The Eric Metaxas Show - Samuel Mitcham

Episode Date: July 14, 2021

Historian Samuel Mitcham returns to the program to share fascinating stories from his book, "The Retribution Conspiracy: The Rise of the Confederate Secret Service."

to the Eric Mattaxas show with your host, Eric Mettaxas. Hello there. My name is Eric Mataxis. I'm going to be the host of today's show. It's the Eric Mataxis show. Albin, I'd like you to be my sidekick producer, whatever you want to be. I'm going to try really hard this time. I'm going to try to make it. Now, okay, we have one particularly important announcement to make right now.

Before we get into all, there's a lot of important stuff in a few minutes. we're going to be talking to Doug Mastriano. Now, that's going to be hour one today. Yes. And I think we may play what I'm saying now in both hours in front of both guests. But in hour one today, Doug Mastriano. Senator. If you missed it.

Doug Mastrian. He's the, he's the senator, state senator in Pennsylvania, an American hero. This is so important. I'm aware of not being up. to this. This is a very big deal, folks. And we're going to get to that in a moment. But I just want to... Sorry, in an hour two, Samuel Mitchum is going to talk about the retribution conspiracy. Okay, that's history. So that's like an evergreen we recorded some weeks ago. But in hour one today, Doug Maastriano, that's breaking news, huge stuff. But before

we get to that, here's an announcement. Some of you know that our, well, one of the two major sponsors on this program is nutrometics nutrametics.com. Tim Eaton, who's behind that company who founded it, a missionary pilot, he was a missionary pilot and they give 50% of their proceeds, their profits, I should say, to missionary activities and charities along those lines. So they're heroes, and we are honored to partner with them. But when we were canceled off of YouTube, he said I want to do something for you and for the program. How can I help? And he offered,

instead of giving 20% discount to my listeners for using the code Eric for one week. So this is the week. Today's Tuesday. So from today till next Tuesday, offering 30% discount. Now, folks, I think it's safe to say this is a one-time only offer. It's an introductory offer.

So if you go to nutrometics.com and use the code Eric today or in the next five or six days, you get 30% off using the code Eric. After that, it goes back to 20, which is fantastic already. But I'm just telling you, this is the kind of company that it is. They didn't do this as some kind of a normal promotion and use the excuse of our YouTube cancellation. They reached out to us because of the YouTube cancellation, said, what can we do? We want to give to the program or something like that because they wanted to have our back. So if you go to nutrometics.com, you will use the code Eric and you will get 30% off. Again, this is good this week.

This is not a gimmick. And these supplements are excellent. Anne and I use the melatonin in particular to go to sleep at night. And she personally has used many other products. And this one works for us, the melatonin. We use all the different products. The curcumin or it's curcule. Humans. She uses that. We use them together, the vitamin D with the K and all that.

But no, these supplements are excellent because we've used other brands and these ones are great. This stuff is so powerful that Anne hasn't been out of bed for weeks. She's lost her job. It's not good. It's not good. Way too powerful. You take a few drops to that melatonin. Well, this is like industrial strength melatonin, man. You got to read that bottle. Because Anne, her career is going down the tubes as a result of the sleep that she, okay, we're kidding. career let's go back no but so I want to say so because new tremetics um and we got to get Tim eaten back on the program soon because he's I want to hear more of his story but this is the kind of company they are right they say we're neutromedics.com and we're not here just to make money

we are here to do the right thing and so everything they do what they do with their profits whatever but it goes beyond that they said you know in effect we've got your back so you've been canceled from YouTube. You're losing a lot of revenue, which we are. And we want to help. Now, on the theme of we've got your back, I was recently in Kansas City and there's no way, no way, I can sum up or do justice to what Suzanne and I experienced there. I've never in my life seen anything. And I challenge anybody to tell me, can you think of anything comparable to what Mike Bickle has been doing in Kansas City for the last, it's basically 40 years almost, but it's really the last 20 that he started this nonstop prayer and worship. When I say nonstop, I mean 24-7.

The worship and prayer literally never stops for 22 years now. It's been going. We visited this prayer room. The whole thing is hard to take in partly because the media obviously, he never covers this, nobody cares. The whole thing is astonishing. And certain people in the know are well aware of this. But I thought I'd never visited there. I've heard about Mike Bickleson, gosh, 1990, I think I started hearing about him. He was a young man in his early 30s.

Now he's 65 and 66. I don't know. But he's been doing this for all these years. So Suzanne and I were there. While we were there, Mike had invited us through Ken Fish to be. to be part of something. I didn't quite know what, but I never met Chris Reed,

who is a gifted minister on a level I can't even. We won't go into it now, but we're going to have Ken Fish on the program tomorrow. Don't miss tomorrow because Ken Fish and I are going to unpack what I'm talking about here. But Chris Reed, and, you know, when you get to hang out with these people for days, you get to see who they really are.

And these are just the most transparent, honorable, wonderful people, which thrills me to say that, by the way. Someone I never met before, never read his books, never heard him preach a sermon, Francis Chan. He wrote a book called Crazy Love. He and I are not on the same page in some ways. But to get to know this guy as it was such a gift, we became friends. I cannot help but love him. He is just such a superb human being and so transparent in his.

faith. And he talked about how much it has cost him. And this gets to kind of what's happened to me with Trump and something. If you take a stand and you feel kind of an obligation to take a stand, many people are going to mischaracterize you and they're going to attack you. And the way he put it, he preached a sermon on Saturday night that we have to get on my personal YouTube and I have to put it on Twitter and stuff. I haven't found it yet. But he preached a sermon. It was amazing. Amazing. He talks about if you stand with somebody, you inherit all of their enemies. In other words, when he says, I'm friends with Eric Mataxis and I stand with him. He's my friend and my brother and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We have some differences, but I stand with him. Everyone who hates me now hates him and goes after him. Similarly, if I stand with Francis Chan, everybody who hates him and they're out there because I've noticed them on Twitter and stuff, They start coming after you about what they don't like about him. And I think we're living at a time, and this is what cancel culture is.

The reason we all have to be brave now and speak out is that if we speak out for each other, we form a phalanx, kind of like, you know, the movie Gladiator, where you stand together as a shield. That's the key. And what's happening now in the cancel culture, people want to pick you off one at a time, one at a time. If you say this, you're out, you're out. So we have to stand together, even when we don't. agree with everything. So, you know, well,

talk about this. Jesus said if they hate me, they're going to hate you. Well, I mean, that's the whole point. So some people say, well, yeah, I'm a Christian, but, but, but, you know, it's just an interesting thing. There's a moment in our culture now about, are we going to stand together? So when Tim Eaton says, we want to stand with you, we want to offer 30% off to your listeners for the code Eric for this week.

That's just a show of support to say, you know, if you want to attack him, you're going to attack us. If you're going to attack him, you're going to, we have to stand together. So I wanted to say that we're running at a time. Let me just point out before we go to our guest. And again, hour one, don't miss it, Doug Mostryano. But we're going to have Ken Fish tomorrow. I want to say, please, again, sign up for the newsletter.

You have to go to Ericmataxis.com. Please do this, folks. Ericmataxis.com, sign up for the newsletter. I want to say this Sunday I'm preaching in Bangor, Maine, Ken Graves' Church. After that, I'm going to be with Charlie Kirk, T-P-P-U-S-A in Tampa. Going to be in Birmingham. Go to my website, EricMetaxis.com. We might be at a time, in which case I'll say, see you soon.

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that duck hunting neck of the woods where I have been with my daughter in the blind with Phil Robertson, that neck of the woods. We're talking again to our friend Samuel Mitchum, Samuel, welcome back. Thank you very much. What is this book about? I have to tell you, it's very, very intriguing. This is a brand new book. It's called The Retribution Conspiracy, the Rise of the Confederate Secret Service. What in the world is this? And how did it end up being a whole book by you? Well, it's based on the theory that the Confederate Secret Service was behind the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. And I couched it in a novel form because some of the dots can't be connected properly.

But that makes sense when you stop and think about it. If a historian can trace the activities of a secret service 154 years after it ceases to exist, you don't have to ask, was it any good or not? You know it wasn't worth a hoot. Well, but I mean to play devil's advocate after 154 years, you think some people would have talked eventually. Around 1920, some of these people would have started talking. So let's, just so my audience is clear, even though it's a novel, this is fact-based.

You're not just making stuff up. The fundamental facts are there. That's right. If I was a DA, I could get enough evidence against a Confederate Secret Service to get an indictment, but I couldn't get a conviction. And secret services do tend to be rather secretive. Yeah. And I think that's why none of them talk. They headed for the hills.

But is the thesis of this book new? In other words, I have never heard that the Confederacy defeated in war, nonetheless, after the war, decided to kill Lincoln. Have other books been written about that? Because I've not heard that before. Well, first of all, the war wasn't over. Robert Ely's surrendered on April 9th, but that was only about 20% of the Confederate Army. The rest of it was still in the field.

And John Wilkes Booth, a 26-year-old actor, wasn't convinced the war was lost. I mean, you and I know it was, but we're looking at it dispassionately a century and a half later. John Wilkes Booth, who was right in the middle of it, didn't think so. Now, I just have to clarify, because this is all news to me, since I don't live in the South, I've missed a lot of this. How is it that we say that the Appomattox courthouse ends the war, but that on April 9th, when Lincoln was murdered, the war was not over. I always believed that the war was fully over by the time he was killed. No. He was killed on that. Well, he was shot on April 14th. He died the following morning. But there were large Confederate forces still in the field. The whole army of Tennessee, Nathan Bedford

Forest Army, Richard Taylor's Army, the Army of the Trans-Mississippi Department. It was by no mean sure, and General Sherman was very worried about this, that the rest of the Confederate armies would surrender. How can they not surrender if they're general has surrendered. In other words, if he surrenders, how is it not clear that the word comes down, it's over because our leader has surrendered? Well, Leo only surrendered the army in northern Virginia. He did not surrender the Confederate Army. When was the war officially declared over then? President Andrew Johnson declared it over in June of 1865.

I think for all practical purposes, it was over on May 26, 1865, when the Trans-Mississippi Department surrendered. I'm just amazed that I'm learning about this right now. The idea that Lincoln was murdered before the official end of the war is fascinating. I'm assuming most people don't know this. Am I the only one? A lot of people don't. Appomatics is seen today as the end. of the war. And we know today that it really was basically the end of the Confederacy. But

that wasn't known in 1865. Sherman was particularly worried, and so was Grant, that the Confederate armies would break up and they would have a guerrilla war for 20 years. Like with the Japanese on those islands in the South Pacific? Yeah, except it was more like 300,000 men rather than two or three. So I guess I want to get this chronology right, because I love learning about these things. When did Sherman do his infamous march to the sea burning everything in the south? What months was that happening? November and December, 1864.

Okay, so that's long before the end of the war. But so did he do that? Why did he do that? Because it's a little bit of a source point. Well, he wanted to break the South spirit. He wanted to break him economically. He didn't face much opposition. Matter of fact, in a letter to his wife,

he once talked about exterminating the southern population. And that was part of it. In fact, is it a little bit like the Dresden bombing, something that simply need not have happened? I guess it depends on what to think about it. I don't think it was necessary. He didn't face any opposition. He just let his troops run wild. And that may have played a part in the size of.

of Lincoln because they were, oh, you got to go back really to May 1862. There was a Russian. He was commanding a brigade of Union troops. And his name was Ivan Zovanovich, Chertinov. And Kirtzinov is going under the alias of John Perch. He allowed his troops to sack Athens, Alabama, which ironically enough was partially pro-union. And they destroyed the business district. They committed a number of rapes. They raped a pregnant woman. And it caused her to miscarry.

Both the mother and the fetus died. They raped some slaves. They raped a 14-year-old girl, black girl. And the commander of the Army of Ohio, his commander was a guy named Buell, Don Carlos Buell, who was a gentleman. He had him arrested and court-martialed and convicted, and he was cashiered, which today would be called a dishonorable discharge. That's all? Well, for effectively killing two people.

Just a minute. What happened next was Abraham Lincoln overturned the court-martial conviction, pardoned from Churching, and promoted him to Brigadier. general. And this sent a message to the Union Army that the troops could do pretty much anything they wanted to in the South. And that was one of the causes of the retribution. There was another raid, the Kilpatrick-Dougarne raid, which was part of this. That happened in March 1864. Dargren, your doggren was son of Admiral Dowgren who invented the famous

Dowgan heavy artillery piece. He was killed and on it, on his body, they found a list of the people that they were going to hang without trials. Jefferson Davis was at the top of it. All the Confederate cabinet was on it. And any senator and congressman who was too slow would be killed.

without trial. And Davis was a believer in law and order. And I believe that's when they put Abraham Lincoln as a target. Because prior to that, the Secretary of War, James Seiden, had said that Abraham Lincoln is not a target. We will not target Lincoln personally. And he reversed himself 180 degrees after that. I just have to ask you, because I'm confused. You're saying, that Lincoln knew about these atrocities. These are really war crimes and that he approved of it. That doesn't seem to be in line with what I have thought of as the character of Lincoln. I'm surprised to hear this. Well, today, I think you would have an easier time denying the divinity of Christ than criticizing Abraham Lincoln. He became a great barter. But he wasn't so

popular in his own time. Edwin Stanton, his secretary of war, habitually referred to him as the long-knit gorilla, a baboon, a giraffe, as did many other union political leaders. Well, let's pause here. I mean, I know that he was not well-liked, but that really doesn't say much because many great men and women are not well-liked. We're going to follow up on this, folks. Don't go away. Exciting conversation. We'll be right back. Folks, I am talking to Dr. Samuel Mitchum. The book is The Retribution Conspiracy, the Rise of the Confederate Secret Service. I have to ask you more about Lincoln.

I am fascinated. It's one thing for somebody to be hated, but some people are hated for good reasons. Some people are hated for bad reasons. Lincoln may not have been perfect, but I have to say I am genuinely surprised to hear that he would sign off on what we would think of as war crimes. The idea that he, that this person was a court-martialed, cashiered, as you put it, and then that Lincoln reversed that. So Lincoln intended to send a message to the union troops that they could rape and kill. That's what you're saying. And by the way, is that, well, please, go ahead.

I think he did. Whether he did or not, he sent the message, whether he meant to or not. But the North was pretty well suppressed by the radical Republicans under Lincoln. An estimated 32,000 people were arrested and were not granted the right of habeas corpus. He suppressed over 300 northern newspapers that opposed the Republican regime. So, in matter of fact, Francis Key Howard wrote an interesting book. He was the grandson of Francis Scott Key, who wrote the Star Spangled Banner. He was one that was arrested, and he was held in prison for 14 months. Ironically enough, he was held prisoner at Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor,

where his ancestor wrote a star spangled banner. Lincoln even issued an order to arrest the Chief Justice of the United States, Chief Justice Taney, who was 84 years old at that time, and he couldn't find a federal marshal who would enforce the arrest order. Why did Lincoln want the Chief Justice arrested? Because he had jailed some Marylanders, one in particular, who appealed to the Chief Justice justice to be granted his rights of his previous corpus due process. And Taney ruled in his favor. Lincoln ignored the ruling and ordered Taney arrested and he couldn't get anybody to enforce the arrest

warrant. He could have gotten the army to do it, but he didn't want the army arresting a chief justice. And I think he realized he had acted rashly because that would have been a public relations disaster for his administration. So they just ignored it. It's extraordinary to hear these things. I, you know, I'm interested in the truth. Nonetheless, it's very dismaying to hear these things about Lincoln. I think there are certain things we can overlook, certain things that they're tougher to overlook.

The idea that atrocities were committed by the Union Army and that they were not dealt with as such things need to be dealt with. It is horrifying, and I can understand how it would lead to many in the Confederacy to say we've got to kill that guy. So in the book, you link up, as you say, the Confederacy with John Wilkes' booth acting on behalf of others. Is that the main issue that he was not acting alone? Obviously, he wasn't acted alone, non-concern.

conspirators were put on trial. Eight of them were convicted. The other one, John Surrat, probably would have been convicted, but by the time they caught him, the statute of limitations had run out. But, yeah, four of them were executed. Three were given life in prison, and one was given six years in prison. Basically, his crime was holding John Wilkes Boose horse outside Ford's theater after Lincoln after Booth went in to kill Lincoln.

Well, that's almost driving the getaway car. So, but that's, um, the question you got to ask yourself, did this guy know that Booth was going to assassinate Lincoln? And the prosecution could not prove it, but it didn't matter. It was not, and this is, of course, totally unconstitutional, but these people were tried by military court marshal picked by edwin stanton and you probably heard military tribunals are organized to convict these people were civilians but they were put in front of a military tribunal um so then then then how does this how does the thesis of your book differ from the

general idea that there was a conspiracy that it originated in uh in the Confederate Secret Service. Is that the main idea? I take the position, the Confederate Secret Service. Well, we know it was operating on the edges of the conspiracy. We know it paid John Wook's booth, the modern equivalent of $40,000. We know that he received other payments.

We know that he met with, Colonel Jacob Thompson of the Confederate Secret Service. The only thing we don't know is how deeply the Secret Service was involved in it. And as an historian, you know yourself, you've got Dutch, you have to connect with historic facts. But because the evidence was largely destroyed, you can't do that in this case. So I connected the dots myself because novels are governed by their own rules. And in my novel, the Confederate Secret Service, has ended up to its neck. Well, when we come back, I want to ask you how it was, what you stumbled on to cause you to write this book.

Folks, fascinating conversation, the retribution conspiracy is the book. Don't go away. Folks, I'm talking to Dr. Sam, Samuel Mitchum. The book is the retribution conspiracy, the rise of the Confederate Secret Service. Dr. Mitcham, what was the, you know, the inciting incident for you as a researcher, as an historian? What got you to say there's something here that's worth a book? Well, it was kind of brought home to me in an instance that occurred in 1923. Robert Todd Lincoln, Lincoln's surviving son, spent many years in the bureaucracy.

He was Secretary of War under Garfield and President of Offer. He had a couple of buddies visit his home, Horace Young and Nicholas Murray Butler, who was the president of Columbia University. And they were appalled when they arrived because Robert Todd Lincoln was going to be. going through Abraham Lincoln, his father's papers, and was burning some of them. And I asked them, why are you burning your father's papers? He said, because I have uncovered evidence of treason in my father's cabinet. And they appeal to him not to burn it. And Lincoln asked, why shouldn't I burn it? And I think it was Butler who said, for the sake of history. And And Robert Tard Lincoln said, yes, for the sake of history.

And he tossed another sheet of paper onto the flames. So was the Confederate Secret Service working with a cabinet member? Well, what I don't understand is why in the world would Lincoln's son want to destroy that kind of evidence? In other words, it's not evidence against his father. It's evidence against his father's cabinet. That's a very good question. I wish I could answer it. but he never chose to reveal the reason he did.

And who wrote about this incident? Which of these men wrote about it? Oh, there were a couple of books, but I'll what was this name? It doesn't matter. I'm just fascinated that there would be somebody in Lincoln's cabinet who was working with the Confederacy. That's kind of big news. Do we know who it might have been? Yes, Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War.

As a matter of fact, I just remembered. It was Otto Einsmith who wrote while Lincoln was murdered. And that was in 1937. And that was later reinforced by a number of books, including one by Major General William A. Tidwell, who spent 23 years in the CIA, along with a couple of co-authors. And there was sort of a paper trail to Staten.

for example on the last day of his life for 14th 1865 Abraham Lincoln went to visit Staten he wanted a bodyguard he had one in particular in mind Thomas Eckert Eckert was a big man strongly devoted to Lincoln and extremely powerful Lincoln once saw him break five iron bars over his own arm and he was ahead of the telegraph office under Stanton. And Stanton said, no, you can't have him to escort you to Ford's Theater because I need him for very important work tonight.

And Lincoln said he wanted to ask Eckert himself. Eckert had heard this conversation. And not many people would buck Staten because he was ruthless. And Eckert told Lincoln, I'd love to go to the performance. with you, but I have very important work to do tonight. Of course, he didn't know what that work was. And 15 minutes after Lincoln left, Stanton told Eckert, I don't have anything else for you to do. I won't need you again until tomorrow and dismissed him 15 minutes after Lincoln left. Stanton later lied to a congressional investigation. He said that you last saw like on April 12th.

he lied to the press and the public. Stanton recovered John Wilkes Booth's diary, and 18 pages were ripped out. And Stanton said they were ripped out when I got the diary, but Brigadier General Lawrence Baker, the head of the National Detective Police, said that wasn't true. They were there.

Staten asked the diary back. He got it, and the diary disappeared. year. Later, Lawrence Baker said that he thought Stanton was involved in. He thought Stanton was behind the assassination. Now, why would Stanton, a northerner ostensibly, why would he be involved in wanting to kill Lincoln? Was it sheer hatred of Lincoln politically? He hated Lincoln from day one, but I think it was more a love for power. I think Staten kind of came off the rails in 18, what was it, 41? His wife and daughter died. And he even had his daughter exhumed and put in a special case. And her body was in his apartment for over a year. He changed completely.

He was power mad after that. That's a good long time. That's a quarter of a century, practically, before the events were discussing. Now, he was a brilliant lawyer, no doubt about it. He was the first one to come up with the insanity defense. He got Daniel Sickles off. He was a later Union General who almost cost North the war in the Battle of Gettysburg. But he pled insanity,

because he killed one of his wife's lovers. And who was also related to Francis Scott Key incidentally. And he was involved in a patent infringement case, and they hired Abraham Lincoln as a co-attorney because they needed an Illinois attorney. Trial was supposed to be in Chicago. But then they changed the venue to Cincinnati, Maddie, but they forgot to tell Lincoln.

So he showed up with a brief. And Stanton blistered, gave him a blistering reprimand to his face, called him a giraffe and a gorilla, which was pretty habitual for him. Lincoln took the insult, handed him his brief, Stanton through the brief in the trash basket without reading it, and told the plaintiffs, or rather the defendants, he has to go I do, and so they fire Blankham. Wow, this is, we're going to another break. We're going to be back a few more minutes, folks.

Stick around. Folks, I'm talking to Dr. Samuel Mitchum, whose books have been translated into many languages, an historian who's written many books. Dr. Mitchum, I'm just fascinated about so much of what you're saying. There's such rich history here, but it's disturbing. I mean, the picture that you paint of Lincoln. Yeah, I've heard such things, but never in exactly this way. What would account for him

putting Stanton in his cabinet? Is that the basic idea that you put your enemies in your cabinet? That was it. You keep your friends close and your enemies closer, and he was lobbied by William Seward. You know, you look at the penny. You got Abraham Lincoln on it. Everybody loves the Lincoln. on the penny, strong, merciful, determined integrity. All of this is conveyed. It didn't work that way on the ground all the time. And he felt that he needed Stanton because of the radical Republicans who wanted him on the cabinet. And they got him. And he was quite frankly a better secretary of war than his successor. The successor's name was

Cameron. He was a Pennsylvania machine politician, highly corrupt. He's the one that had the famous quote, an honest politician, is one who when he is bald, stays bald. But Abraham Lincoln spoke up for him. He said

once that I do not believe he would steal a red hot stove. But Lincoln had a good thing. Forget how funny Lincoln was, at least I forget, he was full of those wooded his citizens. He was. He came up with a lot of witnesses. But Stan did improve the efficiency of the war department. So he was an asset to the Union War effort. Until he had Lincoln murdered. Well, he was involved in it, I believe,

and so does some other historians. Incidentally, this Lawrence Baker, I told you about, who first fingered Stanton as being involved in the conspiracy. He was shot twice, and later he survived that, but they found him dead in his apartment. And the medical, the autopsy said he died of meningitis, which means in those days, she had to seal the coffin and bury it immediately, which they did. But the family finally got it exhumed. And the cause of death was arsenic poisoning. He was murdered.

He wasn't the only one to disappear. John Wilkes Booth's 19-year-old mistress, one of them anyway, Ellis Starr. She disappeared. And so did John Power, who was the policeman on duty when Lincoln was assassinated. At least he was supposed to be on duty.

He actually went to a bar and left Lincoln unprotected. Now, you got to consider when Booth went into that box to shoot Lincoln. Nobody opposed him. The President of the United States didn't have anybody between him and an assassin. Booth fired the bullet four feet away. And he went in there with one Derringer single shot pistol, one. and a knife. That was all he had. And this tells you something. He didn't expect any opposition. What a big old Tom. Go ahead. That is truly astonishing. A single shot, Derringer, that was it.

Do we know, what was the gauge, what was the bullet? I was about a half an inch of diameter. It was a 44. So it was a big bullet, one shot. We're at a time. So fascinating, Samuel Mitchum, thank you for being my guest. Congratulations on this new book, The Retribution Conspiracy, The Rise of the Confederate Secret Service, and congratulations on all your books. I look forward to reading some of them as soon as possible. Thanks also for your time. Well, great.