(Patriotic music)
So Meigs gives the order
to bury the dead
on Robert E. Lee's property.
(Burps)
Oh, boy.
We're gonna go kidnap
Abraham Lincoln's dead-ass body.
Is somebody having sex next to us?
Elmer McCurdy gets sh*t
in the chest... (blows raspberry)
and becomes the bandit
who wouldn't give up.
Oh...
♪♪
(Gospel music)
♪♪
Here we are.
All right.
Berg, we're still alive. Let's do this.
God, I spilled all over my crotch.
Christ.
Bourbon balls now.
(Slurps)
Hello, my name is Steve Berg,
and today we're gonna be
discussing General Meigs...
And the cemetery revenge.
Okay.
Let's take this back to
on the Harbor of St. Louis.
Montgomery Meigs entered
the United States Engineering Corps,
and one of the first gigs
was shadowing this big deal dude
named Robert E. Lee,
and Meigs is like, Oh, Robert E. Lee
is, like, kind of the cool quarterback.
He's, like, the dude.
He's handsome, he's a leader of men,
and he is the ideal of what
a Christian man should be.
And they worked together
the whole summer,
and they became tight,
like a tight-knit crew.
So in mid-May of ,
- the Civil "Ware"... the Civil w*r...
- (Laughs)
Was about to go down.
When Robert E. Lee says,
f*ck you, Union arm...
Union army, I'm going down to be the guy
behind the guys of the Confederate army.
I'm gonna go help out
a bunch of rednecks
who love sl*very
and help them do... do
a bunch of cool sh*t
that he thought was cool.
I don't think it's cool.
- Okay.
- So...
Montgomery Meigs gets so pissed off.
He's like, A guy I looked up to,
the guy who I modeled myself after,
turned out to be one
of the biggest traitors
since Benedict Arnold,
and now I'm fighting against him?
(Dramatic music)
Game on, brother.
Game on.
So at this time at the Lee estate,
Mary Lee, wife of Robert E. Lee,
was walking around her
beautiful rose garden.
She was like, This is my joint.
This is my... this is my thing.
This is my thing.
This is my thing I love.
I love this environment.
As far as the who, what, and where,
this is the "where" I want to be.
The "who" and the "what,"
that's gonna come later.
(Sniffs)
And Robert E. Lee is
like, Look, Mary, babe,
there's gonna be bloodshed,
brother upon brother type of sh*t,
so I'm gonna need you to wrap it all up
and get the hell out of there.
So Montgomery Meigs gets
made quartermaster general.
He takes his soldiers over the Potomac,
and they occupy the Lee residence
and make it kind of the
HQ of the Union army,
and he's like, Yeah, I'll
f*cking nail this job,
especially now that I'm so pissed off
at my mentor, f*cking Robert.
(Hiccups)
So in , General... (hiccups)
Oh, boy.
General Robert... (hiccups)
Oh, my God.
I love you, Steve.
So go ahead. So General Lee...
And Ulysses... (hiccups)
Ulysses S. Grant
begin their -day bloodbath m*ssacre.
, people are k*lled in one month.
Montgomery Meigs had to deal with
all the incoming Union dead soldiers,
so every soldier he has to bury
makes him angrier and
angrier at Robert Lee.
And all of a sudden out of nowhere,
he gets the dead body of his son.
(Somber music)
So Meigs has to bury him.
And Meigs is like...
(Mumbles)
Should never have to see your...
child go before you.
So Meigs, like a quasi-madman,
says, I want to make
sure that Robert E. Lee
can never come back,
and that if he does,
he sleeps among Union ghosts.
Capisce?
Haunting you, Robert E. Lee.
Meigs gives the order to his soldiers
to start burying the
dead on Lee's property,
and Meigs is so excited about this.
He's like, get those dudes
around the house, man,
around the porch, and dig a giant pit
right under Mary Lee's
beloved rose garden.
Sweet.
That's what we're doing.
That is the whole point
of this situation,
to f*ck their house.
It's a zombie playground.
(Hiccups) It's dark.
(Burps)
So the Civil w*r officially ends,
and Robert E. Lee and Mary Lee
find that their precious
land that they loved so much
had been turned into a graveyard.
(Dramatic music)
And they're like, Are you kidding me?
This guy.
Okay, fine.
Cool.
(Sighs)
Fine.
And do you know what that place became?
It became the Arlington
National Cemetery.
Really?
And Mary Lee's precious rose garden
became the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
♪♪
How about that?
Wow.
Arlington National Cemetery,
the heartbeat of America.
(Sniffs)
The heartbeat?
That is weird, because there is
literally no heartbeats there.
(Both laughing)
Please let that be it.
Bergie, great job.
Thanks, man.
Arlington National Cemetery.
It's quite a tale.
Will you teach me some
of your language?
Yeah. Okay.
_
"Drunk History" with Derek Waters.
(Incoherent speech)
Derek Waters. (Laughs)
You tried.
I feel like my voice was offensive.
(Chuckles) Just don't say anything.
Okay.
I get that note a lot.
Okay, okay.
(Speaking Mandarin)
"Drunk History"
with Derek Waters.
(Hip hop music)
Mm.
♪♪
That's... (Chuckles)
What?
(Exhales)
Hello. My name is Jimmy O. Yang,
and today we're gonna
talk about the kidnapping
of Lincoln's body.
Mm.
(Chuckles)
That makes you thirsty, huh?
The story began in ...
no, wait.
, uh, in Chicago.
This dude, Big Jim Kennally,
had, like, the best counterfeiting ring
in Chicago.
But the real man behind the scene
was this guy named Boyd.
He was the guy that made the best press,
and his fake bills were so good
that people would look
at it and be like,
Yeah, it looks like real money to me.
But it's not. (Laughs)
So...
So they were making so much money
that the Fed finally
caught up with them,
and then Boyd took the heat.
And he went to jail.
And now Big Jim is like,
sh*t.
I just lost my guy.
I don't have my cash flow anymore.
What can I do about this?
So he went to the saloon
that he owned called The Hub,
and he talked to a couple of his g*ons
called Mullen and Hughes.
And he's like, Guys,
we're gonna go kidnap
Abraham Lincoln's dead-ass body.
Wow.
And we're gonna...
hold it for ransom
for Boyd's release from prison.
And grand.
Boom.
And then his buddies Mullen and Hughes
were like, Big Jim at it again
with the great ideas.
And in the midst of that conversation,
this other guy
named Lewis Swegles
came up to them and was like, Hey, guys.
You guys talking about stealing
Lincoln's body?
'Cause, um, I don't mean to brag, but...
I am the boss
of body-snatching.
So then Mullen and Hughes was like,
Whoa.
Swegles,
you seem like a legit guy.
Come on in in our crew.
And now Hughes, Mullen, and Swegles
are now in the kidnapping crew
of Lincoln's dead body.
But little did Hughes and Mullen know
that Swegles was actually
an informant for the new agency
called the Secret Service.
So he went back to the head
of the Secret Service Agency,
Patrick Tyrrell,
who was from the Tyrell
family of "Game of Thrones."
(Laughs)
Do you ever go outside?
Not really.
Mostly video games
and "Game of Thrones."
(Both laughing)
Okay.
So Swegles... he's like, Yo, Pat,
I got a scoop for you.
These guys are planning to k*ll
your dead president.
Well, you can't k*ll a dea... I'm sorry.
These guys are
plotting... (chuckles)
To kidnap your dead president.
(Burps)
You should go catch
their ass red-handed.
So Patrick Tyrrell,
he was super down with this.
He was like, Yes!
This is it.
If we protect the dead president,
that means we're protecting
the live president.
This the publicity we need
to cement ourselves
as the g*dd*mn Secret Service
of the United States of America.
(Dramatic music)
So Hughes, Mullen, and Swegles
went to the grave that night.
And the Secret Service
guys were all camped out
around the graveyard
to try to catch these guys red-handed.
And then when the three
guys got to Lincoln's grave
they're like, whoa...
♪♪
I guess this is how, like,
rich people bury themselves.
It's a mausoleum,
a sarcophagus,
and then a coffin.
Oh, sh*t. What should we do?
So Mullen took out his axe,
and he was like, I'm
just gonna bash this sh*t
and take Lincoln's body.
And then Swegles, obviously,
he didn't want to damage Lincoln's body.
He was like, whoa, whoa, guys.
You can't... you can't do that, dude.
You know, that's gonna alert...
uh, the graveyard owner,
and we'll have less time to run.
And then Mullen's like,
You know what?
You're right.
We're gonna do this...
slightly more...
What's the word?
Like, sophisticated?
Slightly more...
So sophis...
Oh, yeah, yeah.
You know what? You're right.
We're gonna do this with
a little more finesse.
So then Mullen
picked the padlock.
Right.
And then they got in the grave.
They're like, Okay. (Burps)
Let's, uh, try to lift it,
and then we just take the whole thing.
♪♪
And then they realized
they're all too weak to
lift the sarcophagus.
So they're like, sh*t.
We really...
were unprepared.
So Swegles is like, all right,
you know what, boys?
You know, I'm just gonna go outside,
smoke a cigarette, and think about this.
(Faint shrieking)
Is somebody having sex next to us?
Uh, it's definitely an animal.
I don't think it's sex.
It's an animal?
I think it's a coyote or a dog.
(Faint shrieking)
That's a sexy-ass coyote.
So Swegles used this opportunity
to signal Patrick Tyrrell
and the Secret Service guys.
So they all, like, tippy-toed in there.
But then this guy, George Hay,
was so stoked and nervous,
he fired his firearm on accident.
(Imitates g*nsh*t)
Whoops.
And everybody freaked out.
So Hughes and Mullen say, ah, sh*t.
We got to get out of here.
And all the Secret Service agents
start, like, f*ring in the dark.
They're like, boom.
Man, this is f*cking bullshit, dawg.
So by the time they
got to the mausoleum,
Mullen and Hughes has gotten away.
So it was a huge mess and the...
Secret Service guys are like,
Ah, sh*t.
We really f*cked this one up.
So Hughes and Mullen,
they didn't know it
was the Secret Service.
They just thought it was
some random dudes'
sh**t-out at a graveyard.
So they just went back to The Hub.
And they're just chilling.
And then the Secret Service
f*cking bust into the bar
and catch up with them.
So they're all patting
each other's backs.
They're like, we finally got
these f*cking assholes,
you know.
This is the establishment
of the Secret Service.
We're gonna protect presidents,
dead or alive,
for now...
♪♪
To eternity.
♪♪
So in the end,
to quote my grandfather...
_
Up, up, down, down, B,
A, B, A, select, start.
Sí, señor.
(Video game music)
Hello, I'm JD Ryznar.
Today I'm going to tell you the story
of Elmer McCurdy,
the bandit who wouldn't give up.
(Slurps)
Boy...
So where does our story begin?
This is gonna be great.
You guys, you're gonna nail this, okay?
I'm gonna go...
(Imitating whooshing)
And when I pull this back,
it's gonna be the past.
It's gonna be .
Ready?
Whoosh.
in Pawhuska, Oklahoma.
Elmer McCurdy
wanted to be a famous outlaw
like Bill Doolin of the Wild Bunch.
He was like, Ah, the Wild Bunch.
They did so many cool
robberies in the s,
and they were the sweetest
outlaws you could think of.
That's who I'm gonna be.
Let's find some crimes for me to do.
So he decided
to rob trains.
So he robs everybody in the train
and hides out.
But then the police show up,
and say, Hey, Elmer McCurdy,
we see you, and we're gonna
have a sh**t-out with you now.
And he's like, All right.
(Imitates g*nshots)
And the cops are like...
(Imitates g*nshots)
And he's like...
(Imitates g*nshots)
Elmer McCurdy gets sh*t in the chest.
(Blows raspberry)
And as he's dying, he goes,
Heh, heh, heh, heh, you just watch.
I'm the bandit who will
never give up.
And he dies.
Mm.
And they just take
him to the funeral home.
And Joseph Johnson,
the funeral director,
was like, Got an outlaw here.
It's .
People love outlaws.
So I'm gonna embalm this piece of sh*t.
Okay, so Joseph Johnson sets him up
in the back of his funeral home.
And he says to people,
Hey, everybody,
who wants to see a dead outlaw?
You put a nickel in the
dead outlaw's mouth,
you can look at him.
So people just coming back
to the back of his funeral home
and going like, Whoa.
It's a dead outlaw.
I'm putting this nickel
right in his mouth.
(Parlor music)
Best nickel I ever spent.
♪♪
The funeral director had Elmer McCurdy
in the back of his funeral parlor
for five years,
just making nickels hand over fist.
I got so many nickels.
(Chuckles) I'm payin' all my bills.
Nickels, nickels,
I'm rich with nickels.
(Both laughing)
A man throwing that
many nickels around...
can't go without drawing
too much attention
from other greedy people.
And so this dude comes by
and is like, oh, what's going on, bro?
I'm Elm... I'm...
Elmer McCurdy's brother.
I kind of want to give
him a proper burial
in uh, look,
California or wherever...
(Blows raspberry)
And the funeral director's like, well...
Made a lot of nickels.
That was cool.
I'm not gonna make many
arguments about that.
So turns out the guy who
took Elmer McCurdy's body
was not Elmer McCurdy's
brother as he had claimed.
It was actually
one of the Patterson brothers.
And the Patterson brothers
were taking this dead body
across a country
and were like, Hey, everybody,
come and check it out.
Hey, we got a cool wax figure
of Jesse James
and Bill Doolin from the Wild Bunch.
That's a cool bunch.
And then we also have a real dead body
of the bandit
who wouldn't give up.
And people were like,
Oh, a real dead body.
I'll pay a nickel, ¢.
And the Patterson brothers were like,
Cha-ching.
Money, money, money,
money, money, money, money.
Quarter, quarter, quarter, quarter,
quarter, quarter, quarter.
But...
after a while,
the Patterson brothers made their money
and then it... it just kind
of wore out its welcome.
So Patterson brothers
sell him to somebody else.
This dead body is being passed around.
And people are like, Listen.
We can't do too much
with this dead body anymore.
We're gonna cover
him in a bunch of wax
and we'll just put him in storage
in Hollywood.
(Blows raspberry)
(Dramatic music)
That was a great story.
No, it's...
the story's not over yet, Derek Waters.
I'm sorry.
The story gets cra...
The story gets crazy.
I'm gonna put a nickel
in Derek Waters' mouth
'cause that's what people did
to Elmer McCurdy.
(Upbeat piano music)
(Both laughing)
It's funny. It's fun.
That was fun to do.
That was worth a nickel.
Let me take that nickel
out of your mouth.
(Groans) That was more uncomfortable
as you taking it out.
I'm gonna put it in your mouth again.
What a delight!
This is great.
Where was I?
(Laughs)
Okay, so Elmer
McCurdy's body spent...
years in storage.
And then there was this amusement park
in Long Beach, California,
that was like, we need a spooky thing
for our spooky house.
So they took this thing,
and they hung it up.
And they painted it bright orange.
(Dramatic music)
So now it's
when a production of "The
Six Million Dollar Man"
came to the funhouse.
And they're like, It'd be cool
if the Six Million Dollar Man
came through the funhouse
and got spooked by a thing.
But that mummy right there in the noose?
That's not spooky.
We need to get something
spookier than this.
Let's strike that.
That means "move it"
in making movies.
So the moving-the-things guy
goes and moves the thing,
and the arm falls off.
(Blows raspberry)
And the guy looks at the arm
and was like,
It's a... there's a bone!
It's a real human hand.
It's a bone in here.
Ah, this is a real dead body.
I'm scared of this.
So...
the ambulance comes, and...
the coroner takes a look at it,
examines it very closely,
and was like,
Wait, there's a bunch of
nickels in this guy's mouth.
He has a bunch of
carnival sideshow stubs
shoved into his coat.
We got a b*llet wound in his chest.
We've got some certain
scars on this and that.
Oh, this is shitty Elmer McCurdy,
the outlaw who wanted
to be a cooler outlaw.
Oh, well, that's who it is.
So once they found out
it was a real dude...
they shipped him back to Oklahoma,
and they had a big funeral for him.
people showed up.
And they buried him right
next to Bill Doolin,
and he looks at Bill
Doolin's grave and he's like,
I'm a big fan of yours.
And then Bill Doolin's ghost says,
You're just a ghost
talking to a grave, dude.
Uh, you're a shitty outlaw.
Eat a d*ck.
But Elmer McCurdy was the bandit
who wouldn't give up,
until he had a reputation
as a sweet bandit,
and that's what he got.
Not bad, Elmer McCurdy...
Not bad.
That's... that makes
me have hope for America
that, like, you could
really make it here...
as a dead body for years.
(Chuckles)
Who you winking at?
Amer... I was winking at America.
♪♪
05x12 - Death
Watch/Buy Amazon
"Drunk History" is presented by an inebriated narrator struggling to recount events from American history, while A-list talent perform historical reenactments.
"Drunk History" is presented by an inebriated narrator struggling to recount events from American history, while A-list talent perform historical reenactments.