the circle of mediums
Speaker 1: who made regular trips to the White House. In later years,
Speaker 1: Conklin and his friends would make some outlandish claims. Conklin
Speaker 1: said that he held as many as thirty private seances
Speaker 1: at President Lincoln's request. Later, he would even go so
Speaker 1: far as to tell Emma that through him, the spirits
Speaker 1: had dictated the Emancipation Proclamation to Lincoln, letter by letter.
Speaker 1: It's the kind of preposterous claim that highlights Conklin's theatrics
Speaker 1: with a pen and paper. In the context of his
Speaker 1: lifelong passion for tricks and sleight of hand, it's easy
Speaker 1: to laugh them off. But more reliable documents, like the
Speaker 1: private diaries of other politicians, confirmed that he offered Lincoln
Speaker 1: messages from his dead friend more than once, and those
Speaker 1: letters did encourage Lincoln to end slavery. So maybe it's
Speaker 1: more a matter of exaggeration than outright lies. The stories
Speaker 1: took real seances that Conklin held with Lincoln and used
Speaker 1: them to the medium's advantage. But when it comes to
Speaker 1: disreputable kN men, Conklin was far from the worst who
Speaker 1: entered Lincoln's White House. No, for that particular mark of distinction,
Speaker 1: we need to turn to someone new. Allow me to
Speaker 1: introduce to you Charles J. Colchester. Charles Colchester rivaled Conklin
Speaker 1: for theatrics. He could read sealed letters, he could turn
Speaker 1: on the flash and style, crying out the names of
Speaker 1: visitors deceased friends. Drums and banjo's would float around in
Speaker 1: the dark during his more public displays, making loud, annoying music.
Speaker 1: During his seances, his writing wasn't just lines of backward script. No.
Speaker 1: When Colchester did it, blood read letters would appear on
Speaker 1: his arms and forehead. There were many believers among those
Speaker 1: who sat with Charles Colchester for his seances too. By
Speaker 1: all accounts, he was charming and probably used the mark
Speaker 1: of his English birth to good effect as Emma Head,
Speaker 1: But there were plenty more people who saw something more
Speaker 1: sinister in him. They saw him as the worst kind
Speaker 1: of fraud ster, someone who took advantage of grieving people
Speaker 1: to fill his pockets with cash. He began his march
Speaker 1: to the White House by befriending the First Ladies dressmaker
Speaker 1: and confidante, Elizabeth Keckley. Once he gained hurt trust, he
Speaker 1: leaned on her to put him in front of Mrs Lincoln.
Speaker 1: All he needed was an introduction and then he could
Speaker 1: rely on his plentiful arsenal. Mary. Lincoln's beloved son Willie,
Speaker 1: was Colchester's first spirit manifestation, and soon enough he was
Speaker 1: exerting so much control over Mary that the President became concerned,
Speaker 1: so he called in some favors. Specifically, he asked the
Speaker 1: head of the Smithsonian Institution to investigate Colchester. When a
Speaker 1: test wrapped up, he told the President that he couldn't
Speaker 1: find any illegal fraud in Colchester's displayed but just because
Speaker 1: there wasn't any evidence didn't mean everyone's suspicions went away.
Speaker 1: Lincoln next turned to his friend Noah Brooks, who pulled
Speaker 1: Colchester aside and threatened to harm him if he didn't
Speaker 1: leave Mary alone. He had good reason to be concerned too,
Speaker 1: you see. Even though they weren't able to collect good
Speaker 1: evidence to charge Colchester in court, the man had been
Speaker 1: blatantly open about his frauds. It was usually when he
Speaker 1: got drunk a couple of pints in, and Colchester would
Speaker 1: start to make light of his spiritual consultations. He would
Speaker 1: start loud to mocking conversations with the spirits about how
Speaker 1: many more drinks he ought to have, and then he
Speaker 1: would start talking about his real motive, the way he
Speaker 1: constantly worked his seance audiences for cash. He admitted to
Speaker 1: one politician that he often cheated fools. He laughed and
Speaker 1: said that it was so easy, but that's the problem.
Speaker 1: Colchester was constantly flying through his money. He made friends
Speaker 1: with the host of Washington's hard Party years, and was
Speaker 1: always on the lookout for the next mark who might
Speaker 1: be flush with cash and vulnerable to a conman's overtures.
Speaker 1: Despite all of this, it seems Colchester did have Lincoln's ear.
Speaker 1: At least once or twice. Noah Brooks continued to watch
Speaker 1: the predator. He dropped in on his seances and hung
Speaker 1: around to undermine his meetings and conversations. It infuriated Colchester
Speaker 1: so much that, once during a seance that Brooks had
Speaker 1: forced his way into, Colchester physically attacked him. Even so,
Speaker 1: something must have changed after that. Maybe at some point
Speaker 1: Colchester dropped the cheery charisma that was the cover for
Speaker 1: all of his deceptions. Maybe he just became more insistent.
Speaker 1: Maybe he finally had a message to pass on that
Speaker 1: was actually believable. Whatever the case, at some point in
Speaker 1: the spring of eighteen sixty five, in the days leading
Speaker 1: up to the signing of the treaty that would end
Speaker 1: the war. At Appo Mattos, Lincoln got one of the
Speaker 1: many warnings from a government official that his life was
Speaker 1: under threat. It was, sadly nothing new, but this time
Speaker 1: Lincoln responded with the strange message. Yes, he said, Colchester
Speaker 1: has been telling me that it would be natural for
Speaker 1: Lincoln to have ignored the warnings. From the time he
Speaker 1: took office, Spiritualist had been flooding his mail room with
Speaker 1: letters of warning alongside demands, request for favors, and plenty
Speaker 1: more too. A correspondent secretary responsible for checking the president's
Speaker 1: mail later remembered that and I quote, Spiritualist favored him constantly,
Speaker 1: and I still have in my possession urgent epistles signed
Speaker 1: with the facts simile signatures of half the dead worthies
Speaker 1: in our history, not to speak of sundry communications from
Speaker 1: the Apostles and the Angel Gabriel. Of course, most of
Speaker 1: these letters ended up in the trash, although a few
Speaker 1: still remain. Among them are dire warnings of plots against
Speaker 1: Lincoln's life. So yeah, it only made sense for the
Speaker 1: president to dismiss the eager ramblings of a man he
Speaker 1: distrusted as much as Colchester but despite the con man's
Speaker 1: litany of frauds, this was one case in which Lincoln
Speaker 1: would have done well to take his words to heart.
Speaker 1: Not because of any kind of spiritual wisdom or special revelations. No,
Speaker 1: the voice murmuring in Colchester's ear was far more mundane
Speaker 1: than that, and it was also more dangerous because Colchester
Speaker 1: was in a unique position to know precisely what he
Speaker 1: was talking about. You see, one of Colchester's closest friends,
Speaker 1: a drink partner and an associate, on his late nights
Speaker 1: of carousing with someone who had been telling Colchester about
Speaker 1: plans so dark that even the compulsive trickster himself couldn't
Speaker 1: help but fill the chill of fear. And this drinking
Speaker 1: associates name will sound all too familiar to most of us,
Speaker 1: an aggrieved Maryland actor named John Wilkes Booth. That's it
Speaker 1: for this week's episode of Unobscured. Stick around after this
Speaker 1: short sponsor break for a preview of what's in store
Speaker 1: for next week. Next time on Unobscured. Without her father's schemes, placebos,
Speaker 1: and outright poisons rattling on the margins of every seance,
Speaker 1: Victoria was able to give her full attention to her
Speaker 1: clients and the spirits, and those clients paid for nothing
Speaker 1: but her time, her words, and her sympathetic ear. From
Speaker 1: our vantage point today, it's easy to see her work
Speaker 1: as something psychotherapy. But while the physical wounds of war
Speaker 1: were terrible, Victoria was most haunted by the stories she
Speaker 1: heard from women whose lives sounded so much like her own.
Speaker 1: Victoria would go on to spend the coming decades writing
Speaker 1: down accounts of abuse of marriages and terrorized wise women
Speaker 1: who hated their husbands but were forced into sex and motherhood.
Speaker 1: They didn't want young women who were abandoned to fend
Speaker 1: for themselves, And in all these dark mirrors Victoria saw
Speaker 1: the suffering of her own life reflected back. Perhaps that's
Speaker 1: why it didn't take much encouragement from James for Victoria
Speaker 1: to turn her talents away from personal consultations. She had
Speaker 1: started thinking about how a larger platform as a spiritualist
Speaker 1: might give her the chance to fight for the rights
Speaker 1: of all women. As a former army officer, James could
Speaker 1: see it too. The fight for reform would indeed be
Speaker 1: a battle, necessary but difficult, and Victoria, he believed, would
Speaker 1: lead the charge. Unobscured was created by me, Aaron Mankey
Speaker 1: and produced by Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Josh Thane
Speaker 1: in partnership with I Heart Radio. Research and writing for
Speaker 1: this season is all the work of my right hand
Speaker 1: man Carl Nellis and the brilliant Chad Lawson composed the
Speaker 1: brand new soundtrack. Learn more about our contributing historians, source
Speaker 1: material and links to our other shows over at history
Speaker 1: unobscured dot com, And until next time, thanks for listening
Speaker 1: Unobscured as a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Monkey.
Speaker 1: For more podcast for My Heart Radio, visit i heeart Radio, app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.