The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 131 - John Ericsson and The Monitor

Episode Date: November 11, 2015

Comedian Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine inventor John Ericsson and his ship, The Monitor SOURCES TOUR DATES REDBUBBLE MERCH

When you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even know it. That in-law sweet guest house where your parents stay only part-time Airbnb it and make some money the rest of the year whether you could use a little extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.ca slash host. You are listening to the dollop. This is a bi-weekly, semi-weekly, half-weekly

podcast. Each half a week I read a story to my friend Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is going to be about and he can say that while he picks up a cat and moves it off a computer. God, do you want to look who to do? I'll do one bottle. People say this is funny. Not Gary Gareth. Dave, okay. Someone or something is tickling people. Is it for fun? And this is not going to come to tickle you, Claude Kelly. Okay. You are Queen Fakie of made-up town. All hail Queen Shit of Liesville. A bunch of religious virgins go to mingle. And do what? Pray. No. Hi, Gary. No. I see you've done, my friend. No. No. November 1st, 1767. Okay. That's recent. That's the year the Gosport Shipyard was established in Portsmouth, Virginia. Okay. Andrew Sproul, sure, had come from Scotland to America in 1746 to get rich. Oh, is that right?

Whoa. Yeah, that's the thing that keeps happening. Holy shit, Jose. That was like a fucking acrobat. He's just on the back of the chair now. Cool. Yeah. Sproul was a respected man in the business world buying lots and building on the waterfront. Lovely waterfront property. Came down here to get rich. Living the bloody dream I am. That's right. Absolutely. So dudes tearing it up. Yeah. Okay. He sounds a little Trumpian. He eventually became one of the town trustees in Portsmouth. Okay. In 1767, he founded the Gosport Naval Yard under the British flag. Okay. It's odd timing. 1776. We're getting some shit happening. Yeah, that's when you should be selling stock. There's tension. So he's like, well, I'm a Tory, so I'm going to be on the side of the rich. Right. The rich brits. So he was clear.

It's a marathon, not a bloody sprain. We'll see it finishes this one. So there's rising tensions between the Crown and the Colonials. And he is like, I'm picking sides. So he picked a winner. He picked a winner. He picked a winner. Yeah. And then when the he's the guy who is like the Washington generals or do like playing the Globetrotters or Senators. Oh, this. Shit. Who do the Washington? Who do the Washington Senators? Senators. Yeah. Okay. All right. Take two. Take two. It's a lot like, you know, the guy who bets on the Washington Senators against the Globetrotters. Hey, you are right. When the shooting started, he formally took the side of the British during the Revolutionary War and provided material support to the British Royal Navy. So he's in. Yeah. Yeah. All this turned out

to be a very bad move. Lord Dunmore was driven from Williamsburg by the Continental Army in 1776. He sought refuge with Sproul at Gosport. Dunmore was then defeated at the Battle of Great Bridge. So he bombarded Norfolk from his ships like a tough guy. So he got his ass kicked. So he just rolled out in a ship and started bombarding the city like just a little fucking ass clown. By the way, when when the when the US barracks of the Marines were blown up in Beirut, Reagan was the president. And so when he was rolling out of town, he just bombed the suburbs. That's cool. He was like, we got to do something. Yeah, blow up the suburbs. Yeah, you got those bombs burning the hole in your pocket. Yeah. So he pulled a rag and as I'll call it, then Dunmore tried to make another stand at hospital point.

I would not recommend making a stand at a place called the hospital point. Yeah, everyone will be everyone's fine. Yeah. Thank God it happened here. We literally we found all the gurneys. It's fine. God damn that cat. Oh, yeah. But that didn't go well either. And he was driven from the harbor. Portsmouth was then occupied by the Continentals. Go get it. Sproul tried to make a run for it. So now he's like, I'm getting the hell out of here. How would you say that in Scottish? No, that's it. We're going to get the bloody well out of here now. Move. But he didn't make it. Christ, I've got a bad feeling about this. I'm getting a little too old for this shit. So we went along with the other royalists were exiled to Gwinn's Island off of Virginia.

Gwinn's Island. Gwinn's Island. Tony Gwinn's. Tony Gwinn's Island. Oh my God. He died five days later and was tossed into an unmarked grave like a British bag of shitty tea. Oh, listen, that's a little much. No, like a shitty bag of a shitty bag of tea. Like this is just shitty tea. It's not like I just defended your mom. No, I'm more bummed that I didn't take more advantage of the Scottish guy being around. I didn't realize he was like dying in the cold open. Yeah, he just had a little tiny part. His land and possessions were confiscated and sold off with the money raised going into the public treasury. Everything he'd worked for was gone, including him. He was basically erased. Cool. That's all I want to go. The shipyard was still there. Okay. And it now came under attack from the British.

The Freet of Sir George Collier attacked Portsmouth and captured Fort Nelson. They burned 137 vessels at the Gosport shipyard at the time it was called the most considerable shipyard in America. Not anymore though. No, now it's just done deal. Now it's just burned ships and ships. Okay. Eventually the British were driven out again and this time for good. They came back in the war of 1812 for more attacking, you know. Yeah. Well, yeah, they wanted seconds. Can we have more? Can we have a little more war? The bomb here again is all right. You want more? Hello. We heard it. You've been bearing tea bags and whatnot. Bit more. Gosport eventually was rebuilt. It became a U.S. Navy facility in Portsmouth, Virginia for building, remodeling, and repairing the Navy ships. Okay.

The first ship built for the U.S. Navy at Norfolk was the Chesapeake in 1799. It became the first operational dry dock in the U.S. in the 1820s and everything went great for a while. Dry dock? Dry dock. That's where they lift that shit out of the water. Oh, the dry dock. Yeah, you're all about wet docks, aren't you, bro? Listen, I love a wet dock. Why have a dry dock when you can have a wet dock? You know what I'm saying? All right, so the civil war comes. Okay. Right? Fuck yeah. We're time traveling. Yeah, we are time traveling. Virginia joined up with the Confederacy. Okay. Now the shipyard commander was a dude named Charles McCauley and he worked for the U.S. Navy. Okay. So he ordered the shipyard to be burned down before the Confederacy took it over.

And what kind, sorry, and what is, how does that work? Is it just sort of like, he's like, if I can't have it, no one can? Yeah, well, he's like, the enemy can't have it. If I, I'm going to burn it, we're going to burn this shit down. But he was coming under attack when he did that? Well, he was just kind of operating from a paranoid place. Virginia just said we're going to join up with the Confederacy. So he's like, all right. So wow, something really hard just fell on my head. It's cool. Were you trying to stop the cat from knocking that on my head and then you knocked it on my head? Basically.

We'd like to both apologize. Right. So Virginia is like, we're going to join the Confederacy. And so now the shipyard is basically in Confederate hands. Okay. So then he's just like, yeah, burn this shit down. If I can't have it, no one can. So we ordered the shipyard to be burned down before they took over. But William Mahoney, a Confederate, was not about to allow that to happen. He took over a passenger train and ran it into Norfolk, making a lot of noise by blowing the whistle and doing anything else he could do to make it loud. Now as a he waited to swayed. So wait, and then he and then he get there and then he'd quietly back the train up very quietly and then he'd roll back in really loud again. He'd turn it or he'd come back.

Is that right? Yeah. And he did it a few times. So sorry, but his thinking is, I'll just be really loud. Yeah. That's all he was thinking. I'll be really loud. So all the federal troops, maybe that's the first time we as a species learned that that was ineffective. Well, all the federal troops thought there was a huge invasion happening and they abandoned the shipyard. What? Without a shot being fired.

Yeah, he basically just banged pots and pans and the guys. It was like they were fighting cats. Right. Wow. You had every right to call that plan crazy. When it worked, you must have been like, I'm sorry, I doubted you, dude. There had to have been dudes standing by the railroad tracks going. What the fuck is he doing? What is he doing?

Mahoney thinks that let's do something that'll stop them. Mahoney is convinced that they're going to run away. Is he drunk? What's happening? He's super drunk. Oh, okay. He's super drunk. I'm also drunk. So I'm just going to let him do it. I'm drunk too.

I'm drunk too, but we should let him do it. Yeah. I mean, it's loud. It's loud. It's loud. When he goes that way, when he goes that way, it's quiet. Why is he being quiet when he takes it out? I haven't figured this whole plan out.

Why is he being quiet when he makes it leave? I don't understand. I mean, I'm drunk, but why? God. I feel like he's sneaking a fucking word. A thing that hasn't been invented yet out of his father's driveway. Are you talking about a backhoe? Yep, a backhoe. Okay.

So, but the guy, Macaulay did manage to burn a bunch of ships before he left. He didn't burn the shipyard, but he burned a bunch of ships. Okay. So there's a little collateral damage. Yeah. So in the great coward retreat of 1861, he managed to set some ships on fire. At that point, most of the U.S. Navy's old ships were in dry dock at the shipyard, so they were toast.

Among the burned ships was the Merrimack. Okay. It had been a large steam and sail ship with 40 guns, so it's a big fucking ship. With a lot of guns. But because the retreat was so fast, the burning of the Merrimack was not complete. Everything below the waterline was saved. How much was below the waterline? I like the hull.

I mean, like the floaty part. Sure. Okay. Floaters is what I call it. Can someone get on said thing? I think that you can jump on the floats. It sounds like a sink waiting to happen. I mean, it sounds like a dock, kind of.

Yeah. Like a floating dock. Yeah. Or a canoe. It's a big canoe. It sounds like a shitty canoe. Yeah. So the Confederates took a look at the hull.

Sounds like half a submarine. It is half a submarine. Okay. That's exactly what it was technically called. Is that right? Yeah. But how did they? The Confederates took a look at the hull and said, let's put this ship back together

and kill some northerners. So they built, their plan was to build an innovative armored super ship. Whoa. Whoa. They're about to build super ship? Cover the hull in iron. Okay. And put an enormous battering ram up front.

This is exactly like RoboCop but with a boat. It is. As a matter of fact, this is where the plot of RoboCop came from. RoboBoat? Ro, ro, ro, robo boat. They created a floating battery. It took a long time to finish the rebuilding because most of the quality iron workers were from the north and the south was just farmers.

Oh, so this was taking a long, I mean, this took. Yeah. Because the north is industrialized. This isn't MacGyver shit. No. This is like, yeah. This is idiots banging stuff with hammers. Hey, listen.

As long as it's noisy. So it took them about a year to get the Merrimack ready to go. A year. Okay. And because of the time lag, the union was able to learn what the Confederacy was up to and build something to respond to this monster. See, that's why you got a MacGyver. Yeah.

You know? Yeah. Be the first there. Right. Get that fucking shit going. Strike while the iron. Pull up in your giant canoe. You're under, you're, pull up in your half suffering with iron on it and a battering ram.

And the fucking let them have it. So, uh. Help! Help us! So, uh, so they're looking for, the union's looking for a response. Sure. Right? So George Washington turned to a, uh, create George Washington.

That's wrong. Turned to a crazy asshole inventor named John Erickson. Wait, so that's not George Washington? No, it is, it is George. No, this is the Confederacy. I, I, that's, this is what I, why I read through stuff. Sure. Same here.

So, uh, it's the fellows in charge of the unions. Name's Lincoln. Okay. Uh, so he turns to an inventor named John. Does he do anything after that? Erickson. He turned to him and he just stared at him. Okay.

Erickson was a Swede. His father, Olaf, was a mind supervisor. He was a stereotype. No, no, no. I read the name Olaf. He was like, yeah. Uh-huh, yeah. I'm for Sweden, not Olaf.

Yeah. Uh, so his father was a mind supervisor who lost all his money in speculations, which forced him to move his family and he got a job working on the excavation of the Swedish gota canal, which is a hell of a canal. If you ever get a chance. I would love to. The fucking gota. You know what I mean?

Yeah. You, I want to go to there. Girl. Go ahead. I feel like we should stop there. Is that the end? Yeah. Okay, Neil.

Uh, there, the architect of the canal, the architect of the canal, noticed the skills of Olaf's two sons, John and Nils. It's gotta be Jan. Jan. Jan. Yeah, it probably was Jan. But we call them, when he got here, we called him John. Yeah.

You're John. No, my name is Jan. Uh, at 14 years old, John was working as a surveyor. He was so, uh, he was so short that a dude followed him around with a footstool so John could stand on it to reach the instruments. Okay. So, uh, first of all, adorable. He's like a muppet baby.

Second of all, if, if you're a surveyor, is, are you that, are you, I mean, is your eye that valuable that you're worth having a fucking dude follow you with a stool? I feel like surveying is, well, he's surveying in a, in a, they're doing a canal, but he obviously has to, he also, yeah, I think when you survey you, you know, you. For sure. But who's, is he's worth the, he's worth hiring a man to follow him with a stool? Well, I think a lot of people were idiots and he wasn't an idiot. So he's just like a human.

I'll tell you who's an idiot. The dude is carrying the stool around. That guy's a fucking moron. Uh-huh. Gunther. Yeah. Gonna feed it. Do you, um, need the stool again?

Sorry. I held it upside down the last time. Oh. He's like beaker from, uh, the Muppets. Yeah. All right. Now I'm back. Oh, see.

Uh, so, so he did that for a while and then he decided to join the Swedish army at 17 and he rose to the ranks. Right. Uh, in a spare time, he built a heat engine that used fumes from the fire instead of steam as in a spare time in his spare time, he was 17. He built an engine that would use the, the smoke from fires instead of steam to power the engine. You know how when you were 17, you were jerking off to internet and magazines and stuff.

He was building a heat engine in his spare time. I was also doing. Yeah. You were, that's what you're doing in your main time. Yeah. But he was doing, he was building an engine. I could have been building an engine very easily. I don't think that's true at all.

Oh, for sure. I don't think that's even remotely true. I was always in the engines. Okay. So that was his. So he's a savant. Yeah. So he resigned, uh, from the army because, you know, he was like, I'm really smart.

I should be doing this engine thing. Yeah. And he went to England. I think I can. He went to England in 1826 with his heat engine, but it was a no-go in England. It turns out it only worked with, with birchwood and not coal, which is what they were burning in England all the time until Margaret Thatcher killed all the coal miners in the 80s. Oh, geez.

That took a turn, but, uh, that, that's what a letdown that's got to be. Yeah. Because you got to be a hundred percent that this shit works. Look at this fucking engine I got. What is, what are you burning rocks? Look at this. Look at the engine. Do you like to see the engine?

Yeah. My name's John. Look at the engine I forgot here. Ah, what's, uh, do you have the wood? I think this boy's out of his fucking mind, I'll do. You do have wood. But you talk about wood. Yeah.

We may, uh, it goes in, goes in what, your bloody finger doesn't work, does it? Why? Your finger doesn't work, does it? My, why does it? You think it doesn't work? Is this a thing? What is he saying? It's an engine.

What am I saying? I don't know. Me either. You're, the accents on this island are horrible. Where are you from then? I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, come on then. Put this on if you like it.

Oh god. A spoonful of sugar. He went there, so that didn't work, but he kept inventing things based on steam then, and he improved the heat process, he created faster train engines, which were successful in fighting a huge fire in London in the 1830s, but the firemen who were called fire laddies. Well, that's got to be confusing with ladders. That's probably why they had to change it.

Oh, that might be why they came up with ladders. Yeah. Wow. Look at that. Uh, they were still not down with his new inventions, even though all the other engines froze up during the fire, and his engines moved and really put out the fire, but they were like, no, go fuck yourself. We're not going to use something foolish like that.

No, what's that? Is that work over there? Yeah. What? I just went straight to Boston. Yeah. What happened? Um, uh.

So he just because of... So he's just making things that's... He's making shit that's good. Yeah, but this dude ignored him just because he's like a prick. No, he's making stuff that's good, and people are just like, we're fucking using all the engines. No, no, I mean the fire guy. Yeah.

He didn't use his way of putting out the fire because he's just got some weird pride or something. Yeah, weird pride, or else they're all like, no, we'll use old Betsy. Yeah. Just fucking... You're not smart, okay? We're using old Betsy here. Just...

Go fuck you. Oh, I don't have to piss yet, but I'll try. Uh... Come on, old Betsy. Come on now. So his inventions were not commercially successful. Okay. And because of all the money he spent creating them, he was now in debt.

So he was imprisoned in a debtor's prison. What? A debtor's prison. Yeah. A place where if you... If you owe money, you go to jail, they happen in Dubai, if you go to Dubai, you'll see a lot of cars abandoned at the airport because if people lose their jobs, they go straight to the airport and fly out because if they don't, they'll be put in prison.

That's funny. They're also making a comeback in America. So enjoy that. Well, I will say it's... I mean, we were selling them houses a couple years ago. Right. Yeah. So, uh, when John got out of debtor's prison, he went back to inventing.

He invented a propeller, but the Royal Navy was not down with it. What's with the... What's with the England? Nobody wants to do anything fucking different. Is that what... So they're just being... That's what it is. They're just being dicks.

Yeah. No, we don't like that. No, we don't... Very different. No, that's not what we're doing. You see, we're looking for something that's, well, the same. We invented the thing that we like. And we...

Yes, we've really just responded tremendously to it. And what you've done is shit, no? Right. Language, my dears. Language. Sorry. But there was someone who was into the idea of his propeller that was American Captain Robert Stockton.

He had John build him a steamer with the propeller and asked him to come to the U.S. So John Erickson arrived in New York in 1839. Captain Stockton had hoped they would be able to build a bunch of ships, but they were only given the money to build one sloop, which ended up taking three years to complete. Jesus. What is a sloop? I don't know. Okay.

That's one of the things I would have looked up when I was rereading everything. Yeah. Well, the Beach Boys have a song with a sloop in the touch. Oh, I tell you, that's what it is. It is about... No, it's about... It's about water. It's about vehicles on water.

That's what exactly what it is. You know, Dave, I'm trying to meet you halfway. You don't know. You don't know. And, you know, you guys don't have to send me emails telling me what a sloop is. By that point, I will have looked it up. Sloop's that weird guy in the goonies. That is sloop, though.

So it was considered the most advanced warship of its time when they did finish it. Besides the propeller, it was designed to mount a 12-inch muzzle loading gun that revolved. Okay. In a fucking circle. Right. With John's design, the gun was stronger and can use larger charges than other guns. It could launch a 225-pound shell five miles with great accuracy. Jesus.

That's some fucking shit. That's a shit thing. Yeah, that's a long time ago. Yeah. But three years is a long time to work with John, and Captain Stockton started to despise him. By the time the ship was almost complete, Stockton was forcing John out of the project. And Stockton kept it quiet that John had invented these things, making sure to take as much

of the credit as possible. Okay. He even went ahead and did a little designing himself, creating a second 12-inch gun to be mounted on the ship, which is now known as the Princeton. But he didn't really understand designs and inventions and whatnot, so he created a flawed gun. Okay. That's not good.

The flawed gun doesn't sound good? No. Wait. Does it shoot flaws? Because otherwise, it's not good. It doesn't shoot them out, but it does kill flaws. It kills man. If it sees a flaw in something, it will shoot it.

How long do we got one of those here? So the Princeton was considered an immediate success when it was launched. All the big wigs came down to check it out on October 20th, 1843, including President Taylor. There were over 400 people there on the dock and on the ship and all over the place watching. It won a speed trial against what had been the fastest ship up until that point. Okay. Right out of the fucking gate.

This is a good ship. This is the fucking shiznit. Yeah. It's the ship. Okay. Then came the firing demonstration. That did not go as well. Is it?

Wait. Can I ask a question? Yeah. Was it something to do with the flawed gun? Oh, interesting. You were shadowing and you did pick up on it. Yes. I knew it.

On Stockton's gun, there was a rupture and it killed the U.S. Secretary of State. Oh, my God. What? And the Secretary of the Navy. What? As well as two sailors and one of President Tyler's slaves. Oh, my God. So that.

Oh, my God. Taylor slaves. It killed the Secretary of State. Doesn't seem very good. And the Secretary of the Navy. The Secretary of State. It did more than the British did in the whole fucking war. I mean, wow.

That gun was really flawed. It was a good gun. The President and his fiancee were also nearly killed. Jesus Christ. What if the President, I mean, imagine being at that demonstration. Well, you're like, okay, so this is over, right? The demonstration's over? It was very, very interesting.

Very abrupt ending. Very strange ending. So, so what? I guess we won't use this one. Sorry. I would ask the Secretary of the Navy, but he is a, I would describe him as a mist. Hey, he's dead. Yeah.

Well, he's in a lot of tiny, tiny pieces. He is dead. We needed him. This is not good. You have to get a new Secretary of State. That's another thing. Secretary. Where's my slave?

Oh, I've got a little more bad news, sir. Oh, God. Yeah. Not, not Robbie. That's it. That would be so great if that was the reaction. That was. We'll get a new Secretary of the Navy.

Yeah. Don't worry, you can always find another Secretary of the State. Easy. You mean Robbie? Not, not my Robbie. About Robbie? It's gone. Of course, now Stockton didn't want the credit.

Oh, dude, that's. And he now told everyone it was John Erickson's image. Oh, man. So it went like this. Do you like my thing? He did it. Yeah. This thing I've built is amazing.

You won't believe it. I built it all by myself. Four people dead. This guy came up with everything. That guy did it right there. This man, Swede. Blame the Swede. He also wouldn't pay Erickson and block the Navy from doing so, even though everything

John had made was sound and quite good. Is he, anyone is getting paid still? Somebody is still going to get paid after all this. He's gotten paid for building the boat. But there's four people are dead. He's still built a fucking boat. Yeah, but the dumb asshole had designed a different. I'm saying the dumb asshole.

Nobody should get any money. Well, no, people should get money for building. One guy did the right thing and one guy did the wrong thing. Oh, okay. I guess that's what we're learning. Don't get angry with me. Okay. John ended up spending several years in courtrooms trying to clear his name because the Navy

was pointing fingers. And he was also suing people for infringing on his propeller patent. Jesus. All of this endless shit turned him into an angry man. Yeah. He once wrote a friend that he shouldn't be abused because of anger because anger is involuntary. Not my fault. Fuck you.

I didn't do that. I mean, I did, but it's not me. Come on. Right. He did fly off the handle. Okay. But he would be quick to apologize. Okay.

But John did have one good relationship. He had met the man who owned the New York ironworks when he came to New York and he was given free reign to do what he wanted at the ironworks. It became known as the asylum as John went crazy with inventions. All right. He also made the Iron Witch, the first iron steamboat. He made the first hot airship called the Ericsson, also the first submarine boat, the first self-propelled torpedo, and the first torpedo boat.

Jesus. God. No way. Just fucking. Fuck it. I'll just make shit. My God. But on his own, he created his biggest invention, the caloric or a hot air engine, which was

started with that engine that he brought to England. Right. And then he continued to work on it over the years. And then in 1851, he unveiled it and it was considered an amazing design. In the New York Tribune, Horace Greenley wrote that, quote, the age of steam is closed, the age of caloric opens, Ericsson is the great mechanical genius of the present and future. It eventually won him the Rumpford Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1862.

Later in his life, this engine would make him wealthy. Seriously? Do you think that's a child or a human? Child. Do you think that child is screaming because it's autistic or do you think that it's just a child having a tantrum? Tantrum. Does it run outside and scream when it's upset?

No, this is a first. I'm glad you're here for it. Then in September 1861, a man, because if the kid had autism, I would be like, all right, that's totally cool. Okay, he has autism. Okay. It just sounds like he's a kid who's well- He has autism.

Who's your heart? Who's your heart? Where's your heart? Okay. Then in September 1861, a man from Washington came to visit John to see what he was working on. The Merrimack was being turned into an iron beast in Virginia, and the Union needed an answer.

Wait. So they're taking that giant hull of a ship, and they're going to encase it in iron, and they're going to turn into a giant battery ram, and they're going to fucking take it up the fucking coast and just start fucking killing ships. That's the plan. What ships? All the Union ships that are all made of wood. So this is like in advance.

This is new. Yeah. So let me put it in terms you can understand. Sure. A man is bringing a hammer to a watermelon party. Okay, I got you. Okay. The Gallagher Wars.

So John showed him a model of a new type of warship he had come up with. Okay. He said it could be built in 90 days. It was iron, and most of it would lie underwater. Above the waterline would just be a flat deck, and there would be a rotating pillbox gun turret. Oh, God. That's the greatest thing I've ever heard of.

It's a ship, but then there's just like a nice, well, call it a patio. And on that patio, just a spinning gun. Whatever. Yeah. You got to. Now, the Navy had not forgiven John for killing their top man, but Lincoln liked the idea. Despite the Navy telling and imploring Lincoln to avoid this crazy idea, Lincoln said, quote, all I have to say is what the girl said when she put her foot into the stocking.

It strikes me there's something in it. So I don't know either. Lincoln was America's weird uncle. Lincoln sounds like he had third stage syphilis at this point, and it was just babbling things. I mean, that sounds like something Gary Busey would say. Well, like the girl said about this thing, she put the stock in there some minute. We'll be right back with Busey's on it. Hey, the hell is this?

What the hell is this? Busey said. So it was on Lincoln wanted it and they were off. John stomping grounds. The ironworks in New York built the engine propeller and the turret. Other iron yards built the rest. John would go back and forth between the operations overseeing it. It took 101 days to be constructed.

That's pretty fucking quick. That's 11 over what I was told it would be. Yeah, I know. It's a little bit disappointing. I was promised this in 90 days. It's disappointing. Do I get my money back? No.

No. I think I should. In mid-February, his new, it's not a fucking Domino's Pizza, it's a fucking warship. You said 90, it was 111. I don't, there's nothing about you that I enjoy. 100 or whatever it was, the point is it's over and I deserve it for free and I should get the breadsticks for free. Oh God, I hate America.

In mid-February, his new creation, a ship called the Monitor, took her first test run and failed. Okay, all right. Steering problems caused the ship to be towed back to dock. Okay, it's a sad tow. During the second test run, the two guns in the turret recoiled off their cartridges. So they said to bring that baby back to the drawing board. Okay.

Then, on March 6th, it was a ship that was towed back to dock. On March 6th, 1862, the Monitor headed out to sea under the command of Lieutenant John Warden. But he was not into it. He also hated and distrusted John Erickson. Hell, everyone in the Navy distrusted and hated John Erickson. Because he got pinned with killing four people. Yeah.

That he didn't do. But he didn't do it. Still, that massacre really will stick with you, huh? Yeah. So, Warden wasn't happy about it. Like many of the Navy men, he distrusted Erickson and his inventions. Warden was said to be a slight man who had soft, lady-like hands, but was good at a fight. Who wrote that fact?

That was... That was... Who wrote that? That was... Who said that? In that order? That was an art. Was it some dude who got like the shit kicked out of him by the guy and was like, oh my

god, your hands, it's like being beaten up with two pillows? All I know is that that's a... Who do you soak them in milk all day? Oh, my face! That's how they describe it, soft, lady-like hands. Soft, lady-like hands and never one to back down from a fight. Yeah. I mean, he must have gotten a lot of fights when people would be like, sure, whatever

you say, madame hands. Right, so you're gonna jerk me off or what? Excuse me? What you fucking saying? Those hands, put them to use, bro. On the second day at sea, the monitor hit a storm. The engine stopped and the ship filled up with carbon monoxide. Um, now Dave, I don't know much, but humans need oxygen.

Right, they don't, they can't breathe carbon monoxide. That's the one they can't do. Yeah, that is the one they can't breathe. So that's bad. And the crew took turns fixing the engines as they passed out and dragged each other from danger. Sounds like a pretty cool scene. So this is not really helping John Erickson's reputation at this point.

No. No, that hurts. And the Navy's like, I fucking told you about the Swede. The sailors were skeptical because everything about the monitor was new. The ship was so low in the water that going to the bathroom had to be rethought. What? Well, think about it. Before the monitor, you used either a bucket or a hole in the upper deck.

Okay. We talked about the, we talked about another shit, the shit hole. Yeah. So the hole you shit through. Yeah, there's rope. So the first time you shit in the hole and you shit in a bucket and then toss it out. But what are the, so what did they have to rethink? But the monitor was below the water line, almost the entire ship.

Oh, so there was no, except for the patio. And the toilets need gravity to work, so you can't use the toilet. So just build a shadow. A what? A shadow. What is that? A patio you can shit in. Okay.

Why is there a second patio over there without a gun? Listen. And is that dirt? Well, you're going to hate a lot of the answers to your questions. I'll be, I'll be frank. So the waste had to be forced out of the ship. John solved the shit. Poop-Pedos?

Oh my God, you're so, John solved the shit problem by creating a kind of mini torpedo toilet. Poop-Pedos! I feel like you won and yet I feel like you didn't win. I feel like I won, maybe that's why I didn't win. After Sailor used the toilet, he had to close a near valve, open up a far valve, then operate a pump to shoot the waste out. Wow.

Right? So you turn, you turn, and then you pump. Yep, sure. It was hard to use a completely foreign to Sailors who were used to shitting in holes in buckets. Welcome to the future, gentlemen. It's not a fucking hole! John Sailor actually turned the valves in the wrong sequence and was blown off the seat

by a jet of salt water. Oh my God. Yeah, right at the bum. Straight up the bum. It says blown off the seat, but it doesn't talk about how much water went into his bottom. These sort of new inventions were all over the ship and it caused Sailors to look at everything differently. So he's like fucking taken how they, just how they live in a ship and turned it on its

head. Like everything's different in the ship. I mean, but the biggest difference is how they go to the bathroom. No, but then everything else, remember, everything else is different. I know. I know. Everything else is under. Okay.

Right. So everything's different. So their minds are just blown. Yeah. So now on the exact day that the crew on the monitor were facing the carbon monoxide death trying to fix the engines, the gigantic, heaviest shit barely able to turn Merrimack sailed out of the Confederate Gosport shipyard. Wait.

Right. So the Bohemoth is now coming out. Okay. Confederacy. Right. Oh, right. The darkness. Right.

Right. Right. From Mordor. The Mordor opens up and then out comes the. Yeah. The Merrimack was now called the Virginia by the Confederacy, but they lost the war and everyone still calls it the Merrimack. Okay.

So fuck you. All right. So it's outside Norfolk, the union had set up a blockade of three wooden ships, the Congress, the federal and the Minnesota. Okay. As the Merrimack approach, they fired cannonballs, but they just bounced off the iron plates. The Merrimack then got to doing what she did best. She rammed and sank the Cumberland.

Oh, gosh. For the Congress, whatever. Yeah. As her guns tore apart the Congress. Okay. So it wasn't the federal, it's the Cumberland. This is why I read it ahead of time. Sure.

Sure. Sure. The Minnesota ran aground. So they're all immediately toast. Uh-huh. Total victory. But the Merrimack wasn't unscathed. The battering ram had broken off and so the ship returned to Gosport, actually it's now

called Norfolk. They renamed it. The next morning, the ship was ready to go again. So they went back and they attached it or they just attached the old one was probably just hanging. Okay. It's like a lizard's tail. Like a lizard's tail.

This morning ready to go again. Finally, the monitor and the Merrimack met at Hampton Roads the next morning. Okay. Here we go. This was like Ollie and Frasier. I guess. Everyone had been waiting for these two to meet up. Okay.

I was going to say it's like. On both sides, everyone's like, this is fucking happening today. It's like King Kong Godzilla. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure people went down and fucking watched it from the fucking harbor. Oh. Look at this shit.

Okay. Putting money on it. Oh, man. Five on the Merrimack. That must be the greatest thing that could have possibly happened. Oh, my God. Is it human-wise? If you could sit there and fucking watch these two fight.

That's Truchosaurus. Yeah. Yeah. It is total Truchosaurus. So shit's about to get real. The monitor was very small compared to the Merrimack. The Confederate sailors yelled that the monitor looked like a cheese box on a raft. Fucking assholes.

Fucking. Yeah. That's just wrong. How dare they. But the monitor could do something the Merrimack could not. Don't tell me. Move. Okay.

As the ships battled, the monitor completely outmaneuvered the huge Confederate ship. Okay. They shot repeatedly at each other with the shells not doing much damage. Okay. But then Captain Warden was blinded by a bursting shell. He had the luck to be the only casualty in the entire four-hour battle. Well, he didn't have the luck. Well, that was a wrong bad way to put it.

The people had the luck. The other guys. The other conf- yeah. And it was a stalemate. Both ships withdrew, both damaged, but able to sail. They both quit? Yeah, they went for four hours and they're like, nothing's happening. Captain can't see.

Let's just, let's wrap this up. We'll come back. You guys want to take time? Halftime? Do you want to do two tomorrow? Do you want to do two tomorrow? Do you want to double this? Do you want to double this tomorrow?

Two tomorrow, two. Both the Union and the Confederacy claimed victory. If one had to decide, you would say the Union had been victorious because the blockade held. Right? Yep. But rumors flew. People thought the Merrimack was coming to bombard the city. Oh my God.

The Times reported the Merrimack was going to Washington to, quote, smash Congress as badly as it did the vessel of that name at Hampton Roads. See, that was good how they did it. But in truth, the Merrimack was back at Norfolk undergoing repairs. When the truth was known, New York called John Erickson a hero, and a song was written about his invention called The Monitor and the Merrimack. Finally, after so many years, John Erickson was being praised for his work. Wow.

Lincoln came to see Wharton in the hospital. Okay. Quote, you do me a great honor, Mr. President, and I am only sorry that I can't see you. I put my pants on like every other gentleman. When I'm through my arms. Yep, it's true. He has syphilis. It is you.

He has syphilis real bad. But Wharton was still not impressed with the monitor, probably because he couldn't see. Well, he's not a big problem. He told the president not to take the monitor to Norfolk to confront the Merrimack again. He's like, it's shit. It's a shit ship, even though it's clearly not a shit. He's just still. He's still.

Yeah. Yeah. Now he's blind. Now he's blind and he's like, oh, so your ships, they fucking kill guys and they blind people. All the head guys, oddly. Talk about the easiest guy to placate in this situation, just like, OK, yeah, we won't. And then you're like, yeah, let's do it.

You're not going to do it, right? No, no, we're good. We're good. OK. You just sit here and look out and we'll sit here on this cliff and watch and we won't do it. Promise. Here we go.

OK. Not doing it. Sounds a little noisy. Yep. Don't worry about it. OK. Just a lawn mower. Wait, what?

Nothing. It's in the future. Wait. But the Merrimack wanted round two. Oh, here we go. As the next couple of months passed, the Merrimack would sail up to the blockade wanting the monitor to have a second go. Oh, so I mean, OK, so we're dealing with like, Transformers ships in a way that the ships

are taunted. It's like, what's that, bitch? You're going to come out here, girl? Why don't you just hang behind your friends all day, huh, bitch? I'm a tiny iron ship. Come on. It's like the Merrimack talking so much shit on me. Bring it out here.

God, he's been such a jerk right now. As much as the new captain wanted to, he was under orders not to sail out to fight the Merrimack. Oh, my God. He must have been fucking stewing. Oh, yeah. Losing it. But the Union didn't need to.

It was winning the ground war. So it didn't need to fucking have a fight. Still, it's pride, David. It is pride. In May, Confederate troops abandoned Norfolk in order to protect their capital of Richmond. The captain of the Merrimack, rather than see her in the hands of the Union, ran the ship aground and set it on fire. Oh, boy.

Okay. Interesting call. The monitor was the last ship standing until New Year's Eve, 1862, when the monitor sank in a storm. But that didn't matter. The monitor was the real deal. Lincoln ordered more monitor-like ships built. 70 of them would be constructed during the war.

The British Royal Navy canceled all construction of wooden warships. The day of the wooden warship was over. The Confederate Navy even built ironclad ships. But they kept it weird. One ship was shaped like a giant turtle with a long iron tusk. I couldn't find anything else about that, but why is a giant turtle ship? Who was... Did they let a four-year-old design the ship?

He'll be a turtle with a unicorn horn. It's gotta be a turtle. A turtle. It's kind of a big... Like a arm coming out the front. It's like a horn. And why he breathes his candy? All right.

You heard him. A turtle with a unicorn horn that breathes candy. Go south! Goddammit. How did this happen? I'm in charge. This is bullshit. If we ever found out how this happens...

Why did we put this five-year-old in charge? Listen, I don't know. I... Turtles! Okay, guys. Get back to work. Make a possum! Oh, my God.

I swear to... Possum train! Possum train! Why I gotta make a possum train? I really think that we should just burn this place and we should just burn the turtle ship. We'll return to PBS's How the South Lost the War. But John Erickson was now the man.

Okay. During the war, he made improvements to the iron ship's designs. He continued to experiment and invent for the rest of his life, even dabbling with solar power, creating a machine able to gather sun radiation strong enough to run the engine. Well he would be happy to know that we're almost ready for it. And then Exxon bought it and put it in a cave. Erickson died on March 8th, 1889, the anniversary of the Battle of Hampton Roads. Captain Warden came to his funeral.

He was able to see again. What? So eventually, I guess it healed and he was able to see. Wow. Yeah. That's a good ending, although half his face was permanently darkened, like a Batman villain. Still.

Look, the Phantom of the Opera made it out. I can see how I'm going to kill you! Oh boy, he shouldn't have been able to see himself. Warden eventually became an admiral. Oh, half blackface. Yeah. Are you doing a minstrel show lately? Oh no, sorry, no, my head cut on fire.

But not the whole head? Nope, just right down the middle. Right down the middle. Straight down the middle. Like somebody, believe me, like someone drew a line down the middle of my face and painted it. It does look like that. It really does.

I guess it was just the way the blast hit me. I mean, I shielded myself quickly, but yeah, this half... Oh my God, here comes a turtle ship! Oh God, I wish I couldn't see again. Warden eventually became an admiral. Admiral Warden. John Erickson is regarded as one of the most influential mechanical engineers ever. His body was exhumed and returned to Sweden because he is a national hero.

Oh wait, they just, after he died, they were like, can we get him back? Yeah, I think so. They were like, that guy was good. Oh, and that stuff, yeah, they wanted him back. They wanted that sweet, sweet corpse. That's a weird, weird thing, right? What, want a corpse back? Yep.

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think we could call that pretty weird. Yep. Yep. But people like getting people that's always been going on, they want their bodies back. That doesn't make it okay. No, I mean, you could also send him a fake one. Yeah, that's him.

Yeah. What do you mean? Oh my god. It doesn't look like him. You know what we sent him? This guy's got half black, half white skull. We sent him Larry. I'm not shitting you, Larry.

You know the janitor? Oh, look at everyone, look at John Erickson. Here he is. That is Larry. Right here. Smells like beer, right? Very strong smell of beer. That's Larry.

Great. So yeah, are you happy? I'm happy, yeah. I think that was good. That was a fun story. It was not bad, right? Yeah. Nobody really died.

I mean, except for- Guy got his half of his face burnt off. Yeah, guy became the family. Well, the secretary of the navy and the secretary of the opera. The admiral of the opera. The secretary of the state died and a slave and two sailors. I was about to hit them, so you don't need to act like I was- So not, so you've made the point that nobody died?

I was about to say that. If you listen back, you'll hear I was about to say it, and then you got into your stack. When it actually has a higher body count than most docks. Don't fucking pin this on me like I- No, no, no. It does have a higher body count than most dollops. What is your, what are you doing right now? It's five.

What's your problem? You agreed with me and you just decided to be an asshole. Five heroes. All right, I'm done. I'm good. American hero. I'm done. I'm good.

If you want to follow us on Twitter, go to the dollop at the dollop on Twitter. We're on Facebook, whatever, Facebook slash the dollop. We have a, don't send, do not send suggestions to Twitter or Facebook. Man. Stop it. I am. It's your Gary. Yeah.

And just don't do it. Every time someone's like, have you heard about this? Great topic. And you're like, the dollop at gmail.com. Why don't you send it somewhere else? And then we have the Patreon, which is very nice. It has picked up since, I think since I said all these people are canceling. Look at it this way.

It's the one place Dave won't block you from. That's true. A guy did send me an email saying, hey man, you blocked me because of something that just innocuous that happened. And you were like, that doesn't sound like me. You should probably unblock me. And I was like, I don't know. So did you unblock him?

No. That would require looking at his name and searching. It's really easy to do. I don't know. I blocked Andy Kinlan the other day. Why? It's just this fucking Jesus Christ shut up. Oh my God.

It's going to be great working with the show this year. Yeah. I think that's it. Okay. Carry on. Bye. Wayward Son. Okay.