CZM Rewind: The Civil War Within the Civil War: How the South Won the War for the Union

Hello, and welcome to Cool People who did cool stuff. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and this is a flashback week, which just means we're gonna rerun something because Cool Zone Media has the week off because people fought and died for days off or even entire weeks off. Sometimes it's called vacation. This week, I'm going to rerun the Civil War within the Civil War with prop as the guest, because it was the second episode we ever aired and

The cool people who did cool stuff.

My guest this week is Prop, who I believe you're a poet, an mc and activist and you're also the host of Hood Politics.

Nailed it great. How are you doing today? Man? I'm all right, it's pretty hot out here. I'm I'm good.

You know, I'm apprehensive because I'm so nervous about any any pod that somebody says is like it's kylic bastards and I'm like, but reverse, and I'm like, ow, I'm just nervous. I'm going on comany in blind Yeah, I'm saying Margaret, Yeah, but I'm here for the ride.

All right, all right, And we have Sophie on the call to Sophie, how are you doing.

I'm good. I'm excited to have Prop here for this one. I think I think he'll enjoy it. And I mean that like, I'll actually think you'll enjoy this. Okay, when you're on bassards rou I'm like, oh, this is going to be a good one, which means it's not going to be a good one.

Yeah, which means oh, you're going to enjoy this. I'm like, oh yeah, murder, murder, murder, racism, So enjoy it.

So and so, Margaret, what are we talking about today?

Well, there is there is murder and racism, but it's not from the point of view of the people who do the murder and the races.

Okay, okay, okay.

So because this week we're going to talk about this war you might have heard of, called the Civil War, the US Civil War, but specifically yeah, yeah, but specifically I'm going to talk about the civil war within the civil war, okay, which, if you write it out and you put it in between, is the civil civil war war.

And I'm going to talk about Well done, Thank you, old y'all. Pause, foot at that was great, Okay, I am now impressed. Like again, I was apprehensive. I know what I was getting into. But the civil civil war war, that's brilliant. Yeah, I like that.

Thank you.

And so we're going to talk about the basically how there was a civil war within the Civil War, there was a race and a class revolt against the white Confederates. Yeah, and so in the first half, we're going to talk about the ways that a lot of different black people in the South pot for their own freedom, whether under

I love it.

And in the second half, we're going to talk about the Lowry Gang, who're an indigenous led guerrilla insurgency in northwest Carolina.

Let's go, all right, let's go.

I also, dude, you know what, I'm glad I'm on this, you know, for a number of reasons. But one I think it's like, obviously it's so timely with like you know, adding Ukraine to the list of like conflicts and wars

Agree with everything your country do?

So why you think why you think anywhere else would be the same, you know what I'm saying, Like or wouldn't be the same, Like people say everybody ain't down with what you know they government do or what they saw do. Like so I think that this is I'm glad that this is coming up because that mugg is like, like, yo, like be realalistic about what you're watching, you know what I'm saying, And it's that like, well, man, no.

I think China really, I think China loves China, you know what I'm saying, Like, yeah, they gon't do what we do where it's like I'm not gonna let you talk about us, but you know what I'm saying, Yeah, but nah, it's full be on some bullshit, you know.

Yeah anyway, no, no, and like and it's even true on the other side too, right, like because the North was not like yeah, I mean you got the bad guys in the story the Confederacy are the bad guys, Like I'm not going to tend anything else other than that. No, no, no, no, but the North is like, well some of them are good guys and assholes too, you know.

Yeah, yeah, just because you lived up there, you know what I'm saying that somehow your locale means that you think differently, like nah man, yeah for sure.

Yeah.

So the So the Civil War, it runs from eighteen sixty one to eighteen sixty five. It kills six hundred and twenty thousand people, which, to put that number in perspective, that's half again as many Americans died in World War Two, or two thirds as many as have died from COVID as of the time we're recording this.

Sheesh.

But uh, Civil War starts because eighteen sixty Abraham Lincoln got elected on a new States out West, shouldn't be Slave states platform and a bunch of rich white people in the slave States didn't like that, so they succeeded. The North said now you're not allowed to do that, and then in eighteen sixty one, ya.

Have a war.

And to be clear, and I don't know what did you get taught growing up that the Civil War was about slavery?

Well, yes, I mean, I'm remember I'm in California, and some black panther from the inner city. So I absolutely ay, was thought this was about slaves.

That's that is better than the education I received, dude, I tell you man.

Like when I heard people like it was like, it's the other way around, where like you know, obviously from your section, like for somebody you to become a full grown adult and somebody would be like, no, this is about slavery, and how y'all probably like in y'all's area, was like, what, No, it's about states rights? You Like, I felt the other way around when somebody actually said what was about to say, He's like.

What what are you talking about? Yeah? Like you who told you that states rights to do?

What?

This is a big question? That was like that's what I was thinking. I was like, you hear yourself.

States rights to own sly, don't I get seriously? You know?

Yeah? Yeah?

And so I will argue that the entire South, white and black new is about slavery. Then the North wasn't sure about what it was about. For a lot of the North, a lot of the white North and obviously all the black North, A lot of the white North knew is about slavery, but some of the white North was fighting for like, you're not allowed to break away, fuck you, And some of them were even arguing. I've read some scholars arguing that some of them were fighting

There's no question they didn't know.

Yeah, so the start of this war, the Confederates, they're outnumbered, just proof that just because you're the underdog doesn't make you a better person. And they have little industrial production so they can't make their own weapons. Really, but they have this advantage that they're fighting on their home territory, and then since their population's more rural, more of the soldiers come in, better horse riders and better shots, so they have some advantages. But they have one big disadvantage

Well, saw a Rose okay.

And so at the beginning of the war, the Union didn't let black folks in as soldiers, right, But it turns out you don't actually need anyone's permission to kill slavers or steal all their shit, or grind their economy at a halt, or help everyone run the fuck away. You could just do it. It's cool and good. It is always morally correct. Yeah, and so people realized that it was actually this this woman Rose. She's one of my favorite stories in all of us, but she's actually

Story name is like, it's so classic, it is so it is.

Yeah, it's perfect name, Glymph, you said, yeah, perfect name.

Yeah.

I was definitely gonna want to put a pin in her name too. So but I'm glad you did, Healfie, because that's that's quite a name. Also, terrified white women journals is like the thing that just doesn't die.

Yeah, it really does.

God, they seriously like all journals are like, I can't sleep at night. I'm up at four am writing this note because I'm so terrified of the Negroes and the Yankees, and specifically I'm afraid of this you know, Rose that is leading an insurrection.

In their town. Yes, so so.

Pineville, South Carolina is this like small resort town. It's basically sixty summer homes for like the rich fock slavers when they're like taking breaks from their plantations. But with the Civil War, a lot of the families moved their full time okay, and basically saw as this place of refuge against to hide from the war. And they tried to bring like all the people they claim to own, but most of them were like, no, we're not going to come with you.

Fuck you.

You have no means with which to compel us to come with you, so fuck.

Off to oversee you going at war?

Yeah you you ninety two years old and your wife keep catching the vapors every time it gets too hot.

No, we not going I love it. Yeah.

And some people did go, and then they kind of just didn't work, or everyone who went there just refused to work and then this was happening all over the South. I want to use this. This is one of my examples because it ties into this other thing. The socialist author W. E. B. Du Bois is the first person I've heard of really talk about this. In his nineteen

Yeah, I think that, like, I'm glad you kind of like landing there, because I think like the you know, when you think about the arc of somebody like an Abraham Lincoln, and arc of like the country finally falling into secession and then accepting the fact that like, okay, this is about slaves, like like finally letting themselves say it out loud, like what we already do? You know what I'm saying when you take a slaver that was like, I mean, it's just it's just way too much money

You know what I'm saying, this is this is pure profit.

You know what I'm saying, you know, notwithstanding the investment to get the get and feed as small as you can, you know, the slavery, the slave that you had, and you could take somebody who might have been in the beginning like on.

Some like.

A I know, I just kind of like close my eyes and do it. I mean, ye, that kind of sucks, but I'm like, I'm just one guy. I mean, you know, you're in the ocean. You might as well swim. I mean it sucks, but like here, what's a loon of money?

You know what I'm saying, and then at first check come and you're like nah, fam nah this much. Look you can't get it. Look, look I'm.

Sorry, sorry, not sorry, you know what I'm saying, Like, and how that evolution of just being like and then then the whole like, well, it's it's too big to fail, Like I mean, it's you know, you if we shut this down, you shut down the whole country, Like there's no it's the biggest of what do you want us to do, dude, just the biggest money maker, you know what I'm saying. And that evolution of like assuming that at some point, like you said, my ancestors would be like, uh nah.

Yeah, I mean what worse can you do to us? Yeah?

You know yeah yeah no, And and du Bois makes the argument, I have no counter argument. I believe this whole heartedly. This is what fucking wins the war on the end more than anything else. Yeah, black workers refusing to work, also, black soldiers fighting, but.

Black soldiers, yeah in it and being still paid less yeah, less food, still being treated like you know, really human, but carrying the work, you know what I'm saying. But yeah, like absolutely yep, who's being like, well, hit you in your pocket?

Yeah, yeah.

And in the end, as so people would flee, especially once as the Union would come through the South, they'd be like, yep, and they cross the lines. In the end, apparently twelve percent of the South's labor pool, I guess you could call it. They just fuck off and they cross Union lines. But then further historians have argued that it's not just the people who left who did this work, who did this general strike. So in Pineville, South Carolina,

And we know that what Pringle. Yeah, man's name is Pringle.

Yeah, I looked it up at way pre date. Springles.

Yeah.

I was gonna again another name that I was like, I'm gonna let this pass because he let a slave revolt, So I'm not going to drag you. I'm not going to drag you right like I think it's yeah, yeah, it's like, you know, two hundred years later, the association with the chips.

You know what I'm saying. But he could say my name is Pringle because I get all the chips. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, I made him a rapper.

You did, you did, and I appreciate it.

So this insurrection they lead, it leads hundreds of people to safety during the time before the Union army even approaches. And then by the time at one point the Union army like sweeps through really quickly. They don't actually conquer the area, but they get a thousand people across the line when that happens. And then it's hard to tell how much it was a quiet insurrection versus a loud one. A lot of it was that people just refused work,

They love it.

Yeah, and there's no one around to compel their labor, right because yeah, all the white dudes are off fighting the war. Yeah, and at its peak, this insurrection has the run of the town. The scared white folks hide in their houses and write in their journals while black folks are drilling in the streets and military formation.

I love it.

And they stole whatever they needed from the people who've been stealing from them their whole fucking lives. And it's just kept spreading miles and miles in every direction. People kept coming here, and eventually Confederate armies like, all right, we have to fucking do something about this, and so they send these these scouts, who are the gorilla troops for the Confederate Army. The Union Army has scouts too, but they're the official gorillas and they go around do

They have a big battle.

It goes really badly for Rose and Pringle and the rest of them. Twenty to thirty of them die and they only managed to injure some of the cavalrymen, and Pringle and Rose get found and executed. But even though they lose this specific battle, this is after they freed you know, the record I see as like implying at least thirteen hundred people.

Right, wow, and so knows that many?

Yeah, like, yeah, that seems like an all right, you know, like the.

Mathos And I'm positive that, like I know, like.

Those executions were burutal, like they were like trying to you know, they try to make a statement when they capture somebody that like led.

You know, other people to freedom.

So I already know, like, even without knowing her particular story, I already know the way they killed them two was public and disgusting.

Yeah, yeah, it was, and which I mean leads to the argument that dying in the streets fighting, you know, seems nice.

It's still pretty rad like it just yeah.

And then so the end, the Union Army of course it doesn't have their backs at all. There's Lincoln's like Rules of War that he wrote specifically called this type of thing. It's qualified the same as piracy or banditry.

The concept of potatoes.

I'll take that because, like you know, I just I just listened to three hours on a potato famin So how good potatoes are? You know?

And I am a French fry connoisseur. All right, so I'm here for that.

Well you're on the right show, then, yes, yes, all right, here's some ads and we're back after those ads that were not about some I hope most of them are about potatoes.

I hope they're potatoes.

Let me tell you something, man, I'm going to invoke something right now that's probably not fair. The thing is, like, okay, I am fully aware of the totality of the problematicness of somewhere like a Chick fil a. However, crossed by feed at some point was this person with two buckets of French of like the Chris cut fries, and I was like, that's an immediate retweet. I'm like, this is and all I saw I just saw fries and my eyes glazed over.

I was just like, oh my god, the buckets. Let's go. And then I was like, damn, man, I know, I know it's I know, I know, I know. It's okay, guys, like, hear me out though, I know it's.

Chick filet, but it's not the potato's fault, you know, but it ain't the potato fault. Yeah, you understand what I'm saying. I'm like, they pay whale, the places pay whale. Okay, okay, anyway, yeah, yeah.

All right.

So the next next chunk of the story is about a man named Abraham Galloway okay, and he and the Coastal the Coastal Black Militia North Carolina. And we've got way more information about him, in part because he survives the war, which is a nice anti spoiler, you know, like he's not king died during the story, at least not. They were like done with the story as the downside

Yeah.

And then with cool people hit cool stuff, they die in the end, it's not as good. That's history. So Abraham Galloway he was born enslaved in a tiny fishing town near Wilmington, North Carolina, and he was he was owned by his own second cousin.

Great.

Yeah, he moved to Wilmington. He becomes a brickmaker and basically his fucking cousin tells him that he has to go work and give him the money. And but Wilmington is a hot bed of abolitionism, which is which I'm not talking about. Like like when I got told about abolitionism when I was in public school or whatever, I got told it was like well meaning white people who like wrote the government about how morality demanded the end of.

Slavery or whatever.

Wilmington was a hotbed of abolition And by that I mean it was full of black people free and enslaved, who are teaching black people how to read and write, who are smuggling fugitives north who are passing around tracks that called for the moral necessity of violence to end slavery, including this tracked by black abolitionist David Walker to the colored citizens of the world, which and this is a reoccurring theme, and all the abolition is propaganda I've ever seen,

The throw bricks.

Yeah, exactly, Yeah, and I'm sure he got the chance. Yeah, he goes back across the border, and he starts giving speeches and then getting in fights with all the people trying to kill him.

And then I knew. I knew his name before.

I was like, I know Abraham Galloway, and now now you're at the park that I know him.

Yeah, okay, anyway, go on.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So in Boston he hangs out with the Vigilant Society, and then he hangs out with this this league I'd never heard of before I did this research. You've ever heard of? The Anti Man Hunting League?

Yes? These people fucking rule so dope. Yeah, yeah, tell him about him. I'm leaning back. Let you tell the story.

Yeah, not.

These fools are hard.

So it's a crew of people who are basically like, all right, well, kidnappers keep coming here and kidnapping people, all right, so we should just track down the kidnappers and then kidnap them basically, And they show up and basically their their dealers they'll find they'll find a fucking bounty hunter and they'll be like, hey, you would be so much happier and healthier if you just left Boston right now. So that's what they did.

It was so dope. It was so dup.

I know, fools were just like, hey, listen, don't come to Boston. Yeah, I'm telling you right now, don't come to Boston. We body snatches, all right, yeah, don't come. Oh you're gonna come, okay, cool?

Yeah, we told you. What would happen? I told you not to come?

Fan.

Yeah.

And so the reason that this league starts is another interesting story. Eighteen fifty four, you have a guy named Anthony Burns who also decided to fuck off from slavery, and he gets smuggled up to Boston, and because of the fugitive slave law, the marshals come after him and he gets arrested and a crew of black and white abolitionists storm the courthouse. They break down the door of the battery ram and then shoot a federal marshal dead.

Yeah, yeah.

It's also I love this because it's like, you know, a lot of times when you flatten history, you just think, like, you know, these two armies and you have citizens just kind of like sitting around waiting to see what happens, you know, especially like this the American slave narrative that was like, well, I guess we were just out in the fields hoping everything worked out, you know what I'm saying, totally nah fam like yeah nah fighting, Yeah, yeah, I

And like, yeah, okay, so this change is Boston overnight. And then that's how they pass all these laws making it harder to come and capture people, but just in case people try it anyway, you have the Anti man Hunting League that starts after this and then burns himself. The abolitionists raise up enough money to buy his freedom.

Life before penicillin.

Dog, These dudes be living triple lives in one life.

Yeah, and then and then you die at twenty eight after all that.

Yeah, I'm thirty nine and I haven't touched a quarter of what this person.

Do you understand what I'm saying.

I'm like that you did all that in about twenty nine, Okay.

Yeah, So so Galloway, he's passing through Boston on his way to Haiti because the abolitionists, right after John Brown gets executed, they're not just like waiting around for the US to get its act together to abolish slavery. They head to Haiti and they organized they're organizing a raid from Haiti on the American South, hoping to directly incite a civil war to end slavery.

Yeah.

So, so Galloway takes passage alongside some other abolitionists, including this the Scottish immigrant named James Redpath, who helped secure Haiti's diplomatic connections to the US, this guy Francis Mariam, who was one of the only people to escape from John Brown's Harper's Ferry raid, who later fled to Canada with the help of Farah. Because everyone was actually doing

Brown is killed.

And it's not just because they I mean, they fucking hate slavery, right, this is the history of Haiti. But it's not just that because they're also looking out for their own country. Because in the eighteen fifties, the US drew up plans to conquer Haiti and turn it into a slave state, and then some adventure asshole tried to conquer Cuba to turn it into a slave state around

Perfect.

Yeah, And I was the on was going to say, Man, I don't know, like what made them think. I don't know why you would want it with Haiti if you didn't really if you know anything about the history, it's like, nah, fam, don't don't come try to down here. Yeah you know, we don't. Won't play down here. Don't don't bring it down here, fam.

Yeah. Yeah.

And so Galloway stays in Haiti for a while planning this raid, but then the South seceeds, and so he hurries the fuck back to States to fight, because that was their whole point was to try and get a civil war. And you know, but it didn't take invading the South. All you had to do to start a civil war apparently was to get a moderate Republican named Lincoln in offense, right, he was a.

Moderate and like yo, like.

The Apple TV just did like for Black History, did a dope little three part series on him.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's called the Lincoln Dilemma, which was really more about Frederick Douglass and how like really that Frederick Douglas kind of radicalized him.

That was like that, like the and just sort of the evolution of.

This, like you said, rather Khaki, you know, moderate Republican turning into this like oh yeah.

No, we gotta we can't, this can't last, you know what I'm saying. And it was really Frederick Douglas.

So that's but yeah, yeah, what took them to finally leave was there just slightly a little less tiny less racist?

Yeah yeah, yeah, which has no I mean living in the US now, it's impossible to imagine the right wing getting set by a moderate.

Yeah, yeah, right, by like just the just vitamin D milk version.

It's just the most plane yeah, saltine cracker.

Yeah, no, seasoned.

Fried chicken, undercooked, like just just potato salad with raisin. I'm sorry, but yeah, yeah, the most basic, Yeah, moderates and they can't handle it.

So they have a whole they can't handle it. Yeah, yes, which good. It got them fucking crushed. I'm glad.

But yeah.

So so Galloway he shows back up in the US and he's like all right, he gets himself recruited into the spy service for the US Army and he's not really a union guy, but it's like the best thing going. Yeah, And he's reporting directly to General Benjamin Butler, who kind of starts the war an asshole. He's like, not, he's even more let's say moderate than he wasn't even particularly

Surely they can't figure out how to do things. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, And so he actually goes and he scouts the landing for the Union Army and the shores of North Carolina, which again changes the fucking face of history because the landing in North Carolin is how is part of how the US runs. It's blockade on Southern shipping and helps crush their economy. That's all fucking Galloway. And then I mean, it's also a ton of other people, right, I'm not

This also get all the fucking credit. Yeah, And then he.

Gets set down in Mississippi, and then he sees the Union treat black refugees like shit, and they start turning away black refugees. They start working other ones to death building a canal so that they can siege a fortress that was a bad idea in the first fucking place, of course, and the Union fails at seizing the fortress, and then they just fuck off and they ditch all of the people, all the black people who are there helping them, including Galloway. They just fucking ditch him, and

When it was.

I'm not try, you know, but they got out when the going was hard, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And all these people, not all these people. A lot of these people start working with Scouts and spies formally or informally, and they head back into Confederate territory in a regular basis. Some of them do it for the Union, some of them just do it for their own fucking families and their friends and fucking everyone.

You know.

Yeah, but Galloway doesn't rejoin the Union. He's like, fuck the Union, what the fuck? Trust y'all either, yeah, and so instead he just becomes an organizer. He's twenty six, he's sarcastic, he's charming, he open carries a pistol for the rest of his life.

Let's go.

And so in eighteen sixty three, the Union's like, but we need Galloway, We need Galloway to get us an army. Because at this point they finally decided the fifty fourth Regiment Massachusetts is the was the first all black regiment of the war. And this is the one that that movie Glory is about. Yeah, and it I'm really actually the main there's lots of things to be mad about that movie. One of the main things I'm mad about is two of Frederick Douglas's sons were in the fucking

But I you just blew my mind. I didn't know that.

Yeah, Frederick Douglas wasn't afraid to fucking I mean, well, his kids weren't afraid to put some skin in the.

Gay weren't afraid to shoot.

Yeah. Yeah, And so fifty fourth is all black except the not except no commissioned officers are black.

Yeah, and.

It works, right, the fifty fourth is a like positive test or whatever. And so they're like, oh, and also, we're losing this war and we fucking need more people. Yes, And so they send down this guy is this white recruiter named Edward Kinsley. They send him down in eighteen sixty three down to New Burn to find Galloway, who's like hidden there, and try and convince him to come over. And Galloway won't meet with this guy until he and his friends watch him for a week to see how

Like listen, listen, I hope that's a lesson to all white people everywhere.

That's just like, listen, dog like, it ain't that hard.

Just we gonna watch you, like I was gonna say, like even him just being like I ain't gonna meet with you, but I'm ahad of home.

He's watched you, you know, So which is what we do, right, we all do it.

It's like, well let me, you know, let me let me shoot up do our little googles, you know, run your name up the flag pole, find that what's going on, and then once we see what's up, it's like it's just it's like the bar is so low, like just hey, man, like just just don't just don't be awful.

Yeah, it's pretty it's not hard. It's not hard to not be awful. Yeah.

All he did is he he he tipped his hat some black workers and got yelled at by the by the union soldiers and yeah, and if you do that, you.

Tip your hat to to to to the black people and then the white dudes yell at you like hey, what the fuck you're doing.

You just look at me like, man, fuck you dog, Yeah exactly.

The man just man, shut the fuck up, and you just keep going where you're like you then I'm gonna be like I like that guy.

Yeah all right, yeah, like it's that easy. Yeah, the bar is on the floor, so he wants you to step over the bar.

Yeah, something like you have to dig a hole into the ground to go under this floor.

Totally.

Yes, Yeah, there's plenty of people at this point, plenty white people are willing.

To at it.

Yeah, yes, but so so they end up meeting with Galloway and this like perfect like Cloak and Daggers thing, you know, where he meets with the innkeeper and she takes him upstairs and then the room is just entirely full of people and galoways there and they tell him point blank why we don't trust the union. They're not paying black soldiers the same wage as white soldiers. Black people are not being granted citizenship by the Emancipation Proclamation.

So they're like, yeah, all this shit's happening.

And they didn't say like, no, we're not going to fight for the Union. They're saying, we're not going to do it unless you meet our demands. Yeah, And so they say, we want to be outfitted the same and paid the same, we want housing for our families, we want education for our kids, and we want the Union to compel the Confederacy to treat captured black soldiers as prisoners of war instead of selling or executing them. And and this part's a little like, so Kinsley says yes, right,

Let me tell you how much I love my people? Yeah, let me tell you how much? Because that is the answer.

When that man say yes, like, I don't think I need to make sure say it again.

Yeah.

No, wait, wait, no, no, no, I'll say it again now you Now you promising on your mama, this, on your mama, on your hood, on your children.

You gonna do this, yeah, Joe said, man, I love my people.

Yeah no, And so he says yes again. And the thing I read is like Kinsley knows he can't actually do these things. Galloways can't do these things. What they're saying is you're gonna fucking try, And he yes, yes, and he does try.

He doesn't.

Some of the things get met eventually, some of them whatever. But Kinsley and Galloway they end up staying friends and stay in touch the rest of their lives. And over five thousand black men volunteer for the Union Army in New Bern alone, they form what was generally known as the African Brigade. In the end, one hundred and eighty

I love it because he was like, no I don't do it. Yeah, no, right, yeah, it's like you shouldn't kill prisoners a war. But like was, yeah, but you take one, we take five. Yeah, it's what you're doing. Yeah. Yeah.

And then but union army is still proving to be racist as fuck. And one guy, William Walker, he goes on strike until he gets an equal wage. He was court martialed and shot. Another guy, William Johnson, he was caught deserting. He was executed in this like highly publicized case that where they brought out a photographer to make a big spectacle of killing this black man. Two of the soldiers was to shoot him withere these German immigrants, and they refused to shoot, so they were arrested.

Wow.

But even with all that going on. So Galloway is like two jobs now. One is that he is recruiting black men to fight, and he's also fighting against all the racism within the military. He even gets his old general Butler the Moderate, to press his higher ups for equal equal pay. But he's no longer a union spy. But his network's ran deep. And I should probably talk about potatoes right now. It feels like a good time to talk about potatoes and French fries, which I really love.

They really do.

Man, you could even go with like frozen like a bag of frozen ones for that air.

Right device to reheat French fries.

Yeah, because you can't reheat fries. It's really hard to do that. But if you could do, we could do it in an air fry with a little bit of olive oil on the mug.

Little lowries. You good.

Yeah, And so that's we're sponsored by the idea of French fries and these other ads.

And we're back. Yeah, we are.

I I sometimes try to put myself in the shoes of like a just moderately reasonable white dude at this time who like like like you're saying, is like trying to tell his higher ups, like yo, we should pay these dudes the same as everybody else, and just being like and just kind of looking at them like but they they holding the same, They the bullet don't care like they dying just like we ding Like I don't understand why you think they what this don't make no

Like, what you know? So just I just wonder.

I just sometimes I just think, like, man, how maddening that must have been, even if you just like slightly just logical, You're like, what, we're doing the same job though, aren't we Like are we doing the same job?

Yeah?

I think a lot of even white people got radicalassed by all this, Like in all my reading is a lot of people start off being like, oh, I don't know, and then they're like, oh, this shit's evil, you know.

Yeah.

So Galloway right no longer a Union spy, but his networks run really deep all over the South. He managed to smuggle his own mother out of Wilmington, which is seventy five miles beyond Confederate lines in one of the most heavily fortified cities in the entire Confederacy. He gets his mom out, he arranges for her to set up to be Boston, where she stays with one of his friends from the Anti Man Hunting League.

Yes, I want to think that I would have the balls to do that, have to get my mom out.

Yeah, you know what I'm saying, Like seventy five mile dang, Yeah, that's a long walk.

Yes, yeah, And so okay, So it's hard to overstate the importance of the black soldiers and black insurgents fighting like and the striking black workers on the war efforts. So I'll just say that they fucking won the war. Militarily, they win it by fighting hard and well and by spying and scouting. But economically they want it to And I've already said that like three times, but I just

That stuff they don't tell you.

Yeah, exactly, Like everything I'd always read is like, oh and then the you know, the grateful black people were so excited that the white Irish and Northerners saved them or whatever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, from the.

Horrible racists of the South, And like, no, first of all, the white people are racist everywhere, and some of them are on racists everywhere. But yeah, fucking anyway, yeah, I love that. So so Galloway end of the war. He he moves to Wilmington, the Confederacy takes off their gray uniforms and put on white hoods. As we all know.

We all know.

In eighteen sixty seven, the KKK demanded that all black organizing cease in Wilmington. So Galloway and the black militia were like, well, you could, you could fucking.

Make us if you want. Yeah, how about that.

There's like four days of street battles with the Klan, and then the Klan fucks off out of Wilmington for the next thirty years.

Love it.

He winds up a senator. He refuses to show deference to white people. He fought for the rights of women, including full subrage. He walked around carrying a pistol. He fought for labor rights. He started working to build coalitions with poor whites along class lines. And then because of the fucking nineteenth century, you know what he did, he died at thirty three.

Thirty.

Oh my goodness, this man like thirty This man was so successful.

No, listen, we are all like listen, see we're all losers, y'ah, like.

Uk thirty three dug okay? Yeah then yeah, yeah, he dies at thirty three because it's nice thing.

Yeah.

And then he either dies of like a fever or he gets poisoned. It depends on what what history book you out you read, But yeah, that's that's goll Away. And there's a few more parts of this whole Civil War within the Civil War, the Civil Civil War, War, and Civil Civil War. One part is that the the white South was far from united in the support of

Was gonna say, I think that that's important part of the story to this, Like you're like, why intersectionality and critical race theory, like why you need to notice stuff? Is that type of intersection to where it's like, hey, dude, like, yeah, maybe I'm not a slave, but I can see that that's bullshit and I can't afford to have one anyway, and I can't stand your owner.

Either, like totally.

You know what I'm saying, Like, Nah, he's a dickhead, you're right, Yeah, nah, fuck that guy.

But I'm just as poor as you are. Yeah you know what I'm saying.

Well, not just as poor, but like in their perception they're just like, I mean, I'm poor too, Like noah, fuck, this guy's gonna fight for that, you know what I'm saying. So it's more like it's not so much they're like you know, like obviously like socially conscious and aware for their time, but just more the reality of like this, this is what a lack of resources does makes you be like man fighting your principal cause like you're talking about nah man fuck that guy.

You know. Yeah, you just summarize the next chunk of my script. I just let's go. But yeah, like, okay, So in eighteen sixty, most way Southerners they don't live in the plantation belt. They live upland they live in mountains and hills. And then most of them they don't grow cash cash crops though even the ones who own land they didn't so they didn't grow cotton. They were just subsistence farmers. Some of them were heard Muslim subsistence farmers called the and they get called the yeomen, which

Know, yeah, yeah, I guess, uh huh.

And then the reason West Virginia, where I live, the reason it exists is because it didn't want to secede from the Union, so it seceded from Virginia.

I love it.

The whole of East Tennessee voted to remain in the Union two to one, and they they weren't playing around. Pro Union military companies formed in every county. One guy went up to d C to be like, hey, if we blow up all the bridges from the rest of Tennessee, where you send down troops to protect us.

I love it.

And the general is like, yeah, sure, guy, we can do that. So they went and they torched for bridges, but they weren't able to capture the rest so they were too heavily guarded by the Confederates. Uh So, instead of a Union army marching in, a Confederate army marched in and occupied East Tennessee.

They declare martial law.

They start seizing property, A bunch of the ring leaders are executed, hundreds are arrested, and then thousands of men of military age flee through the mountains through the Confederacy to go join the Union Army.

When the when the Union.

Recaptures East Tennessee, it was it was led by a Union regiment of Tennessee infantry. They had enough fucking people fuck off that they were able to form an entire fucking regiment.

That was like, no, we know, we know these we know these blue mountains. Now we know these smoking mountains. Because let me tell you where to go. You know what I'm saying.

Yeah, Winston County, Alabama, in the northern part of the state, they voted to secede from the Confederacy. So they decided, look, if the Confederates are allowed to secede from the Union, were allowed to secede from the Confederacy. They they four militia bands that stopped Confederate conscription and they protected local families from being robbed by the army. The Peace and Constitutional Society of Arkansas again in the mountains, this time

Fuck this war. Yeah.

In the hills of Choctaw County, Mississippi, a loyal league of deserters spied for the Union, helped people desert robbed the families of those who were loyal to the Confederacy. Northern Alabama started off loyal to the Confederacy, but by eighteen sixty three was full of people resisting and Floyd County was go ahead.

I was gonna say, man, at some point, it's like, I don't care what your politics are, man, you're not gonna feed your children and know me, grinder, Yeah, you know what I mean. Like, at some point you like this is yeah, like you said, it's some bullshit, man. Like even if you started off being like yeah, you know, and then you're like, you know what this look, man, I'm.

Go home grow some potatoes. Yeah.

Basically, all through the South, people just fought against the Confederacy. They would ambush, they would rob, they would sabotage, they would assassinate, and then they were met with massacres. In Arson, there's a whole fucking civil war within the Civil War in North Carolina. The coast had black and indigenous gorillas. They had maroons hanging out in the swamps who would attack the center, had these like direct action abolitionists. The

Year old boy.

Some of the soldiers hesitated to shoot, and the commander said, anyone who doesn't shoot is going to get shot to the most famous of these yeomen results revolts.

Sorry.

In the Civil war was the Free State of Jones, Mississippi. It is another Hollywood movie you ever seen, Free stated Jones. It's another Hollywood movie that gets fucking white savory about this shitah. But basically, there's this Confederate soldier named Newton Knight. He heard that his brother in law was abusing his kids, so he deserts. He walks two hundred miles home, and

We do and you don't know you nothing.

Yeah, because my argument is that the Union isn't really the good guys in the story.

They're just the better than the Confederates guys, the other guys.

Dude, there's a this this is a dope moment, like culturally for a number of reasons. But I think one of the doper like modern tie ins is especially around like the Appalachia stuff because just like the origins of like folk music, like the banjo is West African, Like

It was like what y'all doing?

You know?

Yeah we free.

Now I ain't scared of y'all, you know, but uh yeah, So I just think they have these I wish more people would tell these stories, if anything, just not for those no, like you know, make make us feel better about like well not all white people, right, not for that thing, but to just understand that, you know, history is way more complicated than we was taught.

Yeah, no, exactly.

Like even as I was trying to write this, I'm trying to be like, I'm not trying to fucking center the white anti racist in this, right, but I want people to know that, like, for whatever the reasons, the South was not a fucking unified place, you know, and then to close off this whole thing about it. Even some of the fucking plantation owners.

Fuck them. I'm not defending them.

They get in on the effect of hating the Confederacy, but they do it purely out of self interest because they're a bunch of fucking capitalists, right and so yes, of course when well, they'll do whatever is the most profitable.

There is no Yeah, it's the self interest is the money. Yeah, so I love it.

They was like, y'all fighting for us to be able to keep slaves, but y'all don't buy enough, so, uh.

What's up with y'all?

Y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all was some sugar, yo, say, and then y'all smoke y'all, smoke y'all, smoke yo, we got this tobacco.

Yeah, it's ridiculous.

And that is the story of the Civil Civil War war. I feel about the Civil Civil War war, man, I am.

I hope that this pod gets so much like air and oxygen in it because of the amount of stories that aren't told out of this, not only just to like the culture as a whole, but black people period.

I think a lot of times, like.

You know, we know that we know the uh, we know the highlight reels, you know what I mean, the Harriet Tubmans, then that Turner.

It's the soul Jenner truths, you know what I'm saying.

You know, the Frederick Douglas is the ones that were literate and you know, wrote biographies and autobiographies and such. But like these like you know, regular dudes that were like nah, fam, you think you think your ancestors, you know what I'm saying, You really think your ancestors just took it like they didn't just take it like you know what I'm saying, Like nah, like fuck tooth and nail the whole time, you know, So I think they're

Yeah, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, I succeeded.

You did, Margaret. I appreciate you calling me for this one.

Thanks for coming on. And on Wednesday, we're gonna talk about the Lowry Gang, which is tying into all of this, and you all will not be disappointed by this.

Let's go prop.

You got any pluggables for us at the end here?

Yeah? Uh, prop hip hop dot Com.

You know what I'm gonna do.

Haven't plugged this on any other podject, But if y'all are in the LA area, I do this thing called Club Real Ones.

It's every first Sunday in Long Beach.

It's and it's it's just the day party for y'all grown folks that gotta work the next day. We're done by eight, you know what I'm saying. And there's there's at there. I mean, there's an after part. If you want to, you can go get cocktails next door. We have that too if you don't got to work tomorrow. But if you do, yo three to three to eight, just come chill with us. It's the greatest DJs in Cali. You know what I'm saying. Uh yeah, Club real Ones dot It's on my website prop hip hop dot com.

And then all the professional stuff like, oh, I wrote a.

Book, you know, I got my podcast or politics, yeah, Terrify.

Yeah, which I just got an award yesterday for which is a shito. Yeah. Anyway, so yeah, those are my plugs, Margaret.

Anything you want to plug at the end here.

Uh well, at the moment, I seem to like plug in my new podcast, Cool People Did Cool Stuff. You can also follow me on Twitter at Magpie Killjoy and a bunch of books out. I guess the most recent one that's out is called A Country of Ghosts. It's an anarchist utopian novel.

Okay, so we'll be back. We'll be back on Wednesday.

We're back in the feeds. We're back in the feeds. The wrapping is mean.

By my.

Hello, and welcome back to Cool People Did Cool Stuff? The podcast my podcast in which I declared myself the arbiter of what counts as cool for both people and stuff. And then I tell you what I decided.

I've got so true, so true, I was like, wait, that's I I appreciate it.

I sure did. Thanks.

I like when you laugh at my scripted jokes. Okay, so I've got too such a great blong with me today. I've got I've got prop who's an activist, a poet, an MC and the host of the podcast Hood Politics, which I'm just assuming you all have listened to, because obviously you should listen to it.

How are you doing, that's a fair assumption. I'm cool.

I'm hot as hell over here. So I got my little glass of water, you know what I'm saying, so I don't catch the vapors. That's my southernsumption. Oh yeah, that's my Southern bell.

Well I do declare.

Well, then you're gonna get robbed in this episode. Yes, as a Southern bell. Okay, no, no, I'm with it. Yeah.

Let them they sitting there, what they eliminate? Talk about?

They lemonade while Big Daddy just beats my ancestors like, nah, rob dad lady.

Yeah.

And I've got Sophie on here as well. She's our producer. She's the reason that podcasts exist, all podcasts. She invented podcasts.

Yeah, invented podcasting and no podcast exists without my.

Approval, yep, exactly. And sports invented the concept of sports.

Invented the concept of sports. And for the record, the Joe Rogan Podcast is a YouTube show.

This is the second part in our two part series about the Joe Rogan experience. No, about the Civil War.

Within about the Civil Civil War war.

Yeah, the Civil Civil War war. So you probably go back to listen to part one, or you could just listen to this part. Who am I to tell you what to do to your life?

You're the person that gets to You're the arbiter of what is cool? Oh I should tell people?

Well you should tell Okay, go back and listen to part one and we'll wait here.

Okay, you're back. Okay.

So the last time, we talked about a whole bunch of different, various ways that people across the South work to fuck up the Confederacy because the Confederacy needed getting fucked up. But today we're going to deep dive into one of my favorite groups of all time. Who fucked up with the Confederacy. They fucked up the Confederacy, they fucked up the Klan, they fucked up the rich plantation owners,

I think it's very.

Important to remember too that like the Confederate Nation lasted four years, like y'all, Like Nirvana had a longer run, Like yeah, there's y'all, like y'all, Audi hoop over something that was four years long, like Lebron got a longer career than the Confederate Nation.

You know what I'm saying. I'm just like y'all anyway.

No, no, yeah, Like, which is actually why when you talk about principled people, you're talking about shit that they were doing before and after the Civil War, because like, yeah, because fuck, you have Confederates is great, but there was people worth fucking up before the Confederacy and absolute literacy.

Absolutely, it's like yeah, and then y'allo and then y'all like fifty years later, fifty one hundred years later, decided to like raise some monuments, Yeah for your four year long career anyway, where.

You just terrorized everyone who lived there? Were you just terrorized?

Yeah, in your own hood, like you've just heard, your own hood didn't mess with you.

These people really ain't fooling with y'all like this.

So, so before I can tell you about the Lottery Gang, I want to I want to go way the fuck back and tell you some shit from hundreds of years back. And I'm going to tell you about going to Croatan, Okay, the lost colony of Roanoke.

What you know where this is going.

Discovery Channel styles, Yeah, exactly, Yeah, I love this.

This story is incredible. Yeah.

There's an island off the coast in North Carolina called Roanoak Island. In fifteen eighty five, the English tried to put their first permanent settlement in the New World there, like this is before the fucking Mayflower. Jamestown, Virginia wasn't until sixteen oh seven. But this settlement effort was led by some piece of shit household named Ralph Lane, who had spent the last two years as a colonial sheriff in Ireland before he had, Before that, he'd been the

No, he's the worse.

He lands on the island and he tries to set up shop. One of the first fucking things he builds is a fucking jail, yes, and then he gets mad

Yeah.

Fortunately, like ten years later, just to close the Ralph Lane saga, he goes back to colonizing Ireland, and then the Irish fucking rise up and gravely wound him, and he lives in terrible pain for the few remaining years of his life. Anyway, back to Roanoke fifteen eighty seven, you've got another guy, John White.

He's honestly not that much better.

He goes on his way to set up a colony in Virginia on the Chesapeake, and he swings by to drop off supplies for these guys that Ralph Lane ditched there except John White. He has a Spanish guy on board named Simon Fernandez, Simon Fernandez probably, and he's a fucking pirate. He's just he's been arrested for piracy. He was going to be fucking killed as a pirate. And then the British Crown was like, actually we kind of want him on.

Our ses, that guy.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, And so they land on this island and then Simon is like, actually, we're not going any further, y'all are going to stay here. This is where we're setting up the colony. And he like forces them to set up the colony on Roanoke and no one knows why he did this, and so they unload one hundred and seventeen colonists and then this one indigenous guy named Mantio who was just catching a ride back to North America from England, and no one knows why Simon did this.

I honestly think it was like yeah, like the Path of Lea's Resistance, just like yeah, yeah, how's you doing over here?

Yeah, totally. And so this guy Mantio, they kept calling him a chief, but he wasn't a fucking chief. His mom was in charge. But I don't think he worked really hard to convince them that he wasn't a chief. I think he was like, all right with going to England and you call the chief or whatever.

Sure.

So Simon and Ralph they are not Ralph the fucking John White. They don't stick around. They leave one hundred and seventeen people, one hundred and eighteen people, and then they just fuck off back to England to get more supplies, and they're like, h good luck, see you soon, but they they don't come back soon. They get sucked into the Anglo Spanish War, which is like a back and

It's gone. Yes, yeah, anything.

On a boat happen quickly, Like.

No, probably not back then, yeah no, but yeah, yeah, I like that anyway, No, keep telling the story.

Yeah yeah.

So they show up and there's a palisade around the settlement, right, and it's completely abandoned, and the word Croatan is carved into the palisade, and then the word crow is carved into a tree, and people act like this is like the greatest mystery of all time. Croatan is the name of like the next island over where Mantana's from, Like so easy, yeah, And then instead of going to go see if that's where their colonists are the next island over, they're like, well, this is like a storm coming, so

Of course, yeah, of course you do.

And so they get blackmailed for money or land or forced labor so that they don't get taken a court. Rich landowners have been doing the shit to the lumby for a while, basically slowly stealing all their fucking land by doing this. And one history and I was reading and pointed out that this is it's comparable to how plea bargains work. Right, You catch someone up on some fucking bullshit charges and then you blackmail them into pleading out for a lesser charger or fine.

Yes, yes, that's exactly it. Oh, it's so lame.

Yeah, And that's what they're doing to these people. And this guy named James P. Barnes, he was doing this to some lowries and he probably would have lived to regret it, but he didn't get a chance to live to regret it because Barnes was a wealthy slave owner

True colative pointed at your dome, yeah, d.

So next they kill this guy named James Brantley Harris, who's a Confederate conscription officer, a known rape and a sheriff who liked to round up all the non white people and force them into labor camps. And in order to tell you about Harris, I've got to tell you about this idea called Scuffletown. Harris was supposed to keep peace in this place called Scuffletown. And the thing is is that, at least in none of the historians that I've read and actually know exactly what Scuffletown means it.

Shit like that.

Yes, But so the lowries didn't have enough guns of their own because it was harder for them to get them. But they knew where some were kept, the courthouse where they kept all the guns for the local militia. So they fucking steal all the guns from the courthouse and then they're like, all right, fuck it, we're all in. And they basically just become robin hoods and they spend they rob plantations, they distribute all the shit that they

They're like, excuse me, you are broke, broke it's fine.

Yeah, it's not gonna help. You're not helping, bro, It's all good, don't worry about it.

So okay, So half their members are literally just people with the last named Lowry. But the Lowry Gang was multiracial. They had a bunch of people who had escaped enslavement, at least one Confederate deserter, a handful of like random white folks, especially buckskins, and for a while, a bunch of Unions solders who are scaping pow camps, including one of them who probably like is credited, who's credited for training them in guerrilla tactics because he was a Union scout,

It's a little bit excessive.

Yeah, but I'm like, I'm just like, the how's the physicality of carrying that many weapons? Like, okay, well, I mean, full respect, there's a lot of things that people do in that century that I'm not able to do. Yeah, let me go ahead, fall back on these foods.

And I feel like, because if you did it now, right, you just need it. You're going a little overboard. It's completely unnecessary to have that many guns. But think about reloading in the nineteenth century, you know, and you're like, you shoot your rifle, and do you want to wait like forty seconds to reload your rifle or do you want to drop it pick up your shotgun?

You know that's actually a that's actually.

A tooche touche margarete.

Because yeah, like I ain't really got time.

You can't just yeah, these ain't automatic weapons, like you gotta like dang touche.

I never even thought you.

Are absolutely correct. Yeah, no, it makes sense because you like, oh yeah, you can't just yeah, you got I just need another gun.

I can't just be like click click click click, like yeah, yeah, good point on me.

So Henry Lowry, he's there a leader, either formally or informally, it's hard to know. His history books always pick a leader, and sometimes people in history pick leaders, but not always right. He always ties into the banjo thing. He's a he's a quiet, handsome man. All everyone talks about that, and he all he loves playing banjo and fiddle when he's

Yeah, yeah, what's out thing? We just I mean, so we should like we should hang him, right all right? So okay, look, show a hands, do we hang this dude or not? I love it?

Yeah, you imagine being that guy, and you're just like, no, vote the other way.

Yeah, yeah, i'd you're like, ah, no, man, like you raise your mess Yeah, a messy, don't you think.

Yeah, Like, sorry, dude, you're outvoted. You're gonna get that. This is what we're doing. Hey, sorry, homie, we gonna hang you. Yeah.

And the whole larger community is helping them out, the entire county, like the Lumbee folks, the black folks, and a few of the white folks. Not the rich fucking white folks around there, but they're all like passing along information, they're scouting, they're treating the wounded, and at some point they muster a militia to frustrate attempts to find them.

Good for her, Yeah, you're you're a rider, Yeah, like you have to know if your sons act like this, your grant is this your grandchildren that are like riders like this, then you definitely come from a stock to where your grandmom is like, yeah, I'm a snitch on my own grandchildren. Yeah, exactly, shoot your guns, shoot them, yeah, keep shooting them and yeah.

And after this it actually calms down for a while, and like several points in the story, it probably would have all ended, except then the Home Guard decides to fuck with Henry's wedding. Henry he marries his cousin, a woman named Rhoda Strong, and the wedding is fucking I know, those times are yeah, uh, it's one of them.

Okay.

So this is like one of the most important Lumby families that universally loved. The feast table is seventy five feet long, right for their fucking wedding. Hundreds of people are there. And with hundreds of people there, the Home Guard shows up to arrest Henry for the murder of one of these Confederate focks that they killed earlier. So he grabs like one of the only two white people there and hides behind them, which I think is fucking brilliant. So the cops don't shoot him, and then the entire

They would have just killed him there, you know. Yeah.

Yeah, he goes to jail, He gets put on trial, and he completely re uses to cooperate. He won't speak on his own behalf, he won't cross examine witnesses. He's just like, now, fuck this, fuck you, yeah, all day every day. Yeah, because he knows his family has his back, right, So he's in jail for not very long. He uses a file to file through the bars of the jail and then break out. And the oral yeah, the oral tradition here is that that his wife wrote a strong baked the file into a cake.

So it's like, so it's like old school. This is a movie cartoon. Yeah, let's go.

Oh, it's going to get so much more cartoony.

I love it.

And so what I was reading this, I was like, is this where this comes from? This idea of bake the file into the cake. No, it's older than this. One time, like twenty years earlier, Alexander Duma had used it as a plot point in one of his books. And then like years later, so Irish anti colonial forces bust someone out of jail in Ireland by doing this, so dope, and so.

I respect it so much. I respect it so damn much.

So he files his fucking way out of the jail and he's out. And then the Civil War comes to an end, and when General Sherman passes through the area, most of the Union members who are part of the

It is what it is? Yeah, Yeah.

But when he's in jail, he starts hearing rumors that there's a posse out to lynch him and they're going to drown him in the river. So he's like, you know what, you fuck this. There isn't enough fucking security at the jail to stop a posse, which I think Henry must have figured it means that there wasn't enough

How you'd be able to hi, how is his man able to hold on to a gun and a knight? Oh?

I don't fucking know, h man, you lucky dog, and saying yeah, His quote to the jailer that he pulls the gun on is I'm tired of this.

And then he just lets himself out of jail. What what?

And then apparently on his way out of town, he stops at a house and breaks in and steals crackers to eat, and then leaves and goes into the swamps.

I know, you know what I'm done playing with y'all. Yeah, exactly.

So six weeks later, the Lowery Gang is back in business, and there's this wealthy landowner named Reuben King. He spent decades catching enslaved people on the run, brutalizing Indigenous people and evicting poor tenants. So the Lowry Gang shows up at his house, kills him in his parlor and steals all this shit. And so now instead of just being instead of at war with the Confederacy, the entire large community they're part of is now at war with the

Literally the same Yeah, we won't let that pass. We won't let that pass. Bido. Yeah.

So the police guard and this led by this guy Norman, grab eight of the gang. Two of them do give info under torture, but then like later repudiate their statements and say not as is made under duress, and but eight of their number being in jailed and slow anything down.

Of course he does, yes, And so.

He goes outside because he hears a noise, and he somehow finds himself with an extra bullet in him and his family runs off to get a doctor who rushes over in a buggy with a mule pulling it. And then the poor mule is about a mile away from the plantation when the mule also develops a case of too many bullets and dies, which is as far as like its the only innocent victim that the loweries get anywhere. Yeah, or collateral damage bent out callous you're feeling, you know,

So at all.

Two of them get tried for one of the sheriff killings and they're sentenced to hang. But meanwhile, wrote a strong our jail brick, extraordinary wife smuggles an augur into one of the three to three of the guys and which is basically it's a drill bit with a handle on it.

That's how I was going to ask. So, yeah, just.

You know, I know what it is, but remind me specypically and in detail.

Yeah, what's an augur? Yo say, I don't know what it is? Yeah, No, that was the joke trying to make. Yeah, yeah, I mean I I put it in the script. I was like, I describe it too right, because I hear an Augur in an article and I'm like, well, what does that mean?

The fucking nineteenth century? Right, like like now it's a big gas power machine that I used to put in fence posts. Oh, They're like, no, no, it's a jackhammer. That's a that's for concrete thing. No, no, no, no. I spend way too much my time think about power tools. I live on a fucking such a city boy house in the woods.

Yeah.

So, but in Augur in this case, it's like, it's a before you have a fucking power drill, you use a hand drill. Right, So they they steal in a they smuggle in a hand drill, and then they somehow in this part I don't fucking get, they drill a hole in the wall of they're selling escape Like I don't know what they used to make jails out of.

I'm and I'm like, wait, and I got no guards? Hey, you know anybody here that y'all like where y'all? Like what, okay, what tell.

Me about y'all's prison system?

And the thing is like it's not like I like, I'm here for it all, but I'm like, I mean, yall ain't here.

Yall ain't here to augur. Yeah, I ain't see that, y'all ain't see the fire.

Y'all ain't hear the man filing the You ain't walk by the jail cell and go, hey, man, why you what are you rubbing rigorously on the bars?

I didn't know.

And then the man that was like, you know what, man, And then when Naomi was like, you know what, man, fuck this, I'm leaving.

That's gonna get better. That like y'all like, who are you hiring y'all?

This must be like look, look, look they hiring teenagers. You know what I'm saying that like just won't like a minimum wate job, and it's like, oh, fuck, you know what I'm saying, just woole work at the mall. They hire people to work at GAP that are like, yeah, steal the sweats. I don't care, am I sweats?

Yeah, that's what's happening here.

I don't pay me enough freaking mall cops like, steal whatever person you want.

I don't care.

So so after this, after some of them break out, they take the rest of them and they put them in a brick jail.

You know what, guys, I got some notes from last time.

Uh, we should go with brick because Homie just drilled a hole through the wall last time, so we should probably just do you all right, guys, all in favor of bricks, and maybe we shouldn't hire your fucking nephew, Jo. I'm saying to watch them because that food must have been drunk as hell or just don't care.

And you know what, it was harder for them to break out of the brick prison, but they did it really quickly.

Anyway, let's go out.

So this time, because this is a cartoon, Rona goes in and seduces the guards. I fucking kid, you not every out?

Yes, this is who framed Roger Rabbit.

Yeah this is yeah, he said, hey, you a big strong man.

So she goes in and does this while and while she's doing that, someone else goes to the window and smuggles them a hatchet, a file, and a chisel, which they then use to turn a spoon into a lock pick.

How much time you got, how much time you got? How fine is this girl? How much time you got.

To do that?

Okay?

Yeah, so then they now they can come and go from their cell whenever they want because they got a lock pick. So they take their time. I assume at night, but I don't know. They take their time. They find an outside wall and they slowly chisel through the outside wall.

Oh my god, this is hilarious.

Whereupon they climb out on a rope made out of blankets.

It's okay, you're Margaret, you're making this up, trolling me, Margaret.

I checked more than one history book about as much as the ship as I could.

Because I'm.

Like, okay, did you Yeah, some of this might have gone into folklore. I'm reading this in history books. But these people are fucking They are absolutely mythologized like Robin Hood.

Of course, so but still.

Yeah, except one guy doesn't break out. He's in a different cell and he's like, you know what, I have a solid alibi, which is true. So his employer vouched for his whereabouts and he was found innocent, and then he like never joins the gang again and just fucks off, and it's like lives a quiet life. But but so the gang keeps up their raids during all this shit, even when people are in jail.

This is so great. I love this. I got an alibi. Ya, y'all do I'm cool.

Yeah, I love it. I feel like that would be me and all this. You know, I'm just like, well that was fun, but I almost got hanged.

And I'm good. I'm good.

I got stories to tell my grandchildren.

I'm good. I did all right. I'll just you know, I'll just do it, y'all. Y'all, y'all, go ahead, just bring me back some of rio.

Yeah, yeah, okay. So then they hire an undercover cop.

Yeah?

And he's fellow youths yeah, and so he's like, hey, just follow me west to safety.

But they don't quite trust him, so they keep an eye on him and then they catch him. You know, reporting back to his fucking other officers or whatever the fuck.

Being a snitch. Yeah, they catch him being a snitch. Hey guys, you guys want some drugs around this corner. Yeah, you guys into drugs?

Huh. You guys like smoking the smoking on the weed, huh.

Come over here. I got him. I'm a fellow kid. Yeah, I'm a bandit.

Hey, look at me. I'm a bandit from the North. I mean break it out of stuff.

Yeah, I like vandalism, spray painting, some shit behind the seven stupid spray painty.

Hey, guys, I got some spray paint. Yeah, totally. So they fucking catch you, right, of course.

And they so they catch him, and they're like not really into the cold blood and murder thing, but this guy knows too much. And so here's where they put it to a vote, and they vote to kill him.

Okay.

They let him write a letter to his wife. They send a photograph of him and his last letter up to his wife, and then they I think they shoot him.

Maybe they hang him, I don't know.

And at this point they're kind of just winning, Like it's eighteen seventy. All the county's best law enforcement are fucking dead. The police spy is dead, and all of the lowries who've been captured have escaped. So they call and federal troops. At this point, the whole fucking army comes in, Federal troops, and so militias also start combing

Now now it's bugs. Now it's looney tunes. Now it's bugs, bunny.

Yeah, like yes, And what they what they found in the swamps instead was potatoes, the finest potatoes that money can buy, much like the potatoes that we advertise on this show.

Swamp potatoes.

Yeah, it's nothing like it.

This is a break to some ads, and now here are some ads, all right, and we're back and we're talking about swamp fries apparently.

Which are gator tots.

Yes, And so the militias in the air, ye're looking for them as well as the federal troops. And the militia is just fucking made up of KKK as far as I can tell, and they, you'll be shocked to know, gave up on the whole rule of law thing, and so they just started going to the Yeah, they go to the lowry residents and they try to capture and murder murder them, and they kill at least one of

Yeah, dude, they had their moment, Yeah, their moment of shining where and it's like, we should probably end shadow slavery.

They just haven't clocked a w since.

Yeah, exactly, God, So the Conservatives put a bounty of twelve thousand dollars on the heads of each of the Lowries. So the Loweryes then put bounties back on the county commissioner and a bunch of the other folks working. They don't have as much money, so because they only offer a thousand dollars, the county commissioner two hundred for a bunch of the people working for him. But then racists from all around come to Robison County and they're looking

What, yeah, this really is a movie?

I know, why is it not one? Yeah? Well raises it mostly? Oh well yeah, but well.

Yeah, uh my man caught the bullet with his two front teeth.

Okay, spits out the bullet keeps going. It's the bullet out.

Hey, seriously, if you shoot at somebody and they spit the bullet out, the fight's over.

It's done. Lead that person today own devices.

Oh my god, one time, one day, I'm gonna tell the story of al Fusilado and the Mexican in the Mexican Revolution. This guy gets put in front of a firing squad and shot with like thirteen bullets or whatever, and he doesn't die. So the officer comes up, puts a gun to his head and shoots him in the head and he doesn't die. And so so then they're like, you know what, you can go like, we shot you in the fucking head and twelve times in the body.

I don't know what to say anymore. Guys. Yeah, look, listen, let me tell you something.

Your little politics I talk all the time about, Like listen, if you if you you know is the rule? If you're about to get jumped, you know, which hopefully this doesn't happen to anybody. And one, we're full grown adults now, so this is stupid. But if you were, it's like, you have to like lose your mind on the toughest of them. Whoever toughest is or the loudest is in that group, you got to lose your mind on them so that everybody else thinks twice, right.

Yeah, la, yeah, you know what I'm saying.

So that like, and that gives you that split second because they're like, oh, dang, he just punched that. She just punched the baddest of all of us. Okay, we should probably like, yo, let's think twice about this. So and it's the same as the other way around. Somebody bought a fist up, caught their arm back and fire on you and you just take it. Yeah, then then it's time then yeah yeah, like that food that your jaws steal.

So lead this person alone.

That's what I used to do. I was like when I was more of a street kid. Someone who's drunk and looking for a fight punches you, and it sounds kind of counterintuitive. It's not like someone punches and you're like oh no, I'm so sorry. I wish you hadn't punched me. But instead someone punches and you just stare

Like, ah, that just gave you everything I had, Yeah, and that was it?

Yeah yeah yeah, and you just you just take it just like Yeah.

It's a hard it's a hard math to figure out though, right, it really is.

It really is unless you're a fighter.

Like if you're a fighter and somebody to your best punch and just drank it, yeah, then you like, oh yeah that's it.

Let me go ahead, because I don't know what your swing. Don't feel like anyway?

Yeah. So yeah, a man that takes a firing squad and a point blank and just looks at you like y'all, y'all good, like we done here? Yeah?

Are we done?

All? Right?

Them out?

Yeah, and he just lives the rest of his life. I can't remember what work he got up to. It's been a while since I read his story. But all right, So they show up at Henry Lowery's cabin. There's fucking bullet spinner apple White, and they get into a gunfight, and then the gunfight goes on for a while, like from inside the cabin, outside the cabin, and then all

You need a tunnel dog. Come on, man, Yeah, that's a no brainer. And you and nim swamps don't nobody know where you like, You can't navigate swamp, you can't map swamps.

You have to just be. You have to just be from there.

Yeah, which is I mean, I didn't even get into the Maroons during the last episode one day or a whole thing about them. But yeah, people, if you know the swamps, you can fucking do a lot of shit.

Yeah.

So okay, so they get away, right, But at this point two of their people are in jail, one member of their gang and then one of their supporters that the brother, right, and they're like, well, this isn't going to do. So a whole bunch of them show up armed at the jail and they just hold up the jail at gunpoint and they're like, hey, let our friends go, and they do.

Yes, because it's fifteen year olds that are good in prison.

Yeah, and fifteen year olds with guns on the outside too.

To be real, you know, oh yeah, I forgot the only I forgot. Everything happens. You've already ran for president at nine.

Yeah, yeah.

Nineteenth century, Yes, Lincoln was actually fourteen. He just looks real sport, just the haggard fourteen.

It was just a really hard life out there, man, he's real, really fourteen yeah yeah.

So basically the entire community is ungovernable at this point, right, yes, And taxes weren't able to be collected in the area, No warrants were being served in the area. Black train hands were sending warnings down the line whatever troops were approaching by rail, and so the Conservative government by eighteen seventy one, they give up trying to target the gang,

And now it's now it's Rambo. Okay, yeah, now it's Rambo.

Now he's Jean Claude Vand now this is the Steven Sagall movie.

Yeah, okay, and I believe it.

Yeah, I mean I know right like it's it's it's fucking because the tropes come from somewhere.

Yeah, yeah, because tropes come from somewhere. Yeah. So you like, okay, that's incredible. Yeah.

And so then they send the sheriff a letter, and they say, we make a request that our wives, who are arrested a few days ago and placed in jail be released to come home to their families by Monday morning, and if not, the bloodiest times will be here that ever was before. The life of every man will be in jeopardy. That is the most polite. Oh my, I love how polite these people were back there.

Yeah, like, now, prop prop did they release them or did they not release them?

Of course they released it. Of course they did. Somebody somebody that somebody that dangerous. That calm.

That's another thing. Somebody that that's dangerous and that calm. You know, Okay, you know something I don't because you're suposed to come up in here.

Being like listen, listen, I don't see my ladies by tonight. I'm murdering. I'm gonna kill your fucking parakeets too.

Everybody dying. Everybody, everyone's dying. I'm taking a train. I'm taking a train to Tennessee, and I'm finding your grandma. I'm murdering. Where your ma mistake? Where your grandma mistay? Where your homeboys stay? Everybody dying? That's how you posted to talk.

He's like, you know, this is gonna be a really hard day for everybody.

I'm just I'm just saying, all the men are in danger if you don't give us our ladies back.

Yeah, okay, And so it works, and of course, but they can't actually as as fucking hard as they are and as much as they rule, they can't actually get up keep up their antics with federal troops everywhere, right, Like, they're not doing a lot of robbery at this point, but they do apparently get up some good shenanigans. And again, okay, this is reported by the William Williamton Star at the time,

Rule, even if it's myth it's so great. Yeah, this is great.

This is great mythology, even if it is myth Yeah, and wonderful at least some huge chunk of it.

I mean again, I don't fucking know, you know.

Yeah, okay, And so both both sides actually want this to end at this point, and so there's this brief truce and then some of the like wiser heads in the government are like, hey, why don't we just give them all pardons and then this could all fucking go away. Yeah, But the law and order crowd is like, hell no, And so the truce disappears.

Wow.

So the Lowry's rob one thousand dollars from a merchant in town, and then they steal the iron safe out of the sheriff's office with twenty two thousand dollars inside.

Another cartoon moment, all right.

And then Henry Lowry just fucking disappears.

Gone. Yeah in the wind.

Bounty hunters combed the area for the next two years. They kill at least three of the gang during all of us. One of them this one of the Scott's Irish members, Zachariah McLaughlin. He got to drinking with some other white guy, and he told him like, hey, you should join this gang. And then the white guy for Zack to fall asleep, shot him in the head with his own pistol and turned his body in for the bounty. And then that dude got the fuck out of Robinson County.

Yes, I was gonna say, like, you're gonna turn You're gonna turn in somebody that's like a gangster like that dude put the money, you bet it disappear. You better get to Canada real soon. Yeah, because get your money, get up out of here, which I kind of feel like that's what Lowry did twenty two thousand.

Yeah. Man, he in France, homie.

Yeah, he's fucking He's gone. And then to quote the historians I was quoting earlier, Neil Shirley and sarahly Stafford. They have a book called Dixie b Damned about rebellions in the South, and they sum up the theories with this quote or this is a quote I'm summing up with theories. A variety of folk tales, legends, and hypotheses exist, some supported by more evidence than others, but all inconclusive.

I loved so. Yeah you think he's in France?

Nah? I think, yeah, headed to the Northwest. I could see that and being like, look, we was able to do this down here. Yeah, I'll bet you we could pull this off if they think I'll go And then again, I'm just like, if you got that much money, yeah, yeah, you out. Yeah, Like I'm out. What I did, My work here is done. I'm out, Yeah, totally.

Ann ain't an you ain't.

Fighting federal soldiers, you know what I'm saying. And y'all gangsters. So it's like, you know, you look, we'd have done y'all. Look y'all get y'all. Y'all got y'all thousand dollars. Y'all need to get the fuck out the city too. Like you don't need me to tell you, y'all get y'all go for I got mine.

You go get yours. Yeah, I'm out. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. Totally. Yeah.

So there's there's one more story in all this. It happens in Robison County with the Lumbee and fighting against racist and shit.

That's worth it.

I mean, there's a million more stories we're telling. This is the other one that looms large in a lot of this history, and this is the Battle of Hayes Pond. It's like one hundred fucking years later, it's nineteen fifty eight and the Lumbee were targeted by the KKK. On

Yeah, just yeah, anyway, Yeah.

His name is fucking James Catfish Coal and oh my god, yeah, oh my god, these guys, I know, like, you name yourself a wizard and a catfish, I'm supposed to take you serious.

I'm just unpleased to take you serious.

Yeah, And so he decides he's gonna throw a big old clan rally to end all the race mixing, and he tries to run a field near town, but everyone's like fuck you. So eventually he finds a place to have their rally further out of town, like ten miles out of town. And apparently the sheriff was like, hey, hey, Bud, you really might not want to do this. People might not like it if you do this. Yeah, but the brave grand l for Hobbit or whatever it decides to

I was like, you ain't getting no five okay, thank you.

Yeah, but five hundred lumbees show up, and everyone on all sides is armed, and so there's this tense stand off. It's mostly the lumbe making fun of the dumb fucking clansmen, of course, and then there's like the shortest scuffle. One lumby man pulls down the KKK bander and the Klan only had like one light bulb to light up their

Yeah yeah, they were like, look, dude, show a little lame ass out of here.

So what happens next Yeah, yeah, exactly. Lumbee historian Melinda Maynor Lowry puts it like this, Cole took off running in the swamps. His panicked followers dropped their guns, jumped in their cars, and drove in all directions, some straight into the ditches surrounding the field. Cole abandoned his own white Caroline at the scene. She either escaped on foot with her three children, or, as some Lumbees like to tell the story, drove her car into a ditch and

Cole.

He goes and he hides in the swamps and he doesn't come out of his hiding place for two fucking days after the shit, and he's arrested for inciting a riot, extradited from South Carolina, and he's given like eighteen months. And one of the one of the jury was like, they were like, why do you convict? And he was like a lot of very angry people with guns were very very interested in this man being convicted this oh

Of course, of course it doesn't sound familiar to now at all. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no one's ever done that.

The guy who grabs the banner, he has his photo taken to two guys have their photo taken wrapped in the banner and become a celebrity. And he gets thousands of letters of support from eight different countries. And this ends KKK activity in Robison County. So that's the story of the Lowry Gang, or sometimes called the Lowry Wars.

And kept going.

That's dope, I what am I trying to say here? There's something that I've always like, I haven't been able to put words on until recently. That's so unique about the type of like going back to this clan guy then and this last thing in nineteen fifty eight, like this, I just don't understand, Like there's so many ways in the black community to say that's none of my business, just my your own business, Like you know, we just be like, look, that's your business, Like listen, listen, my

You can.

Do your racism. But why you look so stupid to us is because you worried about shit that ain't your business.

What the fuck you can? What the fuck do you care? Like, why do you care about that?

You know?

And I'm like, and that evolves into the Karen phenomenon. You just feel like shit is your business, and I'm just like, that's mind your own fucking business. Like, how many things would just be if you just mind your own just mino, that's not your business. And it's like, to me, one of listen, one of the easiest things to discern. To me, the easiest thing in the world for me to understand is what's my business and what's not my business?

Yeah, Margaret, you are part of the trans community.

Yep.

You know why I have.

No thoughts about that because it's none of my business.

If that's what you want to do, it ain't my business. Yeah, j Unders says. I'm just like, it was so easy. It is so easy for me.

Yeah, you know, I just don't understand why people don't understand what is not their business.

Yeah, I got that.

Why so many of them are politicians.

That's what John says. Wad Yeah, why did those people grow up? And I'm because they think everything is their business?

So they should because they take everything they totally.

Yeah.

The number of people who thinks their business whether or I'm wearing a dress in public or whatever, it's fucking wild. I'm like, it's why, listen, does this impact the fact that I'm trying to buy French fries at my favorite French frying poor?

Um no, no, Margaret, if you and front of me in address, you know what I'm thinking about? What size fries I want? Yeah, exactly, That's what I'm thinking about. Yeah, I'm just like, I'm not good, it's not my business.

That's a total stranger.

Yeah, you know, it comes back to potatoes.

It all comes back.

I just want to know what sized fries I'm gonna get. That's all I'm worried about. And I'm looking to see if they just fried him back there. I hope they hopefully they fresh. That probably impacts what size you want to you know exactly.

If I look out there and I'm like, they ain't dip those in in a while, I go to small. But if I'm like he just made them right. Let me get it, Let me get a bucket. Yeah, you know, Oh my god, I want French fries so bad. Learning now so bad as soon as we get on. Yeah, that's what I mean. Yo, this was great. Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks for coming on.

Yeah.

This the new show on the on the on the media zone. Huh the cool Zone.

Yeah, it's a new Czum joint.

Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the Welcome to the family. Thank you you.

Yeah you wanna you wanna plug that cool Zone media show that that you host, prop.

Yo, I'm on a cool zone too, man. It's called hood politics. You know what I'm saying. Uh we hood politics will prop Like I am of the belief that.

You understand more than you think you understand. You just need somebody to point at it, you know. And especially if you were, as Margaret said, at some point a street kid, you know, then you understand more than you think you do. And that's really what the Hood Politics is about.

And I enjoy doing it.

It's a good fucking show and people should listen to it. Thank you, although I kind of assume most people are listening to us. I've already heard it, but just in case you haven't.

You never know, you got your own fans. You know what I'm saying, Well, lets you be listening to your show. That's what I mean, That's what I'm insinuating.

Yeah, Yeah, And we'll be back on Monday, right, Margaret.

Back on Monday. Stuff. Cool Stuff in the Cool Zone Yeah.

They cool people who did Cool Stuff is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts on cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.