Speaker 1: School of Humans.
Speaker 2: Wow, this episode is almost timely because we're talking about assassins,
Speaker 2: and as we've seen this month, not all assassinations.
Speaker 1: Go to plan.
Speaker 2: But perhaps the most famous assassination in our country was
Speaker 2: the assassination of Abraham Frickin' Lincoln, killed by none other
Speaker 2: than John Wilkes Booth on April fourteenth, eighteen sixty five,
Speaker 2: at Ford's Theater. Booth momentarily grappled with one of the
Speaker 2: other theater guests, then stabbed.
Speaker 1: Him and escaped. And wu wee was.
Speaker 2: There a hubbub After that, there was a one hundred
Speaker 2: thousand dollars reward for him, and army regiments were instructed
Speaker 2: to go on the hunt for John Wilkes Booth. One
Speaker 2: soldier in one of those army regiments was named Boston Corbett,
Speaker 2: and he ended up being the one who assassinated the assassin.
Speaker 2: That's right, Boston Corbett. He killed John Wilkes Booth after
Speaker 2: a dramatic standoff around a fiery barn and Corbett he
Speaker 2: became an American hero. But the problem with being an
Speaker 2: American hero is that all that attention can make a
Speaker 2: guy go a bit crazy. But luckily for Boston, he
Speaker 2: was already pretty mentally ill. How mentally ill you might ask, well,
Speaker 2: before he joined the Union Army, he chopped his balls off.
Speaker 2: Cue the theme song, This is American Filth and I'm
Speaker 2: Gabby Watts.
Speaker 1: Every week I tell you.
Speaker 2: A filthy story from American history. This week's episode the
Speaker 2: Guy who Assassinated the Assassin slash junk lists. Now you
Speaker 2: might be thinking, why would a dude want to castrate himself?
Speaker 2: Was it because Boston Corbett didn't like the aesthetic?
Speaker 1: Was it because he was a bit crazy?
Speaker 2: Well, here are some of the benefits of castration, fellas
Speaker 2: if you ever think about it for yourself.
Speaker 1: One you won't go bald.
Speaker 2: Two you'll no longer want to have sex with toxic
Speaker 2: women or toxic men, or really anyone in general.
Speaker 1: And three, if you do it early enough, you can have.
Speaker 2: A beautiful singing voice. Anyway, that's about the extent of
Speaker 2: the benefits of castration. But here's a couple of the
Speaker 2: reasons why Corbett might have castrated himself. One he loved
Speaker 2: God and two he made hats. And yes, loving God
Speaker 2: and making hats are not mutually exclusive activities. It was
Speaker 2: the power of those two things in tandem. That said
Speaker 2: about his castration. But let's go back to the beginning,
Speaker 2: shall we. Boston Corbett was born in England in eighteen
Speaker 2: thirty two, and his parents didn't name him Boston.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 2: No, his given Christian name was Thomas. He changed it later,
Speaker 2: but his family gave the finger to mother England and
Speaker 2: boted over to America when he was about seven years old.
Speaker 2: See Corbett's dad, Bartholomew, was a naturalist and taxidermist, and
Speaker 2: he wanted a better life. He wanted better work, he
Speaker 2: wanted more money, and he thought where might they have
Speaker 2: plenty of dead animals lying around?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 2: America? Many things are unknown about the Corbetts. When did
Speaker 2: Mummy Corbett pass away? There aren't any records of her
Speaker 2: being on the boat they took over to America. So
Speaker 2: did she die on the boat over or had she
Speaker 2: died before they had even departed? Either way, by the
Speaker 2: time the Corbetts reached America's shores, there was the dad, Thomas,
Speaker 2: and his two older siblings, a brother and a sister.
Speaker 2: It's also unclear how Bartholomew made a living.
Speaker 1: Most likely what he did was prepared.
Speaker 2: Dead animals for display at museums or for hunters, but Bartholome,
Speaker 2: you never got that prosperity he was looking for, and
Speaker 2: he returned to England. A couple decades later, Thomas Corbett
Speaker 2: stayed in America and when he grew up, he decided
Speaker 2: to become a milliner. That's someone who makes hats. But
Speaker 2: the problem with making hats is it ca make it crazy.
Speaker 2: Hence the term Matt, Hatter and Alice in Wonderland because
Speaker 2: in hat making at the time, they were using this
Speaker 2: chemical called mercury nitrate. And then the thing is a
Speaker 2: lot of the process of making hats requires heat and water,
Speaker 2: which would then create a mercury infused mist. And most
Speaker 2: meliners were working in cramped, unventilated conditions, so if you
Speaker 2: were making hats, you were just sucking down mercury air
Speaker 2: all day. And here's some of the things that can
Speaker 2: result from inhaling mercury all day. Slurred speech, tremors also
Speaker 2: known as hatter's shakes, irritability, shyness, depression, emotional instability, hallucinations, psychosis, excitability, paranoia.
Speaker 2: Based on these symptoms, it seems that at some point
Speaker 2: in my life I also made hats. Some people call
Speaker 2: it adhd. In general, moral weakness, but I'm calling it.
Speaker 2: I used to make hats, so yeah, Thomas Corbett was
Speaker 2: making hats being exposed to chemicals and stuff.
Speaker 1: He met a woman named Susan.
Speaker 2: Rebecca, there's no record of her last name, and they
Speaker 2: got married.
Speaker 1: Susan was thirteen years older than Thomas.
Speaker 2: Corbett a bit of a coup out there, and together
Speaker 2: they moved to Troy, New York. There, Thomas was able
Speaker 2: to get American citizenship in eighteen fifty five. It seemed
Speaker 2: like they were happy. Corbett apparently told a friend that
Speaker 2: he had a great Christian wife and what a pleasant
Speaker 2: home he had, But unfortunately he couldn't get enough work.
Speaker 2: So they didn't stay in Troy for long and moved
Speaker 2: down to Richmond, Virginia. But down there it seemed Corbett
Speaker 2: got even less work. And part of the reason why
Speaker 2: is because he was very much against slavery, and he
Speaker 2: was always run in his mouth about how much he
Speaker 2: hated it. And I'm sure the Virginians were like, but
Speaker 2: we love slavery.
Speaker 1: This guy's annoying. Don't give him jobs.
Speaker 2: So he and Susan Rebecca were like, I guess we
Speaker 2: should go back to New York City, where we started.
Speaker 2: But on the boat ride from Virginia to New York,
Speaker 2: Susan Rebecca fell ill and died. Another cougar fallen rip,
Speaker 2: pretty kitty cat. This was in August eighteen fifty six,
Speaker 2: when Corbett was about twenty four, and when he made
Speaker 2: it back to New York City, he fell into a
Speaker 2: deep depression and started drinking a lot. He was wandering
Speaker 2: the streets another nefarious self pitying drunk. I mean he
Speaker 2: had reasons to self pity. His hot cougar wife had
Speaker 2: just died. He had to keep moving in search of
Speaker 2: work and never found enough of it, so he had
Speaker 2: to toil away in poverty. It wasn't a good time.
Speaker 2: But as Corbett stumbled down the street, that's when the
Speaker 2: light of God began to shine upon him. Be right
Speaker 2: back after these soothing advertisements. One day in eighteen fifty six,
Speaker 2: Thomas Corbett was drunk as a skunk wandering the streets
Speaker 2: of New York City. He had just lost his cougar wife.
Speaker 2: He was sad as heck. And sometime along his drunken
Speaker 2: stumble he encountered some evangelical Christians who were really into
Speaker 2: temperance and what they liked to do was go on
Speaker 2: the hunt for sinners who they could convert. And who
Speaker 2: is better to convince to be a devout Christian than
Speaker 2: a desperate man who has hit rock bottom. That's how
Speaker 2: you know religion is great because it lures people into.
Speaker 1: It when they are at their lowest.
Speaker 2: Apparently, this group of even angelicals scooped him up, essentially
Speaker 2: detaining him as he sobered up. Sure maybe they saw
Speaker 2: it as helping a guy out, but whatever happened during
Speaker 2: his confinement, Corbett allegedly had a religious epiphany. But I
Speaker 2: asked myself, was he seeing God? Or maybe it was
Speaker 2: the mercury. After these teetotaling Christians let him go, Thomas
Speaker 2: Corbett was a changed man. He was like, yes, I'm
Speaker 2: into God. God is the best. Corbett joined many downtrodden
Speaker 2: folks at the tail end of the Second Great Awakening,
Speaker 2: people who are being bamboozled by traveling Christian preachers having
Speaker 2: hoot nanniesque revivals. Even in New York City, preachers descended
Speaker 2: upon the streets and had lunchtime prayer meetings, which Corbett
Speaker 2: very likely started attending. Can you tell that I'm skeptical
Speaker 2: of organized religion? But Corbett needed more work again, so
Speaker 2: this time he moved up to Boston, and there he
Speaker 2: found a religious community that embraced him. But unfortunately for Corbett,
Speaker 2: he was a human person with normal human impulses, and
Speaker 2: those impulses were telling him that he wanted to fuck.
Speaker 2: But you guys know, God, he hates it when you
Speaker 2: do that kind of stuff. God hates it when you
Speaker 2: bang other people. He hates it when you bang yourself.
Speaker 2: He hates it when you even think about banging. God
Speaker 2: hates that stuff, and so does Mercury and Corbett. He
Speaker 2: wanted to be a good Christian boy, but he couldn't
Speaker 2: find a solution to this problem of horniness. I mean,
Speaker 2: he could have tried meditation, maybe diving into a cold lake,
Speaker 2: maybe conjuring up pictures of sad children and grandmas.
Speaker 1: But he didn't know what to do. He was really struggling.
Speaker 2: And then he read in the Bible this one part
Speaker 2: that said, and if thy right, I offend thee, pluck
Speaker 2: it out and cast it from thee, and there'd be
Speaker 2: eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of
Speaker 2: Heaven's sake. So Corbett was like, huh, that seems like
Speaker 2: a good solution to my problem. I must become a
Speaker 2: eunuch akaa chop my balls off.
Speaker 1: So on July.
Speaker 2: Sixteenth, eighteen fifty eight, what he did, and yes, this
Speaker 2: is very graphic, so sorry, not my fault, this is
Speaker 2: just American history. What he did is he took a
Speaker 2: pair of scissors, sliced open his scrotum, yanked his balls down,
Speaker 2: and snip snipped them off.
Speaker 1: Awi awi awi awi.
Speaker 2: I hope they were sharp scissors. Can you imagine doing
Speaker 2: this with a doll blade?
Speaker 1: Yikes.
Speaker 2: After Corbett self castrated, he decided to just act normally,
Speaker 2: just go on with his day. According to the records
Speaker 2: for the Massachusetts General Hospital, he quote went to a
Speaker 2: prayer meeting, walked around, and had a hearty dinner.
Speaker 1: But the wound was heavily clotted.
Speaker 2: The blood and fluids had backed up in the scrotum,
Speaker 2: which swelled enormously and were black end quote. So a
Speaker 2: doctor came to see him in his room, and they
Speaker 2: ended up taking him to the hospital because apparently, castrating
Speaker 2: yourself with no medical experience isn't like a casual, easy
Speaker 2: DIY sort of thing, and it's not a walk in
Speaker 2: the park. No it's more of a marathon through hell.
Speaker 2: At the hospital, the doctors treated him for his castration wounds,
Speaker 2: but because of the injury and infection from it, Corbett
Speaker 2: also started having intestinal problems, so they also gave him
Speaker 2: an enema to unclog him, and then he was discharged
Speaker 2: a few days later. And I suppose because of God's love,
Speaker 2: Corbett healed relatively quickly, and he did not regret his decision.
Speaker 2: Oh no, because indeed he no longer had any sexual desire.
Speaker 2: Finally he could please God. He was like, I am
Speaker 2: free from those passions and can study the Bible without
Speaker 2: being distracted. I'm always so confused about the Bible. It's
Speaker 2: just one book. Certainly there are other things to read.
Speaker 2: But I digress. And Corbett wasn't done with his makeover.
Speaker 2: You know, he did the castration. He also started wearing
Speaker 2: his hair like Jesus, growing it long and parting it
Speaker 2: down the middle. Now, some interpretations say Jesus had a
Speaker 2: side part. But remember Corbett had lots of time to
Speaker 2: read the Bible now that he had no sexual desire,
Speaker 2: so we should trust him about the middle part scenario.
Speaker 2: Another thing that happened in Boston was that Corbett officially
Speaker 2: got saved there, I guess, with the water and the
Speaker 2: shit and baptism or whatever. He decided to change his
Speaker 2: name to the city where he had changed his life,
Speaker 2: and he became Boston Corbet. Good thing he didn't get
Speaker 2: baptized in a nearby town to where I live called coming,
Speaker 2: Otherwise he'd be coming Corbet, and coming was a whole
Speaker 2: reason he didn't want to have balls anymore.
Speaker 1: So Corbett. He had a trade hat making, but.
Speaker 2: Now he had a purpose, a mission, you might say,
Speaker 2: to convert everyone else. Boston Corbett moved back to New
Speaker 2: York City and he continued working as a hatter, but
Speaker 2: apparently people weren't too eager to hire him because he
Speaker 2: would spend a lot of time proselytizing to the customers,
Speaker 2: being like, Hey, I know you like hats, but have.
Speaker 1: You heard of Jesus.
Speaker 2: Also, if he ever heard a coworker say some cuss words,
Speaker 2: Corbett would fall to his knees and be like, please, God,
Speaker 2: give this man some redemption.
Speaker 1: Despite his filthy tongue.
Speaker 2: Corbett would also come to work wearing rags because at
Speaker 2: this time he was no longer just the convert. He
Speaker 2: was also a preacher, and he was using all of
Speaker 2: his money to convert others. He'd basically hold down a
Speaker 2: job long enough to get enough money to walk the
Speaker 2: streets and find low lifes to convert, just like what
Speaker 2: happened to him. He would round up the drunks, give
Speaker 2: them some food, give them some clothes, a place to
Speaker 2: stay the night, and then once they sobered it up,
Speaker 2: he'd be likerv let me tell you about Jesus.
Speaker 1: But then all of a sudden, it was the Civil War.
Speaker 2: There was a call for soldiers, and Corbett was like,
Speaker 2: what would Jesus do? Jesus would obviously fight and kill people,
Speaker 2: so he decided to join the Union Army. He was
Speaker 2: accepted into a regiment in New York City and they
Speaker 2: sailed down to Washington, DC to train and get.
Speaker 1: Ready to fight.
Speaker 2: Even though being a soldier meant he had to chop
Speaker 2: off his Jesus hair, fighting a war was no excuse
Speaker 2: for Corbett to stop his godly work. Oh No, this
Speaker 2: just meant he was around even more people who he
Speaker 2: could try to seduce. With the Lord, Corbett was able
Speaker 2: to find some believers in his regiment, but most of
Speaker 2: the soldiers made fun of him. He often got on
Speaker 2: people's nerves because he would complain about how much cussing
Speaker 2: all of the officers would do. He also hated how
Speaker 2: they were boozin and horn God.
Speaker 1: Doesn't like that.
Speaker 2: But they were boys at war. Of course they're going
Speaker 2: to do some cuss and boozin and horring. That's the
Speaker 2: whole point of war. But Corbett wasn't just criticizing people
Speaker 2: in his same rank. One time, the general of his regiment,
Speaker 2: General Butterfield, had gathered up the troops because he'd gotten
Speaker 2: a complaint about their disorderly behavior. Apparently some of the
Speaker 2: soldiers had stolen goods from the town they were occupying.
Speaker 2: Butterfield said, I will have no damned thieves in this regiment.
Speaker 2: And then Corbett stepped forward and was like, I call
Speaker 2: the colonel to order for swearing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. He was basically telling his general, you shouldn't say
Speaker 1: bad words.
Speaker 2: But instead of cust and less, Corbett got arrested for
Speaker 2: disorderly conduct. He was thrown in a temporary garrison, and
Speaker 2: he protested his imprisonment with a hunger fast. And he
Speaker 2: also wouldn't stop singing hymns. And despite his devotion to Christianity,
Speaker 2: Boston Corbett didn't seem to have that many qualms about
Speaker 2: killing people, even the dudes on his own team, the Union.
Speaker 2: And this is when the mercury poisoning really started showing.
Speaker 2: One day, Corbett was assigned to work on a Sunday,
Speaker 2: but that's the Sabbath. One is not supposed to work.
Speaker 2: Then his fellow soldiers did what they were told, but
Speaker 2: then two of them were approached by Corbett. He held
Speaker 2: up a Bible and his rifle, thrusting both in their direction.
Speaker 2: The two soldiers were picking blackberries, and Corbett cocked his
Speaker 2: gun and was like, if you take another step further,
Speaker 2: you're a dead man.
Speaker 1: Don't worry.
Speaker 2: He didn't kill these soldiers, but this was just another
Speaker 2: incident where Corbett got in trouble for his very aggressive
Speaker 2: religious fervor. Over the course of the war, Corbett fought
Speaker 2: in several battles, worked with different regiments, and then in
Speaker 2: June eighteen sixty four, he got captured by the Confederates,
Speaker 2: and being a prisoner of war, it wasn't great, especially
Speaker 2: on the side of the Confederacy. They were losing, running
Speaker 2: low on provisions for their own troops, so feeding captured
Speaker 2: Union soldiers wasn't high on their list of priorities. Corbett
Speaker 2: was imprisoned at Andersonville, a huge, disgusting prison. This is
Speaker 2: how he described his stay there. The stench was so
Speaker 2: great that I remember the first time I went down there,
Speaker 2: I wondered that every man in the place did not
Speaker 2: die from the effects. It was a living mass of
Speaker 2: putrification and filth. There were maggots there, and I had
Speaker 2: to take the food to the stream and wash the
Speaker 2: maggots from it. Ew Corbett got sick like most people there.
Speaker 2: There was hardly any edible food, clean water.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of disease.
Speaker 2: He also had to sleep out in the elements, exposed
Speaker 2: to the scorching sun all day. He ended up having
Speaker 2: scars on his body from all the burns. But you know,
Speaker 2: despite all of that, in prison, Corbett was like, Wow,
Speaker 2: this is a great time to convert people. He began
Speaker 2: preaching with another prisoner and they would preside over funerals
Speaker 2: and have other services. Some people in the prison were like,
Speaker 2: goddamn it, please stop, this isn't the time. But then
Speaker 2: other soldiers were so desperate they were like, yeah, this
Speaker 2: is a good idea. Jesus, save us from these Mangy Confederates.
Speaker 2: The months grew colder, and more and more soldiers died.
Speaker 2: One Union prisoner said many of the men froze to death,
Speaker 2: and instead of burial, the hogs disposed.
Speaker 1: Of their remains.
Speaker 2: Corbett, though he wasn't going to be eaten by no hog.
Speaker 2: He was released in late eighteen sixty four. He had survived,
Speaker 2: but he would continue to suffer from the diseases he
Speaker 2: contracted there for the rest of his life. The Civil
Speaker 2: War ended a few months later, and then you'll know
Speaker 2: what happened. John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lincoln Bang Bang. Booth
Speaker 2: ran the fuck out of there, which started a dramatic man.
Speaker 1: Hunt for him.
Speaker 2: At this point, Corbett had mostly recovered from his time
Speaker 2: at the prison, and he was part of a regiment
Speaker 2: that was given orders to hunt down Booth. Specifically, the
Speaker 2: order was to capture him, not to kill him. Corbett's
Speaker 2: regiment found Booth. Booth was hiding out in a barn
Speaker 2: that belonged to a Virginia tobacco farmer. Booth was there
Speaker 2: with his accomplice. His accomplice surrendered immediately. He was like, please,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, don't shoot me. But Booth was like, hell, no,
Speaker 2: I'm not going out. He said, I will not be
Speaker 2: taken alive. So the Union's soldiers were like, Okay, he's
Speaker 2: not coming out, so I guess we should figure out
Speaker 2: something to do to get him out. So what they
Speaker 2: did is they set the barn on fire. They're like,
Speaker 2: surely this will get John Wilkes Booth out of there,
Speaker 2: but Booth he was like, no, I'm still not coming out. Corbett,
Speaker 2: like the rest of the soldiers, was stationed around the
Speaker 2: barn and where he was was a crack in the
Speaker 2: barn wall and he could actually see John Wilkes Booth.
Speaker 2: So he talked to his lieutenant. He was like, hey,
Speaker 2: I can see his ass. Can I go in and
Speaker 2: try to get him? But his lieutenant was like, no,
Speaker 2: you can't do that. But it seemed that Corbett was
Speaker 2: a little eager to kill this guy because.
Speaker 1: What happened next was a little suss.
Speaker 2: But allegedly, when Corbett looked through the crack another time,
Speaker 2: he saw Booth loading up his gun. So Corbett got
Speaker 2: his own gun and shot him through the crack and
Speaker 2: bang bang, Corbett.
Speaker 1: Got him right in the head.
Speaker 2: The wound was almost in the same spot as the
Speaker 2: one Lincoln had received from Booth. I imagine the lieutenant wasn't
Speaker 2: pleased though, because he was like Corbett, I literally just
Speaker 2: told you don't shoot him. But Boston was like, oh,
Speaker 2: he was loading his gun. I was just saving everyone.
Speaker 2: After John Willikes Booth was shot, he was apprehended and
Speaker 2: dragged to the porch of the farmhouse.
Speaker 1: He was wailing in agony. He was completely.
Speaker 2: Paralyzed, in an extreme pain and just kept yelling out,
Speaker 2: please kill me. Honestly relatable, and he died a few
Speaker 2: moments later due to the bullet wound. And Corbett was
Speaker 2: about to become a celebrity be back after these soothing advertisements.
Speaker 2: So it's a bit awkward when you were given speci
Speaker 2: orders not to kill someone and then you do. After
Speaker 2: Boston Corbett shot John Wilkes Booth, Corbett was sent to Washington,
Speaker 2: d c. For questioning, but he wasn't punished. Instead, he
Speaker 2: was released and hailed as a hero. People wanted him
Speaker 2: to regale them with a tale of what happened when
Speaker 2: he shot Booth.
Speaker 1: They wanted to hear it straight from the horse's mouth.
Speaker 2: People wanted to buy his gun, and Corbett was like, actually,
Speaker 2: this isn't my gun. This is the governments. But government,
Speaker 2: will you let me keep the pony? I want to
Speaker 2: keep my pony, please. And the problem with being a
Speaker 2: hero is that it's a lot of pressure, don't I
Speaker 2: know it? And also a lot of people loved him,
Speaker 2: but a lot of people also hated him, like people
Speaker 2: from the South who were still like the Confederacy. He
Speaker 2: started getting letters from Southerners threatening to kill him, so
Speaker 2: he kept a gun on him at all time.
Speaker 1: He was jumpy, paranoid, and.
Speaker 2: Corbett, well, we've seen that he's not the most mentally
Speaker 2: stable of guys, so this pressure was not good for him.
Speaker 2: While still in the army, Corbett and his regiment were
Speaker 2: sent outside Washington, d c.
Speaker 1: For a patrol.
Speaker 2: Corbett was walking around looking for a dry place to
Speaker 2: sleep in a stable.
Speaker 1: The only places he.
Speaker 2: Could find asleep were damp, but he was still suffering
Speaker 2: with the illnesses from being a prisoner of war, and
Speaker 2: he was like, this damp hay is going to be
Speaker 2: my undoing. He finally found a dry spot to sleep
Speaker 2: and a part of the stable he was not allowed
Speaker 2: to go in. A sergeant accosted him and was like, hey,
Speaker 2: you can't sleep there, and then Corbett pulled out his
Speaker 2: gun and pointed it at the sergeant. He didn't shoot,
Speaker 2: but he left, and then he was court martialed, but
Speaker 2: then he got off because of his rising celebrity, and
Speaker 2: also his health was just getting worse and worse. The
Speaker 2: war was over, so his doctor's recommend did he leave
Speaker 2: DC with its terrible summers and returned to New York City.
Speaker 2: So that's what he did, and he went back to
Speaker 2: making hats and preaching. But now Corbett had another source
Speaker 2: of income. People paid him to lecture on what happened
Speaker 2: and bought autographs from him. He was being elevated from
Speaker 2: street preacher to booked and busy preacher, even though God
Speaker 2: wasn't really why people wanted to talk to him. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Corbett's former regiment was trying to get the reward money
Speaker 2: for capturing Booth. Corbett had also submitted to get some
Speaker 2: reward money, and he eventually got a whopping one hundred dollars.
Speaker 2: And while he was in New York, he was still
Speaker 2: getting death threats and there were all these conspiracies popping
Speaker 2: up that Booth was actually still alive. Corbett moved again
Speaker 2: because he needed more work first somewhere in Connecticut and
Speaker 2: then to Camden, where he was given a job at
Speaker 2: a Methodist mission and then started his own. But unfortunately,
Speaker 2: despite his fervor for God and his fame, his mission
Speaker 2: wasn't very popular. He only had eighteen members and he
Speaker 2: still had to make hats to make ends meet.
Speaker 1: In eighteen seventy four, he moved to Cleveland, Ohio.
Speaker 2: He moved into a boarding house and continued working as
Speaker 2: a hatter and was still asked to do an occasional speech.
Speaker 2: He still traveled with two guns on him at all
Speaker 2: times because he was convinced a lot of people were
Speaker 2: out there trying to kill him. He was more and
Speaker 2: more paranoid. One of the borders in the house he
Speaker 2: was living at remember talking to Corbett about the day
Speaker 2: he killed Booth. Corbett then went on to pace around
Speaker 2: the room and he would quote frequently clasp his hands
Speaker 2: and exclaim, the Lord have mercy on my soul end quote.
Speaker 2: That night, the Border made some sort of noise in
Speaker 2: his sleep that made Corbett wake up. Corbett sat up,
Speaker 2: drew out his pistol, and shoved it into the boarder's chest.
Speaker 2: He eventually calmed down and went back to sleep. Corbett
Speaker 2: moves back to Camden, and in a desperate attempt in
Speaker 2: eighteen seventy eight, he wrote a letter to President Rutherford B.
Speaker 1: Hayes asking for a job. For one of his.
Speaker 2: References, Corbett told the president to look at to quote
Speaker 2: the words of Solomon in the ninth.
Speaker 1: Chapter of Ecclesiastes.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, it seems that Ecclesiastes didn't give him a good recommendation,
Speaker 2: because President Hayes didn't end up giving.
Speaker 1: Corbett a job.
Speaker 2: Later that year, Corbett moved to Kansas, got some land
Speaker 2: and started homesteading, despite having no experience farming and also
Speaker 2: being sickly. He lived out on the prairie, and he
Speaker 2: didn't really live in a house. Technically it was a dugout,
Speaker 2: but most people just describe it as a whole. Wasn't
Speaker 2: a good farmer, wasn't making enough money, so he wrote
Speaker 2: to the US Bureau of Pensions being like, hey, and
Speaker 2: I have some money. I was a prisoner of war
Speaker 2: and because of that I have constant diarrhea, scurvy, fever, rheumatism.
Speaker 2: He eventually got his pension, but he went through the
Speaker 2: money fast. Corbett was living near Concordia, Kansas, and around
Speaker 2: the town. He was pretty notorious. He was well known.
Speaker 2: People knew of his celebrity. People would come up to
Speaker 2: him and ask him what happened on the day that
Speaker 2: he killed Booth. But still he was a paranoid guy.
Speaker 1: Some of his favorite.
Speaker 2: Activities while he was living in Kansas were killing birds
Speaker 2: with his gun, or threatening locals with his gun when
Speaker 2: he thought they weren't obeying the lord, or if they
Speaker 2: were making jokes about him. But living in a hole
Speaker 2: and threatening people wasn't going to last forever, especially if
Speaker 2: your paranoia was out of control and you're constantly convinced
Speaker 2: everyone is trying to kill you. Eventually, Corbett went too far.
Speaker 2: A friend of his from the war got him a
Speaker 2: job as the assistant doorkeeper of the House of Representatives
Speaker 2: in Kansas. Mostly he maintained the building with the staff,
Speaker 2: but one day he heard two fellow workers cracking jokes
Speaker 2: with each other, and he was convinced they were laughing
Speaker 2: at him. He pulled out a gun and started chasing them.
Speaker 2: Once they were out of sight, Corbett resumed his job
Speaker 2: of sweeping up the hallway until the sergeant at arms
Speaker 2: came up to him and was like, hey, I heard
Speaker 2: you pulled a gun out on some folks.
Speaker 1: You're not supposed to do that.
Speaker 2: And what Corbett did was then he pulled his gun
Speaker 2: out on that guy. The sergeant backed away and Corbett
Speaker 2: went to go sit down. A journalist happened to be
Speaker 2: in the building sat down next to him, probably wanted
Speaker 2: to ask him some questions about Booth, and then.
Speaker 1: Again Corbett pulled his gun out.
Speaker 2: The journalists scurried away. Some other officials approached him and
Speaker 2: they were like, hey, Corbett, we need you to stop
Speaker 2: pulling your gun out on people.
Speaker 1: So you know what he did. He pulled out his
Speaker 1: gun and he was like, you get out of here.
Speaker 2: Anyway, they went and got the police, and the police
Speaker 2: jumped him, pinned him to the floor before he could
Speaker 2: get his gun, and they took him to jail. At
Speaker 2: the trial, Corbett was so paranoid, explaining that there was
Speaker 2: a huge conspiracy to kill him by John Wilkes Booth sympathizers,
Speaker 2: that he was taken to an insane asylum. There, he
Speaker 2: continued to think everyone was out to get him, and
Speaker 2: also started writing his own death threats, saying the Kansas
Speaker 2: governor and other Kansas officials better watch their backs. Seven
Speaker 2: months later, a judge ruled that he was permanently insane
Speaker 2: and that it was unlikely he'd ever leave the asylum.
Speaker 2: But when God is on your side and you've inhiled
Speaker 2: mercury for most of your life, never say never. One
Speaker 2: day in eighteen eighty eight, about a year into his
Speaker 2: asylum sentence, Corbett was outside walking the grounds with some
Speaker 2: other patients. No one considered him a flight risk, so
Speaker 2: he wasn't under that much supervision.
Speaker 1: But that day a little boy rode.
Speaker 2: Up to the asylum on a pony, and then the
Speaker 2: boy tied the pony to a fence. Corbett saw that
Speaker 2: pony and was like, I'm gonna get the heck addy here.
Speaker 2: So he broke away from the other inmates, untied the pony,
Speaker 2: and galloped away, chasing the horizon, which was gray from
Speaker 2: all the mercury.
Speaker 1: Corbett rode hard.
Speaker 2: Alerts were put out for his arrest, because remember he
Speaker 2: was making all those death threats and he was also
Speaker 2: a wee bit crazy. He rode to one of his
Speaker 2: friend's houses, Richard Thatcher, who was on his side, He.
Speaker 1: Was like, hell, yes, brother, you escape, that's awesome.
Speaker 2: Corbett wouldn't accept a bed to sleep in, so he
Speaker 2: slept outside. He didn't stay long about a day, because
Speaker 2: he knew he had to high tail it out of there.
Speaker 2: He might be arrested, and of course he might get
Speaker 2: attacked by booth conspirators and the mercury and God.
Speaker 1: Corbett told his friend.
Speaker 2: That he was going to Mexico, and Thatcher saw Corbett
Speaker 2: jump on a train headed south and then no one
Speaker 2: knows exactly what happened to him. Some people have suggested
Speaker 2: that Corbett died in this Big Fire Minnesota in eighteen
Speaker 2: ninety four. Another record showed a man claiming to be
Speaker 2: Boston Corbett have been arrested for pension fraud in nineteen
Speaker 2: oh five.
Speaker 1: Who knows, but hopefully he found some.
Speaker 2: Peace, but judging on how much he was losing his mind,
Speaker 2: he probably did end. Isn't that a fun way to
Speaker 2: end this episode? Life is a nightmare and it only
Speaker 2: gets worse. As always, we learn a lesson from American filth,
Speaker 2: and in this episode we learned.
Speaker 1: That even if you're a part of a huge historical.
Speaker 2: Moment where you assassinate the guy who assassinated the president,
Speaker 2: you're still going to have to live paycheck to paycheck,
Speaker 2: hardly making any money, and be a poor Christian. That's
Speaker 2: the American dream. Just so you guys know, this is
Speaker 2: the end of season one of American Filth. Over the
Speaker 2: next few weeks we will do some reruns, but we
Speaker 2: will be back with new episodes starting in September.
Speaker 1: Que the credits.
Speaker 2: American Filth is a production of School of Humans and
Speaker 2: iHeart Podcast. As episod was written by me Gabby Watts.
Speaker 2: I also sound designed it and hosted it. Our theme
Speaker 2: song is by me and Jesse Niswanger, and our executive
Speaker 2: producers are Virginia Prescott, Elsie Crowley, and Brandon Barr.
Speaker 1: You can follow.
Speaker 2: Along with a show on Instagram at American Filth pod
Speaker 2: and if you haven't already, please like, subscribe, review, do
Speaker 2: whatever it takes to get the algorithm going. Make sure
Speaker 2: all of your friends and enemies listen to the show
Speaker 2: and talk at you next time.
Speaker 1: School of Humans