WEBVTT - Lootin' 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:07.440 Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:14.440 iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:18.440 the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:22.159 of these amazing tales are right there on display, just 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:28.840 waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:39.680 On a sunny, Texas afternoon in nineteen ninety two, an 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:42.800 old cowboy in a wide brimmed white hats and gray 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:46.400 suit walked into the Mesquite Nations Bank. The town was 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:49.960 so small only one teller was working. She smiled at 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:52.360 the old man when she saw him in line and 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:55.280 beckoned him to the window. How can I help you today? 0:00:56.440 --> 0:00:59.240 Cowboy Bob pulled the brim from his hats a little 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:02.840 lowering without having to look that someone would review this 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:06.959 moments later, when they checked the security cameras. The teller 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:10.880 smiled again. While she waited for a response. Cowboy Bob 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:14.800 stayed calm, never fidgeting, only sliding a note on the 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:19.080 counter between them. The teller's face paled when she read 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:22.959 the message. She turned, shaking and placed every last bill 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:26.200 from her cash strawer, a grand total of five, three 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:29.800 hundred and seventeen dollars inside a bag from the side 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:32.600 of her desk. When the teller handed the bag over, 0:01:33.000 --> 0:01:37.480 she watched horrified as Cowboy Bob dug inside and removed 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:40.360 a hidden die pack from a stack of bills. He 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:42.200 handed it back to her with the tip of his 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:46.000 hat and strode back out of the bank. Former FBI 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:49.960 agent Steve Powell was stumped. The Nation's Bank of Mesquite 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:52.880 was the third in a line of robberies, all committed 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:57.440 by the mysterious Cowboy Bob. Steve looked over the footage again. 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:00.760 By the thief's calm demeanor, how knew that he was 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:04.880 looking for a professional cowboy. Bob's gray beard and strange 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:07.680 gait was another clue the man they were looking for 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:11.680 would be at least sixty and maybe older. Steve Powell 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:14.680 spent most of his thirty year career chasing bank robbers, 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:18.119 so Cowboy Bob shouldn't have been much of a problem. 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:21.160 He was making me start to pull my hair out, 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:24.679 Powell said, How could this thin, little, dried up cowboy 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:28.800 be whipping us this bad time after time? In September 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:32.000 of nineteen ninety two, a few months after Cowboy Bob 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:35.400 robbed the nation's bank. Steve Powell received a call the 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:38.320 Cowboy Bob had just left the first Gibraltar bank in 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:42.680 Mesquite was seventeen hundred dollars. Powell loaded into his car 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:46.040 and raced to the scene to interview witnesses and review 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:49.680 the footage. When he arrived, he learned that Mesquite's first 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:52.919 interstate bank had just been robbed as well. This time, 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:57.480 Cowboy Bob had hit the jackpot, leaving with thirteen thousand dollars, 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:00.880 and so Powell scrambled towards First in State and hit 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:04.040 the first brake in his case. An eyewitness had seen 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:07.959 Cowboy Bob pulling away in a brown Pontiac Grand Prix. 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:10.919 This wasn't the first time someone had noticed the car 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:13.360 driving away from the scene of the crime, but it 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:15.560 was the first time anyone got a look at the 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:19.440 license plate. Two hours later, Powell and a team of 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:23.720 FBI agents pulled into a Dallas apartment complex. It turns 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:26.000 out that the car was registered to a man named 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:29.840 Pete Talis, who lived at that address. Steve Powell was 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:32.120 certain that he was about to catch the bank robbing 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:35.920 cowboy red handed, but as they discussed the best ways 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:39.080 to storm the apartment. A pretty woman walked out of 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:42.200 the apartment and towards the car they had followed. This 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:45.600 must be Cowboy Bob's girlfriend, Powell told the other agents. 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:48.520 They allowed the woman to drive away from the apartment 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:51.520 to avoid suspicion, and then they pulled her over a 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:55.920 few blocks away. This woman, named Peggy Joe, was friendly. 0:03:56.160 --> 0:03:58.560 She explained that the car was hers and that she 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:01.560 had driven it earlier that month, warning to a gardening center. 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:04.320 Powell then asked her if they might have a look 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:08.000 around her apartment just for a moment. Peggy Joe hesitated. 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:10.960 No one was in the apartment except for her sick mother, 0:04:11.040 --> 0:04:15.320 she told them, but finally she agreed. Agents entered the 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:18.960 apartment and began searching through cabinets, under the beds, and 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:23.400 questioning Peggy Joe's elderly mother. Steve Powell stayed with Peggy 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:27.080 Joe because there was something nervous about her. She glanced 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:29.840 toward the hallway closet and then back at her mother, 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:32.160 and then she chewed on the top of her lip, 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:34.920 and that was when Steve Powell took a closer look 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:39.320 at Peggy's face, just above her mouth was a dab 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:43.919 of white glue. Steve's eyes widened. Check the closet, he 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:46.760 told one of the agents, and inside, on the top 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:50.360 shelf was a styrofoam head with a wide brimmed hat 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:56.000 perched on top and beneath it a gray false beard gentlemen. 0:04:56.160 --> 0:05:01.159 Powell said Cowboy Bob is actually Cowboy Babett. Because she 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:04.720 carried out her crimes without using weapons, Peggy Joe received 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:08.080 a mild thirty three month sentence. She told police that 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:11.520 she had started robbing banks to pay for her mother's medications. 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:15.200 Powell put the rest of the pieces together all by himself. 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:19.279 It turns out that Cowboy Bob's strong, silent persona had 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:22.960 more to do with Peggy's higher pitched voice than anything else. 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:26.599 A previous mastectomy also made it easier for her to 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:30.800 fit into men's clothing. Her manners, however, were never faked. 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:48.240 Cowboy Bob or Bob Bette was quite the gentleman. The 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:52.120 small town of Appomattox courthouse sat uneasy that morning on 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:56.040 April ninth of eighteen sixty five, as the two generals 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:59.279 sat in the parlor of the McLean family home mapping 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:02.400 out terms to end the brutal civil war that had 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:06.640 engulfed the country for the previous four years. Finally, Robert E. 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:10.560 Lee signed the document officially surrendering the Army of Northern 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:15.360 Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. An exhausted country 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:19.760 breathed a sigh of relief. Weeks later than hundreds of 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:23.280 miles away, on the dry Texas Prairie, a small band 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:27.160 of Union soldiers and an opposing force of Texas Rangers 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:30.479 rode toward each other to meet in battle, unaware that 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:34.200 the war they were fighting was already over. During the 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:38.760 jubilant celebrations back east, word was only slowly trickling westward 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:43.000 across the frontier. After all, communication lines across the South 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:46.640 had been broken. Although Jefferson Davis had fled, there were 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:50.000 still pockets of Confederates who continued to operate as though 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:52.320 the war had continued, in the hopes that the South 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:56.320 would see a resurgence. Nowhere was this more true than 0:06:56.400 --> 0:06:59.279 in Texas or The Union had never gained a real 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:02.120 foothold in the U s area, instead keeping to a 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:05.200 handful of forts. The rest of the states was at 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:09.600 that point sparsely populated. A lawless frontier, where the Southern 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:13.360 cause was still deeply popular. The Rio Grande gave the 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:17.160 Union troops more than enough to do. Mexican smugglers still 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:21.160 gave aid to the scattered Confederates, and onto this stage 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:25.960 stepped two commanders, Union Colonel Theodore H. Barrett and Confederate 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:29.360 Colonel John rip Ford. Barrett had made a name for 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:32.560 himself during campaigns in Arkansas and had been ordered to 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:36.760 escort a supply convoy with two hundred infantry north from Brownsville, 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:39.120 where he was to secure the crossing of the San 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:42.680 Antonio River. He was a disciplined soldier by all accounts, 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:45.400 a pragmatic man, but he still held out hope that 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:48.960 he can make a name for himself. Meanwhile, Confederate Colonel 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:52.200 Ford was still sure that the Confederacy could be saved. 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:55.160 He was an impulsive man, famous for raids that he 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:58.520 conducted along the frontier. He had in his employe between 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:02.040 three hundred and four hundred men, some cavalry and some 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:06.320 Texas Rangers. Neither commander had reliable ways to receive orders, 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:09.680 though telegraph service was still spotty on the outskirts of 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:13.320 the country, and there were constant rumors of a Confederate revival. 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:16.960 Both men were set to hold the shallow Ford on 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:20.440 the San Antonio at Palmito Ranch. It was a crucial 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:23.960 supply route that both wanted. Both arrived within a day 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:26.640 of one another. Both assumed the other to be a 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:30.400 larger enemy force, and so when scouts from the Confederate 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:34.560 cohort discovered the advancing Union troops, shots were fired to 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:37.960 hold them back, but instead of retreating, Barrett decided to 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:41.280 stand his ground, ordering a warning shot be fired from 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:44.200 a cannon to scare off the would be attackers. It 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:47.720 had the opposite of its intended effect, though. Ford ordered 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:51.360 the Confederate cavalry to charge at the Union convoy, and 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:55.400 what followed was a brief but intense battle. Union infantry 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:59.080 firing from a shallow ditch while their artillery rained down 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:02.960 cannon fire from a rise. The Confederate assault came in 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:06.000 two waves. The first wave was rifle fire and the 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:09.480 second was cavalry advancing on the Union line, and it 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:12.600 looked like a stalemate until Barrett ordered that a portion 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:16.760 of the Union cavalry out flank Ford's men, which finally 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:19.800 broke their line and scattered the soldiers When it became 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:22.720 clear that the battle would be lost, Barrett and Ford 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:26.120 made their way onto the battlefield, shook hands, and called 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:29.440 it a truce. Around thirty Union soldiers had been killed 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:33.360 to the Confederates thirty five. In the weeks that followed, 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:36.960 it became clear that the Union's victory, however small, finally 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:41.439 affirmed Union control, which helped to re establish federal governance 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:45.120 on the frontier. Now there's some argument over which battle 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:48.280 was actually the last of the war, although the Battle 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:51.280 of Galveston on June nineteenth has a pretty good claim 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:54.640 on that. But the Battle of Palmito Ranch does help 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:59.120 illustrate that although the war officially ended at Appomatox Courthouse, 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:02.400 it took some time for the actual fighting to subside 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:06.000 out on the fringes of the nation. It's a lesson 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:10.280 in the value of clear communication and a sobering reminder 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:14.000 of what happens when, despite our near instant access to 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:17.280 news and updates, we're faced with the spread of false 0:10:17.320 --> 0:10:21.880 information and an irrational loyalty to bias over fact. And 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:25.360 in that sense, it is a curious curse, one that 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:29.359 will remain long after the official end of any conflict. 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:35.560 I hope you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:39.320 of Curiosities. This show was created by me Aaron Mankey 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:42.960 in partnership with iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:46.320 Grim and Mild team, and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:48.360 more about the show and the people who make it 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:53.040 over at Grimandmild dot com slash Curiosities. You'll also find 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:56.079 a link to the official Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book, 0:10:56.280 --> 0:11:00.199 available in bookstores and online, as well as ebook and audio. 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:02.800 And if you're looking for an ad free option, consider 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:06.120 joining our Patreon. It's all the same stories, but without 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:09.320 the interruption for a small monthly fee. Learn more and 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:13.560 sign up over at patreon dot com, slash Grimandmild, and 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:16.280 until next time, stay curious.