Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, November 27, 1864, during the final stages of the Civil War, no surprise there

are skirmishes and battles going on all around the country.

We recently did an episode about a very notable one,

Sherman's March and the destruction throughout the South, but at the same time

as Sherman's March to the sea burned many parts of Georgia and South Carolina. There was also an attempt to burn New York City.

In late November, a group of eight southern operatives attempted to burn down the Big Apple, part of a much larger plot, it seems, to burn down the big apple part of a much larger plot it seems to burn down other

cities in the north which in turn was part of a larger story about how the

Confederacy viewed the north and what the end of the Civil War would look like. So here to discuss the

plot to burn down New York City as the Civil War came to a close are, as always,

Nicole Hammer of Columbia and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there.

Hello Jody. Hey there. So yes we have this plot to burn down in New York we will get into the

details of that but I do think this larger question of where we are in terms of the

end of the Civil War and with looking at something like this Kelly there's one

part of me that reads it and says okay this is a kind of like last throws the

Civil Wars ending let's cause as much destruction as possible kind of thing there's

another version of this that is no you know the south saw the north and even places like New York City as an actual

front of the war and even at this what we can now say is a late stage of the war there

was a thought that we can actually fight the Civil War on this front.

So do we see this as a scheme or do we see this as a battlefront?

You know, both.

...