You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Did you know women are more likely than men to develop dry eyes, which may be due to hormonal changes during the menstrual cycle or after menopause and the use of oral contraceptives? Give your dry, burning or irritated eyes a daily refresh with Refresh Optive Mega 3 Lubricant Eyedrops, a preservative-free formula that provides fast-acting, lasting relief. Refresh Optive Mega 3 is safe to use as often as needed.
Find Refresh online or in the iDrop aisle at all major retailers. Kick-off summer with Memorial Day Savings at Lowe's. Right now, get 5 Scotts Nature Scapes 1 ½ Cubic Foot Mulch Bags for just $10. Plus, get up to 40% off select major appliances and save an extra $50 on every $500 you spend on select major appliances, $396 or more.
Lowe's. We help. You save.
Validue 528. Mole Shopper excludes Alaska and Hawaii. Selection varies by location. While supplies last.
See Lowe's.com for more details. Did you know that parents rank financial literacy as the number one most difficult life skill to teach? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app for families. With Greenlight, you can send money to kids quickly, set up chores, automate allowance, and keep an eye on what your kids are spending with real-time notifications. Kids learn to earn, save, and spend wisely. And parents can rest easy knowing their kids are learning about money with guardrails in place. Try Greenlight risk-free today at Greenlight.com slash iHeart.
This is Matt Rogers from Lost Culturesis with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. Have you ever felt that uneasy anxiety when the 4 p.m. hour strikes? The creeping meal-related distress that happens when you don't quite feel prepared? You know, dinner dread?
Let's get rid of that unpleasant feeling forever with one word. Stouffer's. No matter what happens, you'll have a dinner plan that everyone loves with Stouffer's. Some chicken enchiladas are a cheesy chicken and broccoli pasta bake is always welcome whether it is plan A or plan D. Delicious. Not gonna lie, I eat the lasagna once a week.
And that's a fact. When the clock strikes dinner, think Stouffer's. Shop now for family favorites. And we return to Our American Stories. Up next, the story about a man born into a life of privilege in Maine who took to the sea and led the U.S. on a wild goose chase that became a political crisis of sorts in 1864. Here to tell the story of Appleton Oakesmith is Jonathan W. White.
Let's get into it. Appleton Oakesmith's mother was a woman named Elizabeth Oakesmith and she was a very prominent first-wave feminist. She was a lecturer, an essayist, a poet, a playwright, a journalist. She traveled in literary circles. She was friends with Edgar Allen Poe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Horace Greeley.
She would speak on behalf of women's rights but she was also in favor of ending slavery. And to give you a sense of how progressive she was in her time, she got the state of New York to legally change her kids' last names. She either thought the last name Smith was too boring or she didn't want her kids to have her husband's surname. She went by Elizabeth and then her middle name Oakes and then her husband's last name Smith. Her son's last name is Oakesmith as one word without the ES.
It's just kind of smushed together. I am convinced that if the story hadn't happened that we would still know Elizabeth Oakesmith today in the same way that we know Susan B. Anthony or Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She was that prominent in early feminism.
When she was 16 years old, she married an older man named Seba Smith. Now, Seba Smith is famous because he created a fictional character named Jack Downing, a fictional advisor to Andrew Jackson. And it didn't matter if you were a Democrat or a Whig, everyone in the 1830s and 40s loved him. So Lincoln loved him and Lincoln's primary opponent, Stephen Douglas, loved him. Andrew Jackson loved him and his primary political opponent, Henry Clay, loved him.
Everybody loved Jack Downing. Now, even though Appleton Oakesmith loved to write and loved to read and learned four languages and were raised by these very educated people, his heart and his passion was with the ocean. And so when he was 16 years old, he traveled to China. Then in the 1840s, he went around the coast of South America to San Francisco during the gold rush. He thought that he would spend his time in San Francisco. He was really captivated by the city, but there was a tremendous amount of crime and arson.
The city was burned down several times and there was really no law and order. He was so put off by the crime and the violence and the arson that he decided to leave San Francisco. He acquired a ship called the Mary Adeline and he took on passengers in San Francisco and he went back along the coast of South America. And as he went, he took the passengers and dropped them off in different places. And along the way, he was looking for a cargo that he could take back to New York, which is where his family was living at this time. But he was never able to find a cargo that would take him to New York. And instead, when he got to Rio de Janeiro, he got a cargo that was bound for the west coast of Africa.
And this is where he's going to begin to make international headlines. He loaded the cargo in Rio. He went across the Atlantic Ocean. He made it to the Congo River. And when he got there, a British warship came up alongside of him and under international law in 1852, an American sailor did not have to let a British sailor onto his ship to search for evidence of slave trading. But he let them on anyway.
They would have known what to look for and they likely did not see any evidence of slave trading. They then depart and Appleton takes the Mary Adeline onto the Congo River. And the current of the Congo River is very powerful and it forces things way out to sea. And he winds up getting beached along the shoreline. And as he's stuck there, three thousand African warriors assemble on the coast and they begin to attack his ship. Ultimately, the only thing that saves him are these British warships that had already searched his vessel. They go on board. They unload the cargo so that his ship becomes lighter.
He becomes free and wind up saving his life. Now, we don't know whether Appleton was on a slaving voyage on this ship. Clearly the Africans on the coastline believed he was. My thought is that if Appleton was on a slave trading voyage, he likely was not yet fully aware of what he was embarking on. That the Portuguese who were aboard his ship and that he would be meeting with to discharge the cargo may have had that in mind. And they may not have let him know yet.
He never wrote about it at any rate. But this incident, which becomes known as the Battle of the Congo, makes international headlines. Newspapers throughout the Atlantic world are reporting on what Appleton-Oaksmith had been engaged in. Appleton eventually makes it back. He moves in with his parents and he loses a bundle of money.
Appleton-Oaksmith is essentially flat broke. So he winds up going into business with a fish oil factory owner on Long Island. Now, there's a couple of really big moments that are taking place at this time when he's getting into the fish oil business. One is that secession has come. Oaksmith tries to work with the Tammany Hall political machine in New York City to put on pro-union rallies in New York to rally the nation not to divide. He reaches out to William Seward, the senator from New York, and calls on Seward to come speak to Tammany Hall Democrats.
But he asks Seward to make statements that would be pro-slavery and Seward just ignores him. The other big thing that takes place is that in 1859, petroleum has been discovered. The whaling industry completely bottoms out. Appleton is working with this fish oil factory owner on Long Island and he and his co-businessmen decide we need whale oil for the fish oil factory. Appleton purchases a whale oil boat, but the people who sell it to him think that it doesn't seem kosher. And so they sell him the boat and then they go immediately to Lincoln's U.S.
Marshal. And they say this guy, Appleton Oaksmith, has bought a ship and he says it's for whaling, but we don't believe him. They seize the ship, they seize the cargo that's on it, and decide that they are going to arrest Appleton Oaksmith. Now, they're not yet certain that they can get him for slave trading, but they have a loophole that has come about because of the Civil War.
In 1861, Abraham Lincoln suspended the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus and he did it initially along the east coast and he expanded it to include the area between Washington, D.C. and New York City. And Appleton Oaksmith is in New York City. And so they use Lincoln's suspension of the writ of habeas corpus to arrest Appleton Oaksmith and basically charge him with disloyalty. But they worry that they might not be able to get a conviction in New York. Maybe there's too many people with southern sympathies in New York and that he'll get either a hung jury or an acquittal, but they've got another out.
And that is that Appleton is suspected of buying whaling vessels in New Bedford, Massachusetts, as well. They transfer him up to Boston Harbor and they hold him in a military prison there. And they hold him there until they can prepare to transfer him over to civil authorities in Boston.
Appleton doesn't know what's coming. And one day in January of 1861, an order comes for his release. And he's relieved. He thinks he's going to go free.
Instead, when he walks out, there is the U.S. Marshal in Boston waiting for him. They re-arrest him, this time under civil authority. And they charge him with outfitting ships for the slave trade. They couldn't charge him with slave trading. He wasn't caught red-handed. But they did believe that he was buying these vessels and setting them up to go on a slaving voyage. And the trial is almost a farce.
It's one of the most ridiculous things you could ever imagine. Appleton's defense, his lawyer's defense, was to get about 13 women and girls to look really pretty and sweet and to sit them next to him in the courtroom. And hopefully that would win over the sympathies of the jury. At one point, Appleton's sister-in-law was testifying from the stand.
And I think they planned this in advance because she passes out. And Appleton gets up from the defense table and runs and catches her before she hits the ground. And the jury apparently was taken by the sort of Victorian sentimentalized scene, but not taken enough to acquit him. He's ultimately found guilty. And he goes back to jail. And while he's awaiting sentencing, he somehow escapes and makes his way to Havana.
When we come back, what happens next with Appleton Oakesmith here on Our American Stories? There's nothing like sinking into luxury. Anibé sofas combine ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price. Anibé has designed the only fully machine washable sofa from top to bottom. The stain-resistant performance fabric slipcovers and cloud-like frame duvet can go straight into your wash. Perfect for anyone with kids, pets, or anyone who loves an easy-to-clean, spotless sofa. With a modular design and changeable slipcovers, you can customize your sofa to fit any space and style. Whether you need a single chair, loveseat, or a luxuriously large sectional, Anibé has you covered. Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your home. Sofas start at just $699. And right now, you can shop up to 60% off store-wide with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Shop now at washablesofas.com.
Add a little to your life. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. Hosting seasons here.
Are your windows guests ready? Early access to Blinds.com's Memorial Day Mega Sale is on now. Save up to 40% site-wide and get a free measure. Blinds.com invented a better way to shop for custom window treatments. 100% online with upfront pricing.
No showroom markups. No pushy salespeople in your home. Whether you're a DIY warrior, prefer the white glove treatment, or somewhere in between, Blinds.com can help. Our design experts can help you make the perfect selection on your schedule.
Plus, we can even handle everything from measure to install. Style every room effortlessly. With plastic shutters for living spaces. Blockout for bedrooms.
Motorized options for ease. Shades for your patio too. With over 25 million windows covered and 40,000 5-star reviews, Blinds.com is the trusted name in custom window treatments. All backed by our 100% satisfaction guarantee. Early access to Blinds.com's Memorial Day Mega Sale is happening now.
Shop and save up to 40% site-wide, plus a free measure at Blinds.com. Rules and restrictions may apply. For period protection you can put on and forget about, nothing beats NYX leak-proof underwear. North America's number one leak-proof underwear brand. Let's face it, life can be unpredictable, but your leak-proof underwear shouldn't be. That's why millions of people choose NYX. For periods, for light leaks, for everyday freshness.
NYX undies are super comfy, super absorbent, and made to handle whatever your day throws at you. Day two of your period? Covered. Your daily run?
No problem. That big sneeze? You know the one.
Yep, we've got you. And with styles like bikinis, boy shorts, thongs, and high rise, plus sizes from extra small to 4XL, NYX makes it easy to find your perfect fit. Say goodbye to stress and leaks and say hello to undies that work just as hard as you do, no matter the leak. Find the style and level of protection you want at NYX.com and use code FLOW15 for 15% off.
That's K-N-I-X.com code FLOW15 for 15% off. NYX, for your leaks for your life. Hi, it's Jenny Garth. We all know the importance of taking care of our physical and mental health. But what about our sexual health? I've been there, feeling totally stuck when it comes to my libido. That's why I started taking Addi.
And let me tell you, I've seen firsthand what a difference it can make in how you feel. Addi is the only FDA approved pill clinically proven to help certain premenopausal women have more interest in sex, have more satisfying sex, and lower the stress from low libido. Addi has helped hundreds of thousands of women get their drive back, including me. Talk to your doctor or visit ADDYI.com to learn more about Addi, the little pink pill.
Individual results may vary. Addi, or flibanserin, is for premenopausal women with acquired generalized hypoactive sexual desire disorder, HSDD, who have not had problems with low sexual desire in the past, who have had low sexual desire no matter the type of sexual activity, the situation, or the sexual partner. This low sexual desire is troubling to them and is not due to a medical or mental health problem, problems in the relationship, or medicine, or other drug use. Addi is not for use in children, men, or to enhance sexual performance. Your risk of severe low blood pressure and fainting is increased if you drink one to two standard alcoholic drinks close in time to your Addi dose. Wait at least two hours after drinking before taking Addi at bedtime. This risk increases if you take certain prescriptions, OTC, or herbal medications, or have liver problems, and can happen when you take Addi without alcohol or other medicines. Do not take if you are allergic to any of Addi's ingredients. Allergic reaction may include hives, itching, or trouble breathing. Sometimes serious sleepiness can occur.
Common side effects include dizziness, nausea, tiredness, difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, and dry mouth. See full PI and medication guide, including boxed warning, at addi.com slash PI. Addi.
Visit addi.com to learn more about Addi. So you want to start a business? You might think you need a team of people and fancy tech skills, but listen to me when I say you don't. You just need GoDaddy Aero.
I'm Walton Goggins, an actor, and I like the sound of starting my own business, Walton Goggins Goggle Glasses, but I couldn't do this on my own. GoDaddy Aero uses AI to create everything you need to grow a business. It'll make you a unique logo. It'll create a custom website. It'll write social posts for you and even set you up with a social media calendar. How cool is that?
Well, listen to this. For a limited time, you can get Aero All Access for just a dollar a week for 12 weeks. We're talking all the AI power of GoDaddy Aero plus a domain, e-commerce store, payments, professional email, a unified inbox, all for less money than I spend on deep tanning lotion while sunbathing off the Amalfi Coast. You know what that sounds like? A plan.
Get started at GoDaddy.com. Terms apply. And we return to our American stories and with the story of Appleton Oakesmith. When we last left off, Oakesmith had escaped from prison after getting sent there for buying whale ships during the Civil War. This was well after oil was discovered in Pennsylvania, which struck many people and the Lincoln administration as a thinly veiled attempt to illegally import slaves from Africa. Let's get back into the story. Here again is Jonathan W. White. For the next two years, Appleton will work as a Confederate blockade runner.
And he writes poetry that gets published in Confederate newspapers that sings the praises of the Confederacy. Now, the federal government still wants to get him back. They're trying to come up with a way to do it. The problem is there's no extradition treaty between the United States and Spain. So they can't just go to the Spanish government and say, we want you to arrest Oakesmith and send him back.
But something fortuitous happens for the federal government. A Cuban slave trader named Jose Agustin Arguelles escapes from Cuba and makes his way to Manhattan. And so now in the summer of 1864, you have a situation where an American convicted slave trader is hiding out in Cuba and a Cuban slave trader is hiding out in Manhattan. And so the Spanish minister in Washington, D.C. and Secretary of State William Seward get together and they come up with a plan. You kidnap our guy, we'll kidnap your guy, and we'll swap. We may not have an extradition treaty, but that's okay. This is how we're going to get it done.
And so they agree to do that. And so Robert Murray, the U.S. Marshal in New York City, finds Arguelles, arrests him, sends him back to Cuba, and Arguelles gets 19 years at hard labor for his crime of slave trading.
The Cuban police are not quite as on the ball as the U.S. Marshal was. They go to the home of Sidney Oaksmith, Appleton's brother, get there sometime between 11 p.m. and midnight, and they surround the house. There's about 12 or 13 of them, and three of them go into the house, and they go through the house until they get into a bedroom where they find a man asleep, and they wake him up. And the man says, who are you? And they essentially say, we're not going to tell you, but we're arresting you.
You're coming with us. And so they force this very sick man out of bed, bring him to the front of the house, and then they take him outside. And they then begin to wonder if they've got the right man. They go in, and they ask a servant, do you have a photograph of Appleton Oaksmith? And the servant goes into another room and gets a photograph of Appleton Oaksmith and brings it to the Cuban police, and they look at it, and they realize they've got the wrong guy. They had arrested Appleton's brother Sidney, who really was sick.
This moment made international news. It's getting reported throughout the United States and other places in the newspapers that the federal government had tried to do this sort of illegal kidnapping scheme with the Spanish government in order to capture Appleton Oaksmith. This became a campaign issue in 1864. The Democrats tried to hit Lincoln for acting illegally here. The radicals who broke away from the Republican Party in 1864, led by John C. Fremont, they tried to hit Lincoln for this. And it actually led to a great deal of consternation in Lincoln's cabinet.
Lincoln's attorney general was a man named Edward Bates. He said that Seward was led to this hazardous measure by Seward's belief that it would be a capital hit to win the favor of the extreme anti-slavery men. In other words, Seward was just trying to become popular with the abolitionists. Gideon Wells, Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy, wrote in his diary, he said, constitutional limitations to Seward are unnecessary restraints.
Could the abduction by any possibility be popular? Mr. Seward would do it. William Seward saw what he was doing as perfectly justifiable. Slave trading is one of the most heinous crimes that human beings have ever been involved in and could ever be involved in. And so from Seward's perspective, you needed to do what you needed to do to stop slave trading. He said a nation is never bound to furnish asylum to dangerous criminals who are offenders against the human race. In other words, slave traders, they don't get the sort of protection that other accused criminals might get. And Seward said this was a mere act of comedy between nations. These were two nations who had these offenders against human rights and as an act of comedy or working together, we are going to trade them.
This was perfectly justifiable. Lincoln didn't say anything about this until after his reelection. He said, for myself, I have no doubt of the power and duty of the executive under the law of nations to exclude enemies of the human race from an asylum in the United States. In other words, if you're a slave trader, you are an enemy of the human race.
You don't get the same kind of protections that other criminals might get. Appleton Oakesmith stayed on the lam until 1872. He made it up to Canada. And one thing I didn't mention, I've got a lot on in the book, I mentioned his wife. She tried to help him get out of jail by writing to Lincoln, pleading on his behalf. Well, they had a very tumultuous marriage and a very unhappy marriage. They'd known each other for 10 days before getting married and Appleton decided he wanted to divorce her.
But he didn't tell her. Instead, he used the state of Indiana. Indiana in the 1850s and 60s had very lax divorce laws and you could essentially get a mail order divorce. And the newspapers in New York City during the Civil War would advertise lawyers saying, if you need a quick and easy divorce, hire us.
We'll get you a divorce from Indiana. And so somehow, Appleton hired a lawyer, got a divorce from Indiana, even though he'd never lived there. And he married his cousin. He then took his new wife and kids to London and summoned his ex-wife, who doesn't yet know she's his ex-wife, to come to London. She believes she's coming to London to be reunited with her husband. And instead, he confronts her with divorce papers and says, I'm remarried, sign these.
If you don't, you'll never see your kids again. She feels completely stuck and does this. Meanwhile, Appleton's mother is still pleading with the federal government to pardon her son. And Andrew Johnson is on the verge of pardoning Oakesmith when the ex-wife finds out. And she rushes to the White House, meets with Andrew Johnson, says, my ex-husband's a scoundrel, don't pardon him. And it's an incredible irony that Andrew Johnson, the president who pardoned every ex-Confederate, refuses to pardon Appleton Oakesmith. Oakesmith remains in exile until 1872, when he finally gets Ulysses S. Grant to issue a pardon.
In 1872, Appleton Oakesmith moves to North Carolina kind of on a whim. And in one of these really interesting twists in history that I don't fully know how to explain, he gets elected in an ex-Confederate state as a pro-black civil rights anti-clan candidate. And he actually advocates for black civil and political rights in the state legislature, not full black equality, but for black political rights and for civil rights. And it's a pretty remarkable transformation to see him going from being pro-slavery in the 1850s and 1860s to being convicted of outfitting ships for the slave trade to becoming a pro-Confederate blockade runner and then to becoming a pro-black civil rights politician. And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling by our own Monty Montgomery and a special thanks to Jonathan W. White. He's the author of Shipwrecked, a true Civil War story of mutinies, jailbreaks, blockade running and the slave trade. And a special thanks to the U.S. National Archives for allowing us to use this audio.
Originally a part of a lecture given by White. And what a story he told. Forget the Cuban Missile Crisis. Long before that debacle, we had the crisis of the exchange hostages kidnapping plot. And this guy comes out not only unscathed and pardoned, but ends up running for the State House on the platform of pro-civil rights for former slaves in the state of North Carolina. The story of one of the Civil War's great grifters and perhaps a redeemed one.
Or maybe not. Here on Our American Stories. We finally switched to T-Mobile because with them, we can be connected here and there. Dad, the cousins in Mexico have a surprise for you. And enjoy the gift of staying connected. Switch and start saving today. Get four Samsung Galaxy S25 phones with Galaxy AI on us and four lines for just 25 bucks per line.
Plus non-stop talk, text and data between U.S. and Mexico. Visit us at T-Mobile.com or call 1-800-T-Mobile. 1-800-T-Mobile. See details at T-Mobile.com.
J.P. Morgan Chase Bank, N.A., member FDIC, copyright 2025, J.P. Morgan Chase & Company. Did you know women are more likely than men to develop dry eyes, which may be due to hormonal changes during the menstrual cycle or after menopause and the use of oral contraceptives? Give your dry, burning or irritated eyes a daily refresh with Refresh Optive Mega 3 Lubricant Eyedrops, a preservative-free formula that provides fast-acting, lasting relief. Refresh Optive Mega 3 is safe to use as often as needed.
Find Refresh online or in the Eyedrop aisle at all major retailers. Here at the Almond Joy factory where tropical vibes abound, we use soft, fresh tasting coconut. The crunchiest almonds and delicious chocolate candy. Ah, but do you know what our most important ingredient is? Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't. Almond Joy's got nuts and something even way better than that.
Yes, Almond Joy is made with almonds and joy. There's an efficient way to get caught up on a lot of news. It's called The Seven from The Washington Post. It's a newsletter and podcast. Whether you're reading or hit play, you get seven stories you need to know and you can consume it all in just a few minutes. The Seven is out every weekday morning by 7 a.m. Eastern.
I'm Hannah Jewell. I'm one of the writers and I host the show. Find The Seven podcast wherever you're listening. The newsletter link is waiting for you in the show notes. You're listening to an iHeart podcast.
