The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 127: No Polite Way To Put It

Episode Date: March 5, 2019

When it comes to writing steamy love letters, you really gotta hand it to Elizabeth and George - even though they handed it to themselves...

This is the way I heard it. George was horny. Sorry to being delicate, but there's really no polite way to put it. He hadn't seen Elizabeth in weeks, and he missed his wife with the white-hot intensity of a thousand sons. Excuse me, sir, but a letter has arrived. George leapt from his chair and ran to the doorway, handed over my good man with all due speed. The courier complied, and George locked the door behind him. Then, with trembling hands, he opened the envelope.

The sight of her handwriting quickened his pulse. The smell of her perfume wafted up from the parchment, leaving him breathless. Oh, my gallant champion, it began. How I miss you! If only we could be together for just a few hours. If only I could sit, tomboy, for a quick ride with you behind me. George swallowed hard, gripping the page with his free hand. By God, his wife could really turn a phrase.

He tried to slow things down, but when he got to the part that read, I know of a soft place upon somebody's carpet that yearns for a gentle touch. Well, that was simply too much. George had to collect himself and then start again from the top. The second time was better. It always was. George read slower, savoring every syllable, pausing between paragraphs to fully embrace the imagery his wife had so cleverly evoked. When he finished, he wiped the perspiration from his brow and tried to return the favor. Good morning, my rosebud, he wrote.

Little John has been making constant and earnest inquiries for his bunky for a very long time, and this morning he seems more persistent than ever. I, too, yearn to be in the saddle behind you, holding on for dear life. And yes, I know just where I'd kiss a certain someone if I was with her tonight. Two weeks later, his letter arrived in Monroe, Michigan, where a butler delivered it to the boudoir. There, Elizabeth devoured his words in much the same way he had devoured hers, hungrily. greedily. Then, after multiple readings, she reached for her pen and paper and got busy crafting another flurry of phrases carefully concocted to help her husband release the tension during their

long periods of separation. In other words, George and Elizabeth were sexting Victorian style. Sorry to be indelicate, but there's really no polite way to put it. Their letters were the 19th century equivalent of naked selfies packed with enough double entendre to make Anthony Weiner blush. There were references to long extended gallops, riding under the crupper, and getting back in the saddle. In one letter, Elizabeth alluded to the possibility of, quote, breaking in a new Philly for their mutual pleasure and discuss the pros and cons of being ridden hard and put away wet. True, George was a famous equestrian,

but nobody could read this kind of innuendo and conclude the topic was horses. And of course, nobody did, because George was not only a horny husband, he was a careless husband. At a time when a man's reputation and a woman's virtue were still fragile things, George failed to protect both.

You see, Elizabeth's letters were stolen. Then they appeared in the pages of the Richmond Gazette, and soon the entire country was reading all about Little John and the pleasures of writing tomboy and that soft place upon someone's carpet in need of a gentle touch. One can only imagine how Elizabeth must have felt seeing her private words in public print. But she survived the scandal, and over time, people forgot all about it. Likewise, they forgot all about her husband's other shortcomings.

They forgot all about his impetuous nature. They forgot all about his need to always be the center of attention. They forgot about these things because, once again, Elizabeth put pen to paper. her, this time extolling the virtues of her husband in a series of best-selling books about his life on the frontier and his exploits on the battlefield. By the time she died at 90 years of age, Elizabeth had single-handedly transformed George's reputation, not from that of a careless husband who famously embarrassed his own wife, but from that of a careless commander who famously killed. killed his own men. In the movie, George died with his boots on, fighting heroically right up to the bitter end.

In real life, nobody knows. His body was found three days after the smoke cleared, naked, blackened, bloated, and covered with flies. One of the first responders said, a finger had been cut off and kept as a souvenir. Another said his eardrums had been pierced with a sewing needle, punishment for his failure to listen. Some said he appeared to be smiling in death,

while others claimed an arrow had been, forgive me, forced into his rectum, pushed through his intestines and into his little John, leaving his corpse in a state of perpetual readiness, even as it putrified under the blue Montana sky. Sorry to be indelicate, but there's really no polite way to put it. Some of George's men were skinned alive, others were dismembered and rearranged on the ground. President Grant called the entire debacle a completely unnecessary and totally avoidable slaughter made possible by the unforgivable hubris of a narcissistic glory hound. And yet, the soldier who marched his men into that valley of death is remembered today as an enduring hero of the American West, thanks to a devoted wife who never stopped grieving, never stopped writing, and never stopped believing.

Her horny husband was some kind of hero, in spite of his unforgivable arrogance on the banks of a river called the Little Big Horn. not exactly a happy ending for the boy general, but a far better legacy than he deserved, made possible by his blushing bride, who really could turn a phrase, Elizabeth Custer. Anyway, that's the way I heard it.