Last Podcast On The Left - Episode 107: Haunted Battlegrounds: The American Civil War

Episode Date: February 17, 2015

We begin our series on haunted battlegrounds with the bloodiest and most horrific war America has experienced: The Civil War. From the Bloody Lane of Antietam to Soldier's Orphanage in Gettysburg, we cover not only the hauntings but the brutal conditions both sides were forced to endure.

There's no place to escape to. This is the last talk. On the left. Right above your glass. That's when the cannibalism started. What was that? The prophecy has come to foretold. The prophecy.

But I had this dream last night that I was looking at a pot just jammed full of sausages and like red sauce, right? And then a chef came and it was like bubbling, bubbling. You know you can dream about anything. I'm just, I saw this in my dreams and then a chef came and he had a pair of tongs and he started taking sausages out of it.

And I was like, what are you doing? He was like, hey, there's too many sausages. There's too many sausages in the pot. And I was like, no, no, no, no. You leave those sausages alone. You're dreamt of a sausage? And so the chef just stuffed them all back in there and I'm just desperately afraid it's about gay sex.

It is possible. And you just, you know, you're in a big, big, big bowl just jamming as many sausages in there as a fucking chef can handle. So in your dream, the fantasy of the dream was that you had as many sausages as you wanted in a pot.

I will say, I then remember I took a sausage out of it with my hands and it was like long and girthy. Right, right. It was like sausage, it was a big cooked sausage. And it was like, was I cupping my own fucking dick in balls? Am I asleep? I've got a yeah, I've got a Scottish egg at the very top. Oh people love to hear about your yak. Yeah, they can't get enough of it that Henry legume

Welcome to the newest. This is amazing news here people. It is cave comedy radios new number one show It's the John Cleansing the other podcast we're gonna go through and drag them out in the streets and take their shoes and their fucking gold fillings It's the genre defining horror comedy podcast and it is the best one that's ever existed I think the only one that's ever existed. Absolutely, and you should probably do the intro of it now That's the last podcast on the left with Marcus Parks. I'm Ben Kissel. We're joined by always as always by a fella He loves his meats. He loves the Browsky We already did the sausage story, you know

It comes out to this no point in doing a character because we know that whatever character I do is some Mirror fragment of my brain. That's that's gay. That is gay. That's part of me that's deep down inside, right? Maybe not so deep, but I'm saying like not Crazy deep. Do you feel like the more acting work you get the more success you get in Hollywood? The gay is kind of bubbling up. No, no, no, I'll waggle it around anybody any paying customer. Oh, that's good. I'm up That's what I say. That's right today's main question war war. What is it good for? For creating haunted battlefields. That's what it's good for. What am I getting the ODOT for? That's a great intro for war So what is it good for? Haunted battlefields. Haunted battlefields. Is that like straight up? Is there not a fucking battlefield?

That's not haunted. I imagine they're all haunted. Maybe sea battles some because I'm sort of submarine Conflicts, but this is a Marcus episode and Marcus knows all we were talking about this before the podcast Marcus is very deeply versed in history He's some beautiful stories about famous Haunted battlefields. Yep, which I've noticed is like as soon as I read like actual history. This is why I did bad in school I glaze over I literally die on the inside, but I can what is it about alien garbage for fucking like six hours Right at any given moment. I could just sit right now and read in six hours alien material You do you read the same as a computer? I can't understand a goddamn thing Oh, yeah, I barely understand it. I think I can't read. I'm sure maybe I can't read and they just line up words together and paragraphs and alien

Info websites that I just kind of make it up as I go. I Think that's very very possible. I think so too. Get back in our DeLorean and drive back Back in time going back inside. Go back in time. Yeah We should have had that cue. Yeah, did you do that music? We're we're going back in time. Yeah, all right to The American Civil War One of our country's greatest time the most wool ever used in a war That's what I heard because they weren't in their underwear as well They're sweaty and the minds of many soldiers on both sides in the beginning the wall was to be a clean bloodless affair

They would be over in a matter of months with nary a bullet fired a Confederate uniform Just showed up ghostly over Marcus's body very amazing, but most soldiers have no idea of the bloodshed to come Let's soak it all in ladies and gentlemen, how can you fight a war to such beautiful music? You know the times they weren't playing. We're so gorgeous. This is after the fact some some Mumford wrote this song No, Jay Unger wrote this. All right. Unger wrote it Jay Unger is a very well-known American folk artist and he wrote that theme for Ken Burns at Civil War one of the greatest Documentaries ever made all the songs during the Civil War were like Jay up the blackie make him sing You know, it's like it was all the worst songs on the face of the planet

Yeah, and that church down saw a Puerto Rican in it Oh That was a similar voice to your poo poo Man, man, we haven't thought about poo-poo pickle in a while through a poo-poo pickle out there give it to us Come on. We're gonna get a pickle painted brown Take that frown upside down as a poo-poo pickle. It's a poo-poo pickle Get it. Yeah girl. I'm gonna marry you Yeah, what a lucky lady she is. Oh, that's she

All right, well the thing is said to be known about kind of would love to see Henry during the Civil War on a horse Oh, no, I would have been hiding under a rock. Yeah, I would have been making the other soldiers laugh Yeah, you know just having a good time. I'd be a chef There was there was no laughing during no, no, we'll find out right now. We'll find out right now You can't laugh but before we get into the actual civil war We need to go over and tell talk about exactly what type of hauntings Battlefield hauntings actually are and it's pretty obvious to those of you who know your ghost terms that this is definitely Residual on basically this idea that it's like it's like a VCR spaces and houses and it's like they

Collect energy like batteries and so a lot of times when you read about these battleground hauntings It's just like watching the movie of the battle like a lot of times Talk about how the battle would happen like you'd hear ghosts like up to like a month after the battle I like you'd hear the sounds of battle and smell gunpowder and stuff like that I mean or was a person who was still alive and just nobody was helping him You know, I'm actually alive here. They're like that ghost is moving this ghost has been waking me up nine mornings a week Ghost trickery my horse is dead. He's on me. Yes typical ghost talk a lot of times the residual Hauntings are seen by people who are especially sensitive to it through a process called retro cognition

Which is a smoke or doobies. I would say it's very close to like what's it's putts? It's like a psychic phenomena. It's kind of like Remote viewing Like yeah, do you see yeah, we'll cut we'll edit out the me My brain literally slapping himself in the for it and it worked I can't edit it out if you immediately reference. I know Now we got to keep it in and now we're back to the number two podcast on tape comedy radio. So thank you Henry Retro cognition. It's used in a lot of what's called sigh fields in psychic criminology and psychic archaeology Okay, would you say like you put a psychic quote-unquote in a dark room and you say hey make some shit up, right?

Make some shit up. We're gonna give you a bunch of money. Maybe you'll get a reality show out of it So just lie to us. We'll believe you. I see a man in a tall gray hat and he is no, there's a woman there. Oh Good, thank you There was an experience in 1951 that existed only in sound because these things they can be sounds they can be smells They can be actual visions. This one was actually it was only sound in France to English women They heard sounds of a famous air raid that took around that happened around there in World War two And people who question them about this afterwards these women had no Or they say they had no prior knowledge of the battle, but people who interviewed them afterwards

They were like, yes, that's that's the sound of that airplane. That's the sound of that bomb It was like Oh, that's a humfutter. That's a humfutter 947 a humfutter 947 You know they built it to make it look like a pelican It's a great air raid they did the old English pelican. So that's a form Yeah, that's a form of and what a lot of people see in these battlefield hauntings. They see phantom armies and phantom armies I mean they date back to the Assyrians, you know, you'd see ghostly warriors that would make a tax on it's really desert cities

There's another thing they call this phenomena. They also call it time slips Yeah, which is very interesting because then the Philip K dick experience that he had where he said that he Travel back in time to the Roman era and then watch it superimpose on modern times Basically some entity telling him that you know, there is no such thing as time No, what happened in the past is also happening right now time slip is also gonna be a brand new movie starring Keanu Reeves and Nicholas cage Check it out in time. So it's just like men slipping on clocks Tripping over fucking graphic as great stuff the most interesting thing that I found throughout all my research on haunted battlefields You know and I went over to Europe

I went all over the world to research this type of stuff the powers of books and your imagination I didn't actually travel no Marcus is not allowed to board a plane. He's actually red flags by the TSA. I am on the no-fly list But what I found that was most interesting is that the strongest hauntings were from civil wars so right now like Syria That's just gonna be one hell of a nice Battle really because then again this is also because we keep digging to look for ghost material and serial killer material in the Middle East And I never see that shit. Yeah, so we'll do with the time we'll tell what that but it's a the civil war the emotions ran so high like Are you encouraging people in the Middle East to keep the civil war is going? And then we can have a nice haunted

Two episodes that have haunted Middle East so just keep murdering each other. Yes, that's great um, but no the civil war was was was I mean Depending on what people were fighting for people were fighting for their there what they believed to be their home They were fighting for their economic stability in terms of viewing slaves as as horses, you know Slightly less than horses. I mean it's it's brother against brother You're fighting guys that look like you that speak the same language as you You know that you might know and the way people died was so excruciating Oh, yeah, a lot of times people say like when you got shot in civil war you didn't die from the gunshot

They were they were made out of soft lead the bullets are like they were round soft lead bullets And they would just burrow their way under your skin They'd hit you and stick and in the infection would kill you so you have this prolonged suffering Yeah, and then especially like when you talk about phantom armies with like the Assyrians and like ancient armies those They were just beating each other with fucking sticks. Yeah, you know and horses were stomping I mean, I would actually say that the sword is probably a better way to die than an old-timey bullet. Yes Well, at least the sword maybe you're out. Yeah, you just bleed out kind of immediately Well, let me tell you guys about the bullet. They actually used it was called the mini bullet

Mini bullet the mini bullet of the mini donut for some reason. I don't know why And the caliber it was the first ever bullet that was actually given a caliber It was a 58 you failed history class by the way, what because you just thought of a mini It was a 58 caliber Weapon or a 58 caliber bullet. It was a half inch in diameter. It was like the size of Andrew the Giants thumb Yeah, something like that if you think about it in modern terms the largest bullet that we use and combat is a 50 caliber We use them in sniper rifles now and those are massive bullets huge Huge bullets and like Henry said these things were made of soft lead

So when they hit bone when they hit intestines, they expanded throughout if you got it's sort of like when you threw gack at the wall Yeah, floam was fun, but it didn't quite spread the way. Yeah, they crushed and smashed bones so badly There was no hope of any kind of recovery. That's where the amputation came in right which we'll get into later Well, let's get into some ghosty stories. Let's get some ghosty things in there. Yeah. Oh my god Well before let's go. I might I might I might get amputated during the Civil War though Just to have some of that sweet whiskey. I mean, I think you just have whiskey Um, if you went to the dentist or you went to the barber or you went to the movie theater Or you got cocaine if you went to the dentist

Well, you get you get yeah, that's even better. All right, you get whiskey or cocaine anywhere you went You don't need to have your arm chopped off I just wish the doctors would still just feed you full of booze They will if you go to the right doctors all through Boston. I'll look at all the alleys of New York, and I'll find them Well, let's go through some of the numbers to really give people the scope of this war and how many people actually died 350,000 Union soldiers died from various causes. Here's the interesting the majority of people who died in this war died from disease Yes, because they were stuck They were sitting in muck and then the cold and like like they were you know trench foot and they got the flu and they

It because they're just hanging out for months a lot of times They were talking about like they'd wait for supplies to show up and they'd be stuck in like a valley with their food Supply and all that shit cut off from them I'm waiting for people to show up and they're just sitting in there. They're shit They're sitting on buckets of shit There was this whole idea that you know your husband goes out to war and then he comes back and he's a stronger man He's grittier and he's more handsome some well-placed scars like that new god damn. I Frankenstein Eckhart character. That's not what Frankenstein monsters look like. I'm kind of excited for a Frankenstein

That's not what Frankenstein monsters look like but um, but really he comes back with trench foot. Yeah, which that's not good Yeah, exactly hold him nearly from the round table of gentlemen trench foot I mean if you want to talk about psychic scars 25,000 men died from suicide Execution son stroke or just plain fucking accidents. Yeah allergies. Yeah. Well, that's a bad one That's a bad one for civil war because everything was wool And that's just on the Union side on the Confederate side We don't have as many records because a lot of them were destroyed. Yeah, they can't write and read and they played with rocks

That was the major problem. I'm sorry Marcus. I'm sorry people from the south. I love the south Yes out of all those between suicide or just getting murdered there or with the disease I feel like a sunstroke is the nicest one. You just picture Sunscreen on their nose Anderson's gonna die In the Confederate side, it's estimated that 150,000 died of disease and 95,000 were killed or mortally wounded in combat This is insane numbers. We're talking like almost a million Americans died

Right here all American more Americans died in the civil war than all other American wars combined because we know how to fight. That's right. It was a real even matchup And some history and not only on the Confederate side not only did you have the soldiers dying? You also had the first instance of total war Sherman's March Yeah, burn the buildings rape the women take all the shit like just to level the place 50,000 civilians died. It's like three alls from Japanese the Japanese war crimes Bernal Lutol Rapal. Yeah Bernal Lutol Rapal. That's gonna be on your funeral. I hope not. I hope not But we'll see how things turn about in my life a nice little pamphlet

So the bloodiest battle of the entire civil war and the bloodiest battle in American history Was the battle of Antietam and Antietam. No, and it was really because they call it if you're from the south They call it a different thing. It's called paddle of Antietam And it's also called like battle of like smacky brook, which is just like it's like not the same It's like an Antietam is a better name for a fight in four hours 23,000 men were either killed or wounded in this battle Sounds of that. Can you mention the sound? I just go and like

What are you so happy for and he's like I'm going to Italy I People would just run at each other with their bayonets and they just start shooting and stabbing each other Rocks. No, it wasn't a bayonet war at all The rifles that they used you can kill someone from a thousand feet because the reason why there were so many casualties Is because the generals thought they were still fighting a bayonet war They they were still fighting a musket war Because these rifles and the machine guns and the gatling guns all this shit was brand new

That's all the north the north had all those Yeah, yeah, we had a lot of shit Yeah, but the soldiers the generals they didn't know how to fight these wars and in fact during battles There was so much smoke and confusion that men couldn't hear the generals certain units would just get lost and Scattered and they would have no idea where they were and you gotta remember these were fucking children Yeah, they're like yeah, they're like literally 15 years old. Yeah, they're 15 to 18 like a lot of these guys They're 18 19 none of them have battle experience. None of them knew we're even in a gunfight They didn't know anything past hunting with their guns, but it's almost I mean

That's why I don't even agree about left it like raising the age of Bringing kids into the army or to serve their armed forces because I really think that these are people They'll be able to heal from it. If you're 15 I don't know we didn't get to see Anything like Vietnam vets, I don't think they came out of there. Yeah, no fun That's what they say about Vietnam vets or a little bit too much fun So the most haunted place in the entire bad in the entire battlefield of Antietam Bloody Lane bloody Lane. I don't know why was it called this before or after the war?

After absolutely. Well, all it was before the road or before the war was a narrow sunken road That Robert E. Lee thought all right. This is a great place to defend. We can really get through We can punch through the defenses here and we can possibly win this battle soldiers on both sides We're firing at each other continuously finally the Confederates were overrun and in this one lane alone this narrow lane If you look at a picture of it, it's maybe fucking. I don't know 10 50 like I would say 20 30 yards wide damn 5,000 men Jesus Christ in this one fucking ghost nursery and according to eyewitnesses Bloody Lane is haunted. What I can't believe it Yeah, because they're like it's like, you know what we were just trying to have a nice Sunday stroll

And I can't believe how many ghosts we were raped by in there I'm say I get if I could ballpark it. I say about a 5,000 well Spectrophilia there. Well, it's one of those places you can smell gunfire You can smell you can hear gunfire. You can smell gunpowder all around the area one visitor It saw a ton of Confederate soldiers walking towards them thought they were reenactors until they just vanished You see this is where part of me It's like I like the idea of residual haunting, but I also believe there's something to do with time I think that there is some there is a there's a time aspect being played where it's it's both

Recorded and maybe it's the you know what we talked about with with the the vortices like things are like this is a place Where things could be thin because there's so much terror that happens in this place and there's so much psychic energy It's created when these events happen that like they become like bookmarks. Do you think this is there's a tear? Maybe something like that. Yeah, you know something like that or it's just the idea You know what you show me that's really fluid for this very tiny space of earth That's a lot of debt and like I figure like each like yard is like I might have a foot at some point But they just got 5,000 Can you imagine in this one? I mean it was a sunken road

So it was you know, it was essentially like a half a half circle 5,000 men a river of blood. Yo, yeah, it's called bloody Lane Yeah, it's called buddy like I'll marry Jane down there give her a finger pop And then you call bloody Lane again for a different reason That's disgusting Convincing report of a haunting on bloody Lane came from a bunch of Baltimore schoolboys Oh, I love nothing more than a Baltimore schoolboy Be careful here. Let's not indict yourself. Had him on the head to give him a lollipop keep a secret for a year. Yeah

So these these kids for a whole year. Yeah Which you have ample time to Run away relocate somewhere go to Italy So these kids they heard singing and they went back to their teacher and they said this is weird We heard someone singing deck the halls out there You know that song is forbidden in the school It's a religious song. No, it's not and so the teacher he was you know a civil war buff And he immediately knew what that singing was it was the war cry of the iris 69th, New York militia

Okay, that was their war cry. No, there's a different it's a different song back then all songs used to be about murder and slaves And then they gradually got turned into Christmas. I'm just doesn't matter if it was yeah, that's true No, it was Gaelic that they were saying they were singing what they were singing was far Bala like that sounds better. Oh, okay, you can kill all of that which in English means clear the way That's like making everybody run though. Why does Gaelic sound like Klingon? Very similar Another Haunted Place in Antietam is Burnside's bridge. So what happened with so these kids so they heard this They heard the yeah, they heard the cry. Yeah, then it was over and that's it

Yeah, well they heard ghosts they didn't actually see them, but they heard them another Haunted area of Antietam is a Burnside's bridge Also known as roar back bridge Like that roar back bridge Exciting yeah, I think yeah, there's somebody underneath this bridge right now I'm a bunch of pasta sir. I've been asleep for a couple couple weeks You kids run along and no ghost here Oh when ghosts just like drag the homeless man down Start continue. Yeah, so if this this is the bridge where

Ambrose Burnside general Ambrose Burnside of the Union army pushed back Confederates lost a lot of men I don't have the exact figures of how many people were lost at Burnside But a lot of these Union soldiers they just fucking buried them as quick as possible You didn't have to get the body back to to their home at all at all. I mean nobody gave a shit Nobody cares. Well, I give a shit now. Well, you know the practice of embalming actually came from the Civil War Okay, we that was the first time that Americans really got into the embalming of bodies because yes They did want to get these people were so far away from home that they wanted to get these people back to their families But we all know how fast bodies putrefying decompose. It's a fast fucking process, right?

So they figured out this embalming method never mind the fact that the mail system was a little creakier back in the day Because everything was run by a horse. That's the horse didn't get the fucking oats. He needed You're not gonna get the mail on time when you got fucking little Jimmy Peterson and the back of your horse carriage And he's supposed to be delivered as a fresh corpse to his grandmother and fucking not happen It's not gonna happen. No, no, so if you would go dig around on bloody lane when we find a bunch of bones This is on Burnside's bridge and absolutely. They're all unmarked graves. Yeah, so there is and there It's kind of fun and there's a lot of Civil War battlegrounds Especially there's a naval battleground that during huge so many men died during this Navy battle during huge storms still to this day

Bones will wash up on shore Bones if you talk about those they've only fish could talk they could tell you how scared they are by the ghost Yes It's like a haunted little mermaid down there So put down there and collect a bunch of bones and then bring those bones out and like bring them to the creek in the cave Yes, let's say would would they haunt the would they haunt the I hope so is the ghost in the bones I mean a ghost will I mean as I would say it depends on the curse involved Yeah, the psychic phenomena that's involved where it's like because a lot of times I think it's about the location

Yeah, but there's so good. There's a real estate. We could probably do a whole episode about haunted bones Yeah, because there's fucking there's skulls that they talk about their skulls in the Tower of London that they say you're haunted You know, you got Ed Larson's penis Ed Larson's penis. Yes, the most haunted bone around The hauntings at Burnside's bridge there you're you know your standard orb hauntings people see blue lights floating all around this bridge And then there are a lot of people, you know, we've already talked about they said that orbs are different than full-form ghosts that orbs are just like That's just energy globules floating the eye like like oil on top of water And then there's then when you see the full motion ghosts

That's like for real ghost. So what does it mean when you see the full figure of a ghost? I mean, does that mean that that person died a more horrific death? Maybe or just power was recorded. Are you talking about full torso apparitions? You can also hear at night you can hear the sound of a drum playing a cadence and it slowly fades into the night It's like a sound designer's fucking wet dream down there And so now we're gonna get to another haunting But this is arguably the most horrifying part of the Civil War The hospitals This point it just seems like the ghost you're trying to entertain visitors

All it does is like yeah increase the tourism of the areas why are they so scared of us all we're doing is singing our favorite Gaelic song Oh my god Hell times have changed I guess our music is no longer popular. It's Katy Perry with the boobies and the bubbles Just can anyone sing that boring this way son? So of course, you know from the battle the confederate soldiers had to be taken somewhere else And the first place they were taken was st. Paul's a pissed Episcopal Church Screams of the injured and dying still come from the building. You see flickering lights from the church's tower That's gotta be a rough run to that artist commune out of that

The wounded were also taken to people's homes Around the area and there's one house in particular where they say legend has it that the bloodstains on the floor Cannot be scrubbed away. They cannot be sanded away. They are permanently That's rented into the house itself rock and roll. I look at that as more being like well That's like pre-furnished for me. I don't have to do any paint. That's right. It's it's a Yeah, what do you call that when you when you would polish a floor or put a little Stains a bloodstain a bloodstain Right, it's like a bloodstain like a bloodstain when these confederate soldiers got taken to this Episcopal church slash hospital

What were some of the what were some of the medical procedures that they were doing on them? That would cause such a horrific The knee rippers and the eyes I don't want the eyes snappers. My eyes are fine. They're fine. No, I gotta take a good hard look at them eyes Oh, we're gonna get into that right now what the bet the closest thing that people could describe these battlefield hospitals as hell on earth Hell, yeah, absolutely. I mean these surgeons I mean they would and this is the place where you're theoretically supposed to go and get better, right? Yeah Okay, that is how radically good. I think here's a fact about the surgeons at the working on the Civil War a lot of

11,000 northern physicians 500 have performed surgery before Confederacy Yeah, I just picked up a guitar and sort of torn with Van Halen, right, right? So we're with what professions where they where they were recruiting from or is it like? Butchers they were they were physicians. They were people with a medical background, but they weren't surgeons Out of the Confederate army. They had 3,000 medical or battlefield surgeons only 27 had any prior experience with surgery. I mean this is on-the-job training

Yeah, I would just hate to be the first like one of the first 50 because they're really trying out some new stuff on you there Yeah, anyone who was wounded in the head, belly or chest They just put them to the side and waited for him to die. This is like nope and you would hear these men They would scream in agony Mother You'll be soon don't you worry about it burn at it I mean at some point burn it it becomes so annoying that you just must look at this pile of future corpses and hate them Oh, yeah, you're just like shut up. Oh, they're done is ruining your day. Yeah. Yeah

What here is I'm gonna read you guys An account from the medical director of the army of the Potomac dr. Jonathan Letterman. Here's what he wrote after the Battle of Antietam It's a beautiful song I know I like it The surgery of these battlefields has been pronounced butchery Gross misrepresentations of the conduct of medical officers have been made and scattered broadcast over the country I was always it looked like pepperonis. I saw knees and look like pepperonis Would you stop thinking about me for a second? He's doing a reading It caused deep and heart-rending anxiety to those who had friends or relatives in the army who might at any moment require the services of a surgeon

It is not to be supposed that there were no incompetent surgeons in the army It is certainly true that there were but these sweeping Denunciations against a class of men who will favorably Compare with the military surgeons of any country because of the incompetency and shortcomings of a few are wrong and Doing justice to a body of men who have labored faithfully and well It is easy to magnify and exist in evil and tell us beyond the bounds of truth It is equally easy to pass by the good that has been done on the other side Some medical officers lost their lives in their devotion to duty in the Battle of Anteater and others sickened from excessive labor

Which they conscientiously and skillfully performed if any objection could be urged against the surgery of those fields It would be the efforts on the part of surgeons to practice Conservative surgery to to great an extent see it's only like this tone of voice this Accident and this music that like made slavery like seems kind of okay. Yeah, I did like 200 years last adventure Yeah, all these all these surgeons did were butcher people Just being like well, you got a paper cup. I'm gonna have to lose that whole hand, you know just like smash She's so what we got to do is we got to smash the bone So it's easier for me to snip through with this pair of horses. They weren't carving Elvis out of a peanut or anything

I mean, these were not skillful Surgeons here is the way he sounds of the way that he says that though It really does seem like they were doing a great job. They were doing God's work. Oh, yeah The actual process of amputation. They would take a bone saw which is where the term saw bones comes from okay So bones. So bones. Yeah, you never okay. I guess that's the southern thing. What is the saw bone a doctor? It's just what you call a doctor. Oh, you call it I always call him a doctor position. Maybe someone I called him a name that didn't terrify me, you know I gotta go up and see the teeth cracker

So he saw the bone he'd saw the leg until the bone was completely seven right and they just throw it into a pile of limbs That's the dogs are playing with it You know like people are just being like I would say and connects to the ankle bone like laughing it up If you want to look on the bright side, it was a great time to be a dog And each of these battlefield hospitals, they would have piles of limbs I mean, I'm talking the like ten foot high piles of arms now Timmy. I'm at work now. Just go jump in the bones Don't jump in the bloody bones. I know it cause the bones go click-and-click He's gonna grow up to be a nobleman

And so after the bone after the limb was amputated the surgeon would tie off the arch arteries either Horsehair silk or cotton threads. Oh silk. Yeah, that's very nice He would then scrape the end and the edges of the bone smooth So it wouldn't work back through the skin Great and then the flap of skin left by the surgeon would be pulled across and sold clothes leaving a drainage hole because a lot of these guys got gangrene infections because actual disinfection of Sir of surgical equipment only was discovered in 1865 a bit late to the last year of the america

Don't worry they waved a bunch of sage over it made three wishes and that's all you have to do to make things clean Oh, absolutely. I've heard that if you want to recreate that just get a burrito and put a lot of guacamole in it Just squeeze it from one end. That's what it just sounded like. It sounded like the way I wrap Christmas presents It really does. Yeah, well one surgeon and of course where you're Christmas you have to have a breathe-hold Because you're always giving live animals one one surgeon recalled God Tily reasonably of course. Yeah, you know We operate

Yes, we operated on old bloodstained and often pus stain coats. We used undisinfected instruments Why do you sound proud from why are you proud they can't get enough of that pus stain? Yeah, from undisinfected plush line cases if a sponge if they had sponges or An instrument fell on the floor. It's just like the worst. Okay. Cupid about me section possible It was washed and squeezed in a basin of water and used as if it was clean as if as if just pretend It's clean yes, and this is what I used to do with my bedroom as a child where improv came from Yeah, guess how long each limb on average each surgeon would spend on amputating. I'm gonna say 12 minutes a leg 10 minutes

Ten minutes. I guess it's fast. Yeah, I mean when there's any butchers out there Tell us how long it takes if you're we got a butcher who looks at the place Please tell us how much does it take how long does it take to dissect a pig? I mean the pig's got a smaller leg though doesn't he just chop it right up bones. You think so? I have no fucking clue Isn't that something isn't that something so now let us get accurate thing you've ever said on the show That's great. Now. Let's move on to what is arguably the most haunted place in all of America. Yes, Gettysburg It was fought over three days in 1863. They were 50,000 casualties. Was it like to the day of Woodstock?

Like a hundred years ago to the day it was July 1st to the 3rd Hmm. Yeah, so right before right before Pennsylvania in the middle of summer it's a little hot But it's better than the freezing cold polar vortex that we're suffering through right now. Tell me about it. Is it cold enough for you? Let's discuss the weather. Well, there's a particularly Large number of shadow people reported at the devil's den describe shadow people go ahead shadow Puppa shadow peppa set up. Are you thinking about peppers? shadow people are

entities that apparently like a lot of times it's associated with sleep paralysis and also seeing things out of the corner your eye Where it's like you see an image. It's just like a shadow a shape of a human and George Norrie is a great champion of shadow people. I mean, let's hear stories about from coast to coast of course So were the shadow people seen by the soldiers at the time or are these by people now the shadow people? It started weeks after the battle day actually days after the battle and it continues to this day So if you would fight for three days, I mean, this is just three days straight, right? So these books a lot of these battles some hours there was no breaks whatsoever People men would lose track of time. They'd had no idea how long they were fighting for that's nuts to me

I have a very accurate idea of how long I'm doing anything because I'm so excited to get back to doing nothing That's right, you know and the reason why the devil's den was so particularly brutal because the channel was suck on c-span on the old Worst it was a perch for Confederate snipers So these snipers are just up there and they just boom they were crushing on boom boom and that's pretty that's a pretty good position To have in any sort of army the sniper position. You're kind of oh, yeah, I'd love to be a sniper. Yeah Well, this is where the term shooting fishing a barrel comes in but no no That's from the old fish barrels from back in Jerusalem. Jesus is time. Oh Guns back then again just made that up made it up. No clue. No clue interesting interesting

Well, the Gettysburg is interesting because it not only has the hauntings on the battlefield But it has so many different hauntings of the houses surrounding Gettysburg But I also think it's a really town what's important for these hauntings to actually like what they make these sites like historic sites And there's nothing built on them. There's nothing like Interrupting that energy that's still sitting there. It's kind of like a haunted house What's like the bloody lane where it's a concentrated area and nobody touches it? I mean, there's also something to the Importance of it and the giving to it the psychic energy of like this is an important place about and like there is a very like specific

Mark and history is here very bloody and that psychic support also. I I think probably supports the ghost energies Well, they need to build a Walmart on bloody lane That would be amazing. Oh my god. Yeah, and like an I hop those whole gloves flying everywhere. It's gonna hold Yeah, yeah, well the very first casualty of Gettysburg happened at the cash town in It's just it's your standard place where you know, they have it's poltergeist activity You have knocks on the doors lights turning on and off doors locking and unlocking and the owners of the house They claim to have photographic evidence of the of this soldier who was killed there I mean if these lights go on and off and if the doors open and that's just classic lock and unlock at the perfect time

It might just be unbelievably convenient You know, it's the first clapper You know you clap three times Private sergeant clapper You always turns the light out lights on at the perfect time I think the the most the creepiest battlefield hunting of Gettysburg that I found was what who they called the red-haired woman It's a woman. They say she's wearing a gray home-spun dress. She's got the most beautiful red hair You've ever seen and she's faith beautiful beautiful face

If you want to pump the romp you can pump the romp I want to reach around and grab the front now. You're a romp. You're feel the top. Oh All over that red head. Did anybody notice when Henry walked in all the female ghosts left? Yeah, we I don't even think what's haunted anymore line up lady ghosts. Hmm. They love you Henry So this woman they see you see her wandering around the battlefield in a daze just you know Just not really not running not walking just stumbling along and she just screams Jim Jim over and over again Jim, where are you Jim? I can't believe these prices

I mean, there's a lot of guys named Jim probably out there on the battlefield Could have just been any girl with a fucking red wig on walking around there looking for Jim and getting out of fuck some frat Halloween party You never know You never know there's gonna be a lady doing it right now in Tallahassee. God. I wish I was Jim though Yeah, that would be you know, we all want to be Jim feel bad for all the bobs and the Johns out there Another haunted house is a Hummelbaugh house. It's where a famous Brigadier General. His name was William Barksdale He was bright. He was a confederate general. He was bought to this house names are racist

Sound like what's this? Well, President Brigadier General William blocks day a lot come on down here. I'll own all you No, no, this is present day. Those are the New York Knicks Leave Malone You can hear his anguished cries, you know as he's dying slowly You can also hear this is an interesting one. This is a actual animal haunting Because he had a dog with him constantly after Barksdale died the dog sat by So funny because his name is Barksdale, right? Yeah, I didn't even think of that Marcus, do you think of that? I think I thought about but Henry said it first. Good. That's something as long as one of us got it

Yeah, yeah Number three podcast So the dog sat by the grave and starved to death Until you know after his master died just completely starved to death loyal dog Yeah, and you can still hear no food around one of the two and you can still hear that and see the dog wandering the grounds to this day Yeah, yeah, yeah hang out with the with the general with the Brigadier General I don't know if you see him. Well, I don't think you see the Brigadier General. Oh, your generals ghost just like riding the dog I weigh nothing now. I can finally ride the dog

Now for the creepiest Haunting in all of Gettysburg. Oh, yeah, I cannot believe I have never heard of before this the soldiers orphanage the Love it. So these are with these are children of soldiers. It is now. I'll get to why it's called the soldiers are very good, but yes I thought he said he was gonna get to it. I mean he answered immediately. Yeah, we'll get to it We'll get to it. He did get to it though. Yeah, I did get to it quickly The salt this place is so haunted yelling to me for no, no, it's so haunted that some psychics refused to go inside Jesus people. Oh, come on. Yeah, people get in there. They were fused to go It could be in pussies didn't I have a fireman went into the burning will trade center be a hero psychic

they didn't want to go in there and it's not often when I'm the researching stuff online and I see something and it immediately gives me chills Let's do this. I saw pictures of what that came to be referred to as the pit and it just immediately Can we look at the pictures? I'll show them to you. I don't have them pulled up. Oh, okay But the sad story of the soldiers orphanage began began when they found a soldier Dead on the grounds of Gettysburg clutching a picture of three children Okay, and for some reason the press got grabbed on to this and the Philadelphia Enquirer ran this big campaign

Whose father is he so funny how like newspapers have also like barely changed where it's like if you could get that Emotional hook in yeah to like of course because you're talking about war and it's like a big juicy story, of course Yeah, and people loved it. They ate it up. Is it possible that he was a pedophile? No, do we know that you're disgusting? We are American heroes. Well, he's a confederate. Oh fuck him. No, he's not a fine Oh, he's they're not gonna run a fucking confederate soldier in the Philadelphia Enquirer He's a hero So soon never know soon his wife Felinda hummeston

Felinda Felinda you gotta quit sucking that horse's dick So yeah, can I go to war because Felinda's been a real Felinda again. Oh She refuses to put any milk in the fucking jugs. She keeps just sucking it out of the other and I keep telling her it's ain't semen Felinda get off the other and semen is good protein for the lady My father told me not to marry you Felinda. You're horrible people both of you I mean what was he was a good woman? You don't know what you know what she did what did she do after the Outpouring changed her name to Wendy. No, that's a fine better name than Felinda Melinda Melinda would have been a better Melinda is a much better name

But yeah after the outpouring of public support people gave her so much money You know what she did she moved to Gettysburg and she opened an orphanage for Soldiers children. That's very nice. Yeah, she opened and after a few years Because of other obligations. They don't go into what they actually were but because of other obligations She turned the orphanage over to a young woman named Rose Carmichael. That's a nice name. That is a nice rose Yeah, rose was a merciless sadist to beat the children This is always that time them up in the basement for days and even killing some of them The crimes were discovered after a runaway was caught and told of her experiences the orphanage

Which included being beaten by teenage boys who Rosa armed with sticks and being tied to offense in the hot sun Until she suffered serious burns not to be anything but weren't most orphanages like this too at the same time more orphanage Just sound like they were a bad place to be they were awful 2010 they were a bad they were a bad place to be but this one was particularly bad Yeah, and it's not you they're not just going off of the word of one small child gear they went to the orphanage and And they found in the pit what is it? You know the seller which became known as the pit They found torture devices it had been converted into a dungeon children were set shackled to the walls and left to die

Jesus I'm talking about I knew it was gonna be a pedophile ring. It's not a pedophile She was sexually abused you just added that I'm sure that they were oh, yeah Well, I mean the boys that she sent to beat all of the other children. They were 14 and 19 Of course, they were doing some yeah, they were pecking and a touch in this is what yeah This sounds like a terrible place very haunted and this is the place that many So is it still extending yeah, well one paranormal investigator actually yes, it is they shut it down for years It opened up but opened back up in the 1950s as a museum people are allowed to go down there In fact one paranormal investigator who explored the cellar where the children were tortured. She wrote I

Crawled in the pit and saw what else no I had my EVP recorder along with me see this is when yeah For electronic voice phenomenon sounds like a man too kind of we left and went back to the hotel to review the evidence And said Delta Burke was she the yeah, I had two EVPs The one is my dad talking about going into the pit and you hear a female's voice saying Get back get back now and another one where my dad and I are in the pit and asked if anyone was in there and a child's voice replies Yes Now get out of here. I'm coming

The child's voice replied somebody burned the toastie knows That's Torture devices down there that is modern-day kid torture learning their toastie dough, which is difficult to do People say they smell so sulfur down there others come out with bites and scratch marks on them hell Yeah, I'd like to see that. Yeah, yeah There's also apparently a small black dog that roams the grounds You'll say oh look at the dog and then they notice that the dog's feet don't touch the ground Upstairs outside of the pit people report seeing a Confederate soldier who's bleeding from the neck and chest

He's going to hey, how you doing? How you doing ladies? Hey? I got a bit of a neck wound, but if you look past that Yeah, there's also another Confederate soldier that can see and be seen walking up the stairs holding a black satchel Okay, which is odd. Yeah, and after they Look on your face. Yeah, that is odd. Yeah the satchel there. Yeah, black satchel is great band name Black satchel. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so they were after they reopened it in the 50s It's a morbid place. I bet because they actually have a black satchel I bet because they actually have

Like if they had done it like fun if they had to redone it in a fun way with like a ball pit Like that would be really disgusting really weird. Yeah, so they show that would be pretty incredible I would love it. I'm saying I love it, but I'm saying it's probably better They do it in morbid than just being like and then the hamburger company. Hey, there's a stature the hamburger down there I think that would rile up pacifying the children They could rile up some ghosts though Especially if it's the kid at the child ghost if kids are over there having a great time full of joy that would really anger These kids who were tortured and murdered a whole basement of kids who never even got to have a hamburger probably. Yeah

That's a shame to me. That's the ultimate torture. It wasn't invented yet. When was a hamburger invented sometime later? sometime later yeah When the clown made it Ronald McDonald's in fact what they have down there is they have a wax dummy named Johnny Shackle to the wall Oh, Johnny's doing fine. Yeah, in fact Hollywood Square regular Charlie Weaver Narrates the story of Johnny's punishment And you ask who is Charlie Weaver? Yeah, how was he on Hollywood Square? He was obviously your regular He was a regular so let's hear a little bit of Charlie Weaver. Yeah

Charlie he didn't go for the block with Marty in the middle. Okay, let's see what happens He went for the bubble and Charlie telling bone-chilling stories from the south since 1974 A vice-admiral or a rear-admiral? Well that depends on who drinks the most Charlie Weaver He's a regular that is the oldest ugliest man It's that he looks like now imagine him narrating the story of a little boy being chained to the wall and tortured to death You know Johnny and his head his little bubbles and his bubbles played with and the others toes as mission

He smashed and the others fingers all crimpy to crump. It doesn't seem like that strange of a Situation for him. He seems like he has kids tied up in his base. Oh, yeah Yeah, you know, he's seen it a thousand times He wrote the book on doing bad things to a child and the book was called doing bad things to a child by Charlie Chuckmeister weaver the weave. I make the guys and the boys call me the big weave Yeah, there was the hair tavern, which was also a Confederate hospital people hear sounds of sawing and men begging for mercy Soldiers wandering the grounds bleeding from every fucking orifice that you can think of Everyone's just got to get the fuck out of Virginia. Yeah get out of there. Yeah

There's a littered with ghosts. Were there any major medical Advancements made throughout this time or were they just like we have so many people They saw it off. They're like they like learned. I like I feel it's what they learned what not to do Yeah, that's like. Oh, you know what we got to do. We're gonna wash this shit. Oh, you know No, you can't just pretend like it's no, no, we got to wash it. Yeah, you know when sometimes we just shouldn't let them Just die, you know, try to do something for him. Yeah Oh, then there's the Daniel lady farm. That's where they took guys who suffer from artillery wounds chest wounds and lost limbs They were brought to the farm to just suffer through the final moments of their lives

Oh, and that has one of the biggest hauntings because you have the ghost of both general Isaac Ewell and a core of 10,000 soldiers Jesus, and it's still haunt the ground and he's still directing them still directing That's a great afterlife if you're a general and you die with a thousand of your soldiers and you could be a general for all There's lost forever. Yeah, that'd be me you'll General you'll so let's bring all of this thing together and one of the night and one of the 1800s greatest spiritualist the man who was behind the plan Abraham Lincoln Love old spindly Lincoln. Yeah. Oh not so gay Secret gay Lincoln nothing gay about him just dressed real well and had concern for his fellow man

I mean he never slept with his wife. No, that's fine. I don't get many close male compatriots many close male friends But he's just a good old-fashioned funny guy. He had a Daniel Day Lewis. That's right. He's nobody straighter than Daniel Day Lewis That's he's an actor from Hollywood Of course him and mr. Weaver the two straightest guys around. Yeah, never sucked in a little boys nuts That's for a different episode so what I didn't know about Lincoln is while and during his presidency He used to have mediums come to the White House all the time. He's the this was mediumship and it's like height It really was like there was like what we had the the Fox sisters There was a bunch of people who did this like all throughout there were celebrities the channeling ghosts

Yeah, the Fox sisters were great. Check them out. We did an episode on the Fox is one of our earliest episodes We're about them. Look at look them up. They're big. Yeah full of lies. They were yeah, but that's fine And so here's another interesting thing about Lincoln is that he had a dream a week before his death Predicting it essentially just this prophetic dream and in fact Henry. I'd like you to read the journal entry This is very interesting and I wonder if a week from now if Henry will be standing over a boiling pot of sausages With a little red sauce Really happy because then I'd have all the jam sausages in there All right, all right, so it starts with that about ten days ago

About ten days ago Very late I soon began to dream There seemed to be a death-like stillness about me And I heard some nude sobs as if a number of people were weeping I Thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs There the silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible I went from room to room no living person was in sight with same mournful sounds met me as I passed alone. I

Was puzzled love It's the sound I made Okay, it's okay Determined to find the cause of a state of things so mysterious and shocking I kept on until I arrived at the East Room Before me was a catafalque on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments Around it was station soldiers who were acting as guards and there was a throng People some gazing mournfully upon the corpse whose face was covered others weeping pitifully Who is the dead in the White House? I demanded one of the soldiers and the president was his answer

He was killed by an assassin But what? An assassin? An assassin, okay, then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd and suddenly goes ooooh Which erode me for my dream. I slept no more that night and though it was only a dream I have been strangely annoyed by it ever since But I just went ahead and Sucked my assistant's penis and I felt better. I get the feeling he was wearing a corset while he was writing that I think Douglas might have won the debate if Lincoln would have used his inside voice outside Yeah, do you think that's- Oh, his shoes is too tight. I am president of

Daniel Day-Lewis did it wrong. You nailed it Henry. That's what Lincoln actually sounded like no doubt about it It's just like an old bitty Yeah, old bitty Lincoln. That's what they called him inside the old White House there. That's why he loved the theater so much And of course as we all know, you know Abraham Lincoln haunts the White House. They're Lincoln bedroom People say they've seen him countless times. Yeah, presidents have been haunted by him Richard Nixon was specifically haunted by Lincoln. Harry S. Truman was specifically haunted by him Yeah, they saw him all time and he just hang around. I would love to see Richard Nixon be haunted. Just like oh, he would be great I feel like no matter what was- I think he could be just as sad and upset by being haunted by Ghosty

He was like at the beach where he was just like at the beach like goddamn sand in my toupee Yeah, or sand in my arts in my eliminate. Oh, there's a great Netflix documentary on Nixon and they play a lot of his tapes That's exactly what he sounded like. That's pretty much all he did. He just bitched about everything. Yeah, very unhappy fellow Yeah, very unhappy indeed. Now, of course Ford's theater is also haunted people report hearing John Wilkes Booth running up and down Yeah John Wilkes Booth It's insane that John Wilkes Booth was such a famous actor at the time Yeah, he was a big time actor. He was a regular Mel Gibson over there. He was. He was. Yeah. And actors to this day report

I see sensations at center stage, strange noises, weeping and laughter, lights turning on and off, and a tendency to forget their lies But sadly it's not against just them failing. Yeah, it's just them not doing a good job on stage or really killing it Or just not understanding what a sound technician does or what a lighting technician does. Where are all these lights coming from? I'm up here. I'm up here doing my soliloquies and these people are laughing and weeping How dare there be a whole room of people to watch me. I prefer to act by myself That's me. Yeah, that's me. That's you like ten years from now. Yeah, it's gonna be great. So we have this I Can't believe how much research you did that we didn't even touch. No, I mean really like took touching three things We didn't go through the Alamo

The battle in Scotland in 1632 was that battle Scotland the cold like the McGecky. Yeah, no, but I can't yeah Go through the battle of Edge Hill during the One we'll do episodes like it will pick us up a few more Absolutely, like the next one we can almost devote completely just to Europe Yeah, but although I would like to you know cover the Alamo at some of course It will be your P.A. series is almost All right, everybody Marcus put those pictures up on the on the last podcast page Yeah, I want to see them. Yeah, come and check out murder fists. That's right

The Chicago sketch comedy festival this Friday and Saturday 11 p.m. It's stage 773. Mm-hmm. We have a show January 27th, I believe so This is the this is the last show before Henry goes to leaves town To go to Los Angeles. So come on down So we'll be doing we'll be phoning in from Los Angeles again like I did last year and it'll be fun. We'll have fun Oh, he's like, but you'll be here for January 27. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, so yeah Yeah, and then Twitter at Ben kissle and Marcus parks and that Henry loves you Join the Facebook page and you know sure your boobies everybody

Show your boobies to everybody as well. Yes, of course Um, we'll hail Satan everybody. Hell fucking Satan. I'll gain. I hope that statue goes up in Oklahoma. Fuck. Yeah Absolutely as a matter of fact I was talking to a lawyer buddy of mine who works for the ACLU and we might have a lock it other this short top It's they can't block it. No, thank you. No, it's wonderful. We'll talk about that. Yeah I don't know other pot. It's relations. Goose relations hell yourselves and thank you guys so much for listening and and making this I love you very very deep. Yeah Don't do that. You're gonna weed us long and now we're the number fifth show