Classic Civil War Problem! What To Do With All The Prostitutes

oh god, we just just says fuck boy on our website. Whoopsies. So we updated the description because the thing is, I love I love filthy stuff, and I really appreciate all of y'all who are listening who like filthy stuff. But I also understand maybe it's not polite to just, you know, assault unsuspecting website perusers with words like cocks. You know, maybe they're trying to enjoy their Wednesday or whatever. So we updated the description, but don't worry, the spirit of

the podcast remains the same. And so this is episode six. I think something that's fun about this is this is another episode about boats, and for anyone who is perhaps a little bit more historically rigorous than I am. There might be some good fodder to look at this trend of the the intersection of filthiness and boats, because it seems like things are happening on boats, like what is

up with boats? Like maybe it's more of a psychological study or something, but we got there's some there's something up with boats. I think. Here's another historical theory that I'm gonna pause. It that maybe if people with Wieners had ever understood that they could, you know, control their horniness,

maybe fewer people would have been oppressed. This is that's a huge theory, I know, but this is an episode about how a lot of women got displaced because dudes were too horny and they were like a gain, do nothing about it anyway, Thanks for listening. Let's just get into the episode. Imagine you're a bird flying over the Ohio River in eighteen sixty three. Are you there? Are you a bird? When you hear in the distance the

sound of a man complaining, I'm a man and I'm complaining. Complaint, complaint, complaint. You love getting in other people's business, so you swoop down closer and closer until you finally make out what he's saying. He whinds, what are these motherfucking hoes doing on this mother fucking boat. Yeah, it's not a direct quote, but also it could have been. We don't know. The

entirety of human history is not recorded. But that is exactly what Samuel L. Jackson would have said if he was cast in a movie about the captain of a ship called the Ida in eighteen sixty three. It's a brand spanking new steamboat, captain by a man named John Newcombe. This boat is supposed to help people travel down the Ohio and Cumberland Rivers. It's supposed to make John Newcombe so much money. It's supposed to be a good god

fearing vessel for good god fearing people. But unfortunately for mister Newcomb, the Union Army had ordered him to put on board his ship the most unwelcome of cargo. It's his ships made in voyage, and on board are about one hundred and ten sex workers from the streets of Nashville, Tennessee. And on today's episode of American Filth, how all these ladies got on that boat? This is American Filth, and

I'm your host, Gabby Watts. Every week I tell you a filthy story from American history in today's episode, Vicious White Women. Okay, guys, it's the nineteenth century, it's the Civil War, it's America. We're going down to Tennessee. Now Tennessee it was the last state to join the Confederacy, but then Nashville. It was taken back by the Union in February of eighteen sixty two. The man in charge at the time of the army was General William Rosecrans,

or as he was called Old Rosie. He was one of the most powerful men in the army and he was a tough dude. Unlike other generals. He liked to get up into the guts of the battle. And for him, Nashville that's a great place to have the Union Army as access to water, trains, infrastructure is a good place to train troops on the Western Front. But he didn't think about one issue. Most of the Union soldiers at the time were like eighteen to twenty two years old.

They were away from their families for the first time, ready to have some fun, doing some war, doing some drinking, and doing some sex. There was a huge demand for banging, and lucky for the boys, there was an influx of supply. To put it into perspective, before the Civil War, Nashville had about two hundred prostitutes, but once the Union Army was there, there was more than fifteen hundred of them. And part of the reason for that was that during the Civil War a lot of women couldn't make enough

money to support themselves. Basic goods were getting super expensive, and then their husbands and their dad's war salaries were pretty low, so they had to take on jobs like sewing, but then that wasn't bringing in enough cash, so some of them, as a side hustle, took up prostitution. And a lot of these women are coming to Nashville because they know that's where the soldiers are, and then they're all pouring into one small part of the city, Smokey Row.

Smokey Row was an area about two blocks wide and four blocks long. I think even before the Civil War this was a place to go and have a good time. Most of the women who worked here were poor white women, usually about thirty years old, usually widowed with kids, living just above the poverty line in a small apartment. But there were also some very fancy body houses or parlor houses or houses of ill fame and the ill repute, whatever you want to call them. One was run by

sisters Eliza and Rebecca Higgins. They had seventeen prostitutes working for them in the house, which was worth a whopping at twenty four thousand dollars. But the richest Madam of Smokey Row was Martha Reader. She was actually one of the richest people in Nashville before the war. She had about fifteen thousand dollars in personal money. Strong independent women

who were also pems. So then during the war, these streets of Smokey Row, they were packed out, ladies hanging loose, and various states of undress, ready to make a real Union soldier out of you. One Union soldier said, there was an old saying that no man could be a soldier unless he had gone through Smokey Row. Women had no thought of dress or decency. They say Smokey Row killed more soldiers than the war. I mean that's not

exactly true, but it did cause some serious problems. Like on the battlefield, about seventeen percent of Union soldiers got injured, but in the sheets eight percent of soldiers got syphilis and gonnerrhea. And yet it wouldn't always kill you, but it wasn't good, you know. And at the time, really the only treatment for these diseases was mercury, and that always put dudes in retrograde, making them totally useless on the battlefield. That gave rise to this fun expression, A

night with venus, a lifetime with mercury. And now so many soldiers were getting messed up with ScDs in Nashville that it was becoming a state of emergency in US Major General Rose Kranz. He was pissed. He was pissed about the STDs. He was pissed about the lack of morality, and he was pissed about losing soldiers on the battlefield to frivolity. And so he got to thinking, and he was like, well, there is literally no way I can get these horny boys to stop visiting the ladies at

houses of ill repute. So I guess we gotta get rid of the ladies. Duh, You can't do anything about a man's wien or can you nothing? Oh? So, yeah, he went about getting these ladies of the night out of Nashville. The first big push to get them out of the city was in the winter of eighteen sixty two, hundreds of the women on Smokey Row were gathered up. As one Union captain wrote, they were compelled to leave, and they were put on a train and sent up

to Louisville under guard so they couldn't escape. But the thing is this problem wasn't unique to Nashville, so when they got to Louisville, the officials there were like, what, we don't want your harlots. We have plenty of them already. But because it was under Old Rosie, they eventually came around to it. I guess they were also compelled, and so very temporarily the sex work problem in Nashville was solved. One Union captain wrote, Nashville was afterward all the happier

and better off for their conspicuous absence. This guy sounds like a fun time and old Rosie I can imagine at the time he was like, yes, go me, I did it. I got the prostitutes out of Nashville. I am a genius. The problem was that soon after these women were deported, they all came hustling back. Because the thing about trains, they go both ways, and the problem was just as bad as bo So Old Rosie he enlisted Nashville Provost Marshall George Spalding, a former school teacher,

a man filled with duty to deal with it. We'll be right back after these soothing ads. Nashville Provost Marshall George Spalding was a former school teacher, and he was to become the great hope to General Rosecrans to deal

with all these dang prostitutes of Nashville. Rosecrans commanded him to deal with the problem in July eighteen sixty three, writing, without loss of time, sees and transport to Louisville all prostitutes found in this city known to be here, because you guys know what the solution to a problem is, just do the same thing that you did before that failed. So Spalding made a plan. He was like, well, we already tried to get these gals out of town on a train. Well what about this time we put them

on a boat. And the boat he intended to use for this plan was a brand spanking new steamboat belonging to John Newcombe, the Idaho. Faulding was like, Hey, as ordered by General Rosecrans, We're going to commandeer your vessel to get some of these hose out of Nashville. A Newcomb was like, hey, that's a terrible idea for me, because this is a new boat and if you put some hose on it, no one will want to get on my boat ever again, because it has very bad vibes.

And Spalding was like, well, no worry about it. We're going to compensate you for your troubles, and I am sure that the reputation shall not be tarnished. Spoiler Spalding technically never pays him, and the boat's reputation was in fact quite tarnished. So Spalding enacted his plan. He began gathering up some of the most notorious sex workers and putting them on the ship. They rounded up one hundred

and ten people in total. We know that of the women on board, all the ones they rounded up were white. Some of them indeed had venereal diseases. There's even a few children. Very neat I love war. Some of the women did resist. The Nashville Daily Press reported that one woman called it one of the most notorious cyprians. She quickly married a dude to quote unquote some scamp, hoping that this marriage would get her out of being boted away.

Unfortunately that didn't stop Spalding. His men still forced her to get on that boat. As the article said, she is on her way to banishment. On July eighth, eighteen sixty three, Captain Newcomb got the notice that was time for him to leave. It said to the captain of the steamer Idaho, you are hereby directed to proceed to Louisville, Kentucky, with the one hundred passengers put on board your steamer today,

allowing none to leave the boat before reaching Louisville. So Captain John Newcomb and his crew of three set sail as a bunch of Nashvillians waved it away, saying good riddance to these ladies of ill repute. The Idaho cruised up the Cumberland and Ohio Rivers to their destination. They were supposed to reach Louisville in five days, and indeed,

just like he thought, havoc ensued. Newspaper articles described people on the side of the river laughing at the boat, and men swimming over to the boat to try to get a piece of tail, and it didn't help, but the women on board were encouraging it. But just like last time, the thing about having a boat filled with prostitutes who you intend to dump in another city. Is that the other city will figure that out and be like we don't want your prostitutes. We already have our own.

You already tried this once Nashville. We're not gonna let it happen again. When the Idaho arrived in Louisville, none of the women were allowed to get off the boat. The Union Army officers stationed there were like, no, thank you, and the general in charge of the army there was like, get out of here. I will not take your cargo. He placed some military guards on the boat and was like go to Cincinnati, and Newcombe was probably like fuck.

The women on board were also pissed. A few of them snuck off the boat and swam to the shore. A lot of those women then ended up in jail in Louisville, but they were allowed to leave and they were given one free ticket on a train back to Nashville. Now they're headed to Cincinnati, and the supplies on the boat had run out. Remember they were only supposed to be on the boat for five days and now they're

just sailing to another city. Once Newcomb got the boat over to Cincinnati, they were just like, you can't even dock here, go across the river to Kentucky and just wait. I hate being told I have to wait in Kentucky. So Captain Newcombe his crew of three, the sex workers who hadn't escaped, and then the guards from Louisville, they just have to wait on that boat and they're there for thirteen days. Thirteen days off the shore of Kentucky

sounds like the worst country song you've ever heard. At this point, none of the women were able to get off the ship, and some of them were just like fed the fuck up. A newspaper called The Cleveland Morning Leader wrote, the majority are a homely, forlorn set of degraded creatures. Having been hurried on the boats by a military guard. Many are without a change of wardrobe. They

managed to smuggle a little liquor on board. Several became intoxicated and indulged in a free fight, which resulted without material damage to any property, although knives were used freely. What just knife fights on the ship. There's not enough food.

A lot of them need medication because of their diseases, so now Captain Newcomb has to go out of pocket to provide that for them, and some of them were so frustrated that apparently some of them were yelling off of the side of the boat to try to get Confederate forces to help them escape. So again everyone's pissed. It's also July, so it's probably hot as fuck. No Column, his crew, the women, they've been on the worst carnival

cruise for stranded. They've run out of supplies. Ninety eight women and six children remain on board, underguard from the Louisville soldiers to make sure they don't get off the boat. But then finally newcomb gets in order, and it's really annoying because basically it's like, hey, we've realized this was a bad idea, so just come back to Nashville and get back here quick because we got even bigger river

fish to fry. Because the thing is. Spaulding and his crew had rounded up all these sex workers, but there were plenty of other people to take their places, especially black women, which the union army liked even less. Here's what the Nashville Daily Union wrote, This sudden expatriation of hundreds of vicious white women will only make room for an equal number of black strumpets. Another Nashville newspaper said, so bare face are these black prostitutes. They parade the

streets and even the public squares day and night. So the Idaho sales back down the river, and by August eighteen sixty three, twenty eight days after it had departed, these vicious white women were back in Nashville, and Newcomb's pissed because the journey whist for nothing and his boat is messed up. When they dock, one of General Rosecran's men did an inspection of the Idaho, and in his report, what he said was that the ship had been badly damaged,

the mattresses badly soiled. To cover all the expenses, including the medicine and food that Newcomb had to get out of pocket, the guy recommended that he'd be paid fifty three hundred dollars. But whatever, that's so boring. Who cares about that in a time like this. George Balding was like, this dude is so annoying. Who cares we had to use your boat? I have bigger issues, like figuring out what to do with these prostitutes, because now we have even more than what we started with. Old Rosie is

gonna be so mad at me. So what did George Spalding do an unprecedented action. He was like, our boys won't stop visiting Smokey Row, and we can't get the ladies out of Nashville, so instead, let's regulate it. That's right, Spalding made prostitution legal in Nashville. Basically, how it worked is that every sex worker had to have a license.

It costs five dollars, and to keep it, they had to see a union doctor every couple of weeks to make sure they didn't have any diseases, and then the ladies would be charged in additional fifty cents for those visits. If a sex worker did have a disease, she was then sent to a military hospital to be treated. And these hospitals were nice. They had a living room, they had nice beds, they had a cook, and a woman

couldn't leave until she was perfectly cured. One doctor described one of these hospitals as a house in a secluded part of town with upper rooms obtaining good light. The women to be examined enter a reception room which is comfortably furnished and in cold or disagreeable weather, well heated. They pass in time from this apartment to an adjoining room in which there is a bed, a table, and

all the necessary appliances for examining them. Some of these hospitals even treated black sex workers, which is one of the first times in the US that medical care was desegregated. Don't worry, the soldiers would also get punished, like if they visited an unlicensed sex worker, it was thirty days in jail, but then the sex worker would also have

to spend thirty days in jail. Whatever. And basically through this program it took like six thousand dollars to operate, and that's how much money they made off of the sex workers for the licenses. So just like paying for itself. What is this? Is this like public healthcare? That's crazy? It works. No, it's better for everyone. No, stop it. And less than a year after this licensing program started, the number of STD cases dropped dramatically. The Surgeon General

was like, yeah, this is doing pretty good. He said. Under these regulations, a marked improvement was speedily noticed in the manner and appearance of the women. When the inspections were first in forced. Many were exceedingly filthy in their person in apparel and obscene in their language, but This soon gave way to cleanliness and propriety that it was a

great success. But unfortunately for Spalding it this did lead to an influx of sex workers in Nashville because they're like, damn, they really treat you well in Nashville, and I can go see a doctor. But then the thing is the war ended, and they're just like, hey, even though this program works really well and keeps everyone safe, let's just not do it anymore. That was just like a silly

war thing. We're not gonna license sex workers. We're not gonna care about people's welfare, we're not gonna care about the public bi So they abolish it. No more licenses, no more regulation, and that was the end of legal prostitution in Nashville. And now this whole time while prostitution was legal in Nashville, Captain Newcombe of the Idaho is in a big old tizzy because this whole time he

hasn't been reimbursed. It had been two years since he had had those hundred vicious white women on his boat, and still nothing. He was so frustrated that eventually he went over the head of Spalding an old rosy directly to the Secretary of War. He was finally like, oh, yeah, we should probably reimburse you. Newcomb got six thousand dollars. But even with that, sure it could pay for the damage down on his boat, but it could never repay

the damage that had been done to its reputation. It never again cruised down the rivers of the southeastern United States. Newcombe said, I told them it would forever ruin her reputation as a passenger boat. It was done, so she has now and since known as the floating Whorehouse. Every episode on American Filth we learn a lesson, and I think the lesson that we learn here is that you should never get a boat that can fit a lot

of people on it. Otherwise people are going to ask you to borrow it and you'll never be able to use your boat again. American Filth is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. This episode was hosted, written, and scored by Me Gabby Watts. Our theme song is by Jesse Niswanger and Me. Our senior producer is Amelia Brock, and our executive producers are Elsie Crowley, Virginia Prescott, and Brandon Bark. Thanks so much for listening. Please like, subscribe, review, etc.

The pod wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also follow along with the show on Instagram at American Filth Pod. Thanks so much for listening. Talk at you next time. School of Humans