Civil War Family Tree

This programme contains very strong language.

-Please give me the job.

-Since Sarah dumped him,

he's had a lot of time on his hands.

This would be my great-great-grandfather Charles

in his military garb during the Civil War.

But there's a button missing

'Look at me in California.'

You like cats?

-They're the devil's spawn.

-CAT MEOWS

A couple of months ago, I didn't know that these people existed.

The weather is sunny with a 40% chance of a home run!

-Ow!

-Oh, my gosh!

PHONE RINGS

Hello?

-Oh, hello. Is that Thomas Chadwick?

-Yeah.

Hello. This is Brian.

Hi, Pete.

I'm calling... You did...

You know what gave it away

was that you just sounded like yourself.

'You didn't even put on a voice.'

I did. I was doing a voice.

I was doing my insurance-person voice.

'Anyway, how are you?'

-I'm really great!

-Are you in America?

Is it hot and sunny? Are there girls in bikinis?

-'Have you got a suntan yet?'

-Kind of.

Oh, lucky sod.

Anyway, I've got your mail here.

Oh, that's great. Thanks.

-'Do you want me to go through it'

-Uh...

Crap, crap,

'fast food, crap,'

bollocks.

Oh, Clancy Lorimer Insurers?

Ooh. Open that one.

All right.

'Here we go.'

Here we go. Here we go.

"Dear Mr Chadwick..." Duh, duh, duh, duh.

"We are pleased to inform you

"that you have been selected to interview

"for the position of crash analyst

"in our crash investigation department."

Get in!

Get in, my beauty.

That's great! When is it?

Uh, it's a week after you get back.

Bring that letter when you get in.

-Yeah, all right.

-When do you get in?

I'm flying into LA on the Thursday

and I'm getting in about 10.

OK, great.

'Flying into LA. All right, then?'

Are you there?

-'Tom?'

-Let's do this.

'Tom? Are you there?'

Tom?

Hello.

-CAT MEOWS

-Oh.

OK.

-Morning, Tom.

-Hey.

-How'd you sleep?

-Great. I slept great.

Good.

I was doing a little rummaging around the attic

and look what I found.

Oh, it's Charles.

Yeah, your great-great-grandfather.

-That's so great.

-In a different uniform.

-It is?

-Yeah.

Oh, yeah. It's a little lighter.

He's wearing the Confederacy uniform.

That's the uniform for the other side.

-Oh, that's not the same uniform?

-No. No, no, no.

-Oh, that's interesting.

-Yeah, isn't it?

You're sure it's not...? Maybe they just had different uniforms.

No, no, no. Rebel cap, Rebel uniform.

That's what it is.

-Button missing, too, here.

-Yeah.

He's bad at needlework.

Maybe. Maybe.

-Fascinating.

-It's a mystery, is what it is.

Somebody here thinks it's a coincidence

that he lost one button from each jacket?

-That part is interesting.

-And then found them later?

Are these the actual buttons?

-Those are the buttons.

-Oh, my God, those are so pretty.

Well, that's why they're not on there, cos you guys have them.

I've got another theory.

He left two days after Lincoln was shot.

How nice would it be to have

two different uniforms to pass freely?

-You think he's a double agent?

-Maybe triple.

David, why don't you have a look at this?

Well, I don't know much about the historical part of the war itself,

but I do know that obviously he's a man in the Confederacy.

And the thing I see

more than anything else that I noticed,

cos I'm not a uniform expert, is I look at his hands.

We used to call this "gnarly hands".

-Gnarly hands.

-Gnarly hands, yeah.

This is from fear... From fear of being in battle.

When you're fighting,

your hands get all kind of rigor-mortised like that.

And, you know, in the old days, they'd say, "Hey, gnarly hands!"

Across the street they'd yell at him.

And he... That was embarrassing.

But it's for a good cause,

because, look, he has no ill will.

He's a nice-looking boy. He's our relative.

I have heard the term "gnarly hands" before.

I actually have a friend that is...

Well, I'm into this a little bit.

A bit of a passion of mine is Civil War re-enactment.

-He's really good at it.

-And really fun to do.

You're living, you know, history.

How does he have access to the opponent's uniform?

Let me talk to my buddy.

I've got to drop Julie off at her spinning class.

-If the hands comes up, great.

-OK.

But it would be great to know

why he's wearing either of the things.

-Can I see that one, Dave?

-I can promise you there's a reason.

-There they are.

-Harvey, good to see you again.

-Good to see you, pal. This is Tom. Tom!

-That's right.

Nice to meet you. Come on in.

Thanks very much. I love the cannon.

Thanks. I just got it. It's an 1861 Napoleon.

Come on in, guys. Have a seat.

I tell you, that cannon looks brand new.

-Is that a new coat of paint?

-It is. Doesn't it look good?

-It looks great.

And I got new 12-pounders for it, too.

Those 12-pounders fire off!

-When's the last time you fired it?

-Once a weekend.

-Yeah.

-In the morning, early. Annoy the neighbours!

-Yeah.

-That's great.

Neighbours are the worst.

You are not going to believe the stuff that Tom has to show you.

-This stuff's incredible.

-So this is a picture

of my great-great-grandfather Charles Chadwick.

All right, this is Charles Chadwick.

OK. I see. A Union man. Good.

But here is also a picture

of my great-great-grandfather Charles Chadwick.

Well, that's very interesting.

OK. Wow.

And some buttons.

Really?

Now, I see he's missing a button on each uniform.

Yeah.

Yeah, there we go. Confederate and Union.

I want to look something up.

I'm privy to an online site

-that a lot of people don't get to see.

-Oh, cool.

-They're almost like official war documents.

-Do they look normal...?

No, they don't look like anything you'd see,

so it's kind of a waste of time.

Even taking a peek, it'd be spaghetti and mushrooms to you.

Let me do the grunt work here.

Charles Chadwick, there it is.

Union. Union soldier. Unlisted, yep.

And there, sure enough, Confederate.

-Charles Chadwick.

-Whoa.

Yeah, both sides.

Oh, wow, wow.

Oh. Look at this.

OK, so, he fought for the Union side

and the Confederate side,

both in the same battle -

the Battle of Huntersville.

That's not even poss... How would you do that?

Yeah, what do you do? Excuse yourself to go change?

I'm just going to throw this out there.

-Yeah.

-What if he was a spy?

A spy? But for who?

You tell me. Your machine.

-Well, I'll do what I can.

-I'll put...

-Put it in.

-Oh, you know what I'm getting?

And I've never got this.

-I got a question mark.

-What does that mean?

It doesn't know. It's never seen this before.

-You've jammed the whole system.

-I'm getting synonyms.

I'm getting traitor, deserter, coward.

OK. Don't bother. Don't worry.

You know what? Let me dig into this.

We've got a re-enactment coming up this weekend. Rick, what do you think?

-Yeah, Tom, you got to do one of these.

-It would be great.

-This is the real thing.

-You're welcome to come.

-I would love that. Thank you.

If you do that, I'll show up with some information.

I'll tell you, where there's smoke, there's fire.

And you got a blaze happening here, my friend.

It's so great you can come by and see our place here.

Yeah, this is great.

Come on in.

-Ooh.

-So...yeah, this is it.

-Lovely.

-This is it.

Isn't this great?

You need to look no further than the ocean view.

Isn't that nice?

No, see, there's a house in front of it.

That... If the house wasn't... The tree blocks a little...

-and the house blocks most of it, but the ocean's right there.

-Oh, right.

So if that was an invisible house,

that would be a sea view.

Hypothetically, sure. But if that house isn't there,

180-degree view of the Pacific. It's why you pay California state tax right there.

-Ah, lovely.

-It's right there.

Can you feel the sea air just coming in?

-I think I can.

-Yeah?

-Yeah. But you can't see it. You can't see it.

-Not at all.

-But you really feel the ocean.

Look. A three-legged dog.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Actually, we get a lot of them here in Redondo Beach.

It's really quite spectacular.

Hey, what do you think of my owls?

Oh, sweet Lord.

Yeah. They're pretty amazing. She'll name them all for you, if you want.

-You have so many owls.

-Chachi's a new one.

Let me show you the stuff that we're taking to the re-enactment.

-Check this out. I got some great stuff.

-Show him Clover.

Clover's got the orange eyes that almost look like an infection.

-Come on, let me show you.

-I'll make you guys some coffee.

OK. Sounds good, hon. Thanks.

Hey, guys.

This is the coolest spot in the whole house.

-Holy moly!

-Yeah.

See this right here?

This is an authentic replica

of an actual Civil War blanket.

-A blanket.

-Yeah. Isn't that amazing?

-That is something else.

-Yeah, and this is a forage cap.

-Oh.

-Right here.

The reason it's different than a kepi, because this actually, you would take...

-Big gun!

-It is, it is.

-That's actually a musket.

-Oh, my God, it's heavy.

-It is.

-You could just... Agh!

That would happen in war. You never know. Normally you would.... No, no.

Don't put your mouth near the barrel. Why don't we go and put that back.

I don't know for sure that's been cleared since my last battle.

-Great costumes.

-Yeah.

Those actually aren't costumes. We refer to them as uniforms.

-Yeah.

-So take a gander, see what you think.

-Ah, green.

-Yeah, I can see why it stood out.

This is actually a Union sharpshooter.

You couldn't wear this, though. You would need to train extensively.

-Even for the re-enactment?

-Especially for...

-It's just make-believe.

-We had a friend of ours,

he's fine now, but they're... Hi.

-What's up?

-We're out of coffee.

Wasn't it your turn to do the shopping?

Why would we be out of coffee? You have six hours a day to go shopping.

How dare you? I don't. I have four hours a day to go shopping.

K-Cups. Do we have any K-Cups left? Even that?

-Why don't I just run out and get us some coffees?

-You don't need to do that.

No coffee's better than a coffee-shop coffee.

Julie, we have no coffee?

-We've got milk.

-OK.

I'll run out. You know what, I'd like to. Just get some fresh air

-and take in some of that sea salt in my face.

-That would be good. You would enjoy it.

-Then we can talk about the blanket.

-Absolutely.

-The fact that you're making somebody do that.

-It's fine.

-For coffee.

-You honestly think I'm making him go get coffee?

TYRES SCREECH

Are you serious?!

-What the hell is wrong with you?

-What's wrong with you?

-Are you fucking blind?!

-You're stopping in the middle of the street!

That's not the middle of the street. I'm at the red light. Just super. Thank you very much.

-What were you thinking? You turned right on the red.

-No...!

Hey, er, sorry, sorry. I don't want to interrupt,

but I did see what happened from the pavement there.

Please tell her. You turn right on a right-hand lane.

This is what happened,

What happened was that you were travelling between 11 and 13 miles per hour.

You didn't leave adequate braking distance. She stopped at a red light

and you didn't notice because you were texting.

-I was not texting.

-You're still texting.

I'm e-mailing to let people know I'm late because of what you just did.

-You're supposed to turn right on a red.

-That sign actually means there's no right turn on red.

What are you, the star witness traffic leprechaun or something?

-Did you call me a leprechaun?

-I called you a leprechaun.

-Faith and Begorrah, you can't turn right on a red.

-I'm twice the height of a leprechaun!

-You're a tall leprechaun. I need your information.

-All right. Big neck!

Just take a step back.

I might be too tall to be a leprechaun,

but I'm exactly the right size and build

to be in the British Special Forces, which I am.

In Redondo Beach on a recon mission.

But I can take ten minutes out to crush you like a twig

if you don't just chill out,

rein in the mythical racism,

and be polite to the lady, who you just rear-ended.

You know what? I don't have time for this.

I'll pay for it. That's my information.

OK, great. Good, yeah. That's more like it.

Ha-ha.

Fuck.

-You all right?

-Uh-huh, yeah. I, well...

Yeah, I'm like that...

Um... I'm not really in the Special Forces.

I'm afraid of cats. But take my number.

I could be a witness or something.

-Yeah?

-Can you just hold those?

-Yeah.

-You can take a sip.

-Here it is. My name is Tom.

-I'm Ally.

-Ally.

-Yeah.

-I've written Ally.

-That's my name, yeah.

-Which is not my name, so that's a good start.

-Really, thank you for coming over.

-Hey, don't worry.

There you go. So just call me, Ally.

-Uh, so, oh, coffee.

-Thank you.

I will try you.

-Try me. I'm good to go.

-OK.

-Thank you again. I...

-At your service.

I'm not really in the army.

Honey, this package is incredible.

-It has a Turkish spa and it...

-Knock, knock.

-Hey!

-Hey.

Sorry, I'm so... These are going to be so cold.

It's OK. I was a little worried about you,

but I'm glad you made it back.

No, I was fine. I was just... I had a...

-I was enjoying the sea air.

-That's what you should do.

When you're on the water, that's what you do.

Hey, before I forget, let's get your uniform figured out.

Which one caught your eye?

I don't care. The red one?

Oh, the Zouave. Good eye.

That's going to be great for you.

Here you go, Tom. There's your musket.

And my firearm.

Oh...

I'm starting to get fired up, man.

-This is the time where I just really feel it.

-Yeah.

I mean, you're about to live history right here.

I don't look like a Russian dancing bear?

It's nothing like that. That's honoured.

-He does look like that.

-That's 5th New York.

-This is an honoured regiment.

-OK.

-Let me give you a couple of things that'll make it a little more fun.

You might have someone called a stitch Nazi, who'll want to pick over your outfit.

You know, they might go over this or like this.

"Oh, I don't like that because that's not proper."

The obvious one is the sunglasses. That's farby.

OK? Farby is "far from being authentic".

-OK.

-Yeah.

And he's not wearing socks.

-It's just the size of the uniform.

-It looks weird to me.

It would cover. It would cover.

-And then...

-Gentlemen.

-Hey!

-Hello.

General Krupp, how are you, sir?

-Very good, sir.

-Hi.

A salute will be fine.

-All right.

-Yes.

Got some very exciting news about your great-great-grandfather.

-That's great.

-You know what? I've got to plan a battle. Maybe we can meet later.

-You got it.

-OK, excellent.

There we go. Oh, you're going to lose the sunglasses and you've got no socks.

-Ma'am.

-That's why I was saying something like that could happen,

you know, pretty easily.

We need to talk.

What? We need to talk?

Hey, is there anywhere I could get a breakfast burrito?

Uh, yeah. Glen's Sutlery. Next to it is Rico's.

-He's usually got stuff like that.

-OK, cool. You want anything?

-No, I'm good.

-All right. See you later.

What do we need to talk about?

I told you I wanted to be a nurse and I'm the only prostitute here.

I think you look incredible.

I don't believe it. I don't look incredible.

-You look so hot.

-No, I don't.

No, it looks great.

-What the...?

-You have got to be joking.

Look at yourself. You're going to make an ass of yourself.

-We can't have...

-Now you may go. Just shut, OK?

You're leaving and I am staying here.

-I drove!

-I'm the president!

-I'm not leaving.

-You are free to go.

-Let me tell you something.

-I free you!

Emancipate this, motherfucker!

-You want a piece of me?

-Don't you fuckin' do that to me. I'm...

You're out... You're out of here.

That really hurts. That really hurts.

Colonel Rivers is going to march his battalion in.

He's going to manoeuvre around, take a line at the fence.

Your Confederate division is going to attack the fence, which we will defend.

-Harvey?

-Yeah.

This is all well and good, but when you take a hit, you got to go down.

-We're going to go there.

-Seriously. We are.

No, we go down. We go down every time.

No, I've got guys that are driving in from Antioch for six hours

and they're not going to go down in one second.

Very simply, more of your guys have to go down

than my guys have to go down, because we win.

I understand that. There's nothing that kills a re-enactment quicker

than live soldiers running around.

You got to go down. How about killing a re-enactment by the drunkenness that you guys have last time?

You were drinking so much, you didn't know where you were.

Guys were re-enacting battles from Braveheart, not the Civil War.

And easy on the gunpowder in the cannons.

They're setting off the car alarms and then I lose the permit.

That was too much. We won't drink.

Yeah, I mean, it would be easy to scoff

at the sight of hundreds of grown men

putting on costumes and playing war, but I'm no different.

My great-great-grandfather fought in this war

where 600,000 men died.

He fought for both sides.

Which is something I'll probably keep to myself.

But the truth is they're here to remember.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

Sorry, I'm just keeping an eye on the queue for the corn dog stand.

Shoulder arms!

Forward march.

To those of you who do not die,

you will smell the bowels of death.

For many of us will fall today.

I will not.

But over time, most of you will die.

So fear not death.

In fact, turn to the proud soldier beside you

and say, "So long."

-So long.

-So long, Rick.

We are such a fine unit that we fear nothing.

In fact, to us, we are so confident, we whistle,

whistle tunes that give us comfort and courage.

Let me hear you whistle. THEY WHISTLE

Music, gentlemen. Music.

Fire!

Fire!

Fire! Company, charge!

Keep in line, keep in line.

-We're going to kill them?

-Yeah. Don't point.

-I feel my hay fever kicking in.

-Yeah, that'll be fine later.

Rear rank, ready!

-Fire!

-Jesus Christ!

Ready, aim...

-Firing by battalion.

-Fire!

-Front rank, ready!

-Here we go. That's us.

Aim!

-Fire!

-Whoa!

-Load quickly, gentlemen.

-Oh, shit.

-Oh, yeah, it's... Oh!

-Firing by battalion.

-Oh, Jesus!

-You all right?

-Fire!

You got hit.

OK. Oh, no!

Oh, no!

-Fire!

-Yeah, it's the ticker.

-It's good, isn't it?

-Shh, you're dead. You're dead.

-Did you see my death?

-OK. Yeah, I saw it. Don't talk.

Fire!

-That was fun.

-Yeah.

-Everybody's so serious, though.

-Yeah, but you're dead now.

-OK.

Dying.

-How long do we have to pretend to be dead?

-You got to be quiet.

-I have to pee.

-No, you don't go to the bathroom during the battle.

There's a Portaloo right there.

I'm going to go do a little pee and a little poo.

-No, don't do it.

-I'll be right back.

No, Tom. PHONE RINGS

-Oh, shoot.

-What is that?

-Oh, come on!

-It's all right.

Hello?

Hey, Bea! Everything all right?

No, I'm just going mental here.

She's contemplating suicide.

No, it's not that bad, but, I mean,

-London's just a stinkhole.

-Yeah.

I've decided to come out with Pete and visit you in LA.

Oh, OK.

Yeah, no, that's fine.

I'll just... let me make sure with Al and Kitty

that you can stay with them, but that should be fine.

Shh, shh, shh.

No, it's not. It's, um, it's war here.

Sorry, I can't hear you.

There's, like, bombs or something, sounds like, on the line.

-I'm being shot at.

-Hang up.

Get off.

No, no, it's just I'm supposed to be dead,

so I have to be quiet.

Is he on drugs? OK, I'll see you soon.

All right. Cheerio.

-That was my sister Bea.

-I got it. Just be quiet.

-She's coming over. You'll meet her.

-OK, yeah.

-I'm going to go and do a pee.

-No, no. Don't go. You're dead.

-Here's what will happen.

-You can't.

I'm just going to go over and do a wee and then come back.

Seriously, don't even think about it.

-Nature. It's nature.

-Come here.

I'll never get invited back. Come here!

Oh, flip.

-This is just silly.

-All right.

-Twiddly dums in here.

-Have a seat, prisoner.

All right. This is ludicrous. I mean, you didn't even tie these.

-You put that back on!

-All right.

-Shut your mouth.

I caught 'em rollin' around in the field, squirrely, like.

We were not doing anything in the field.

-I just want to use the bathroom.

-He had to go to the bathroom.

-Yankee trash.

-That's just rude.

We're all just trying to have a nice day.

-Don't you eyeball me.

-This is a civil war.

Can you try and be civil?

Ow, ow, ow.

Oh!

Oh!

Murdered by a common camp whore.

I am going to school for oceanography, OK?

And I wanted to be a nurse.

-So...

-That was incredible.

I always knew that you would kill for me.

Well enjoined, sir. Well enjoined.

General Bukowsky, a fine day, yes.

Yes, well, we may have lost the battle, but...

-Lost it, yeah.

-Anyway.

-Mm-hmm.

Can I ask you something?

Is it hard to keep doing the same battle

when you know that you're on the wrong side?

Sir?

Well, you're pro-slavery, you know what I mean?

Sir, you came into our homes, you ate our chickens,

and you sucked the teats of our cows.

And you were not invited.

Not invited.

You have a good day, Phil.

-Why'd you go there?

-Somebody told me he was a hairdresser.

Yeah, he is. He's a great hairdresser.

But here, he's a general.

OK, I got something for you, all right?

In here I have two intercepted letters

from your great-great-grandfather

and I have a photo,

a photo of your great-great-grandmother.

I think this will explain everything.

Oh, that's so great. Thank you.

-You're very welcome.

-Sir!

I bow to you.

Why, why do you do this?

-It just feels right in the outfit.

-I guess so.

A gold mine.

A gold mine, I tell you, Al.

Just the information we've got.

In this one, it explains the whole uniform thing.

Essentially, Charles lived in Washington, DC,

and he fell in love with Rebecca, who was in Virginia.

And then the Civil War broke out.

-OK.

-And they were separated.

So to get through enemy lines,

he got both uniforms. Didn't really care who won the war.

-Don't know why.

-So he went out

and got two totally different outfits

and then went to be with her?

-Exactly.

-And did she know that he did all that changing?

-She didn't know that.

-That's so romantic.

-That is so sweet.

-How cute is that?

-That's really sweet.

-That's a sweet story.

To change his outfit like that for her.

-Yeah.

-And then where'd they go? Did they get married?

Well, OK, this is interesting.

This is a letter from Charles to Rebecca.

April 4th, 1862.

"My dearest, upon receiving your letter,

"the dark skies have given way to sunshine."

Oh, my God, it was so rainy and everything.

"I cannot, however, forget the unforgivable manner

"in which my father and mother have cast dispersions on you.

"To have said, 'She is of mixed blood

"and therefore outside the purview of our class,'

"incites the most foul emotions within me.

"We must therefore leave this wretched place

"and marry in a new land which welcomes us."

So, like, they eloped.

-They eloped.

-That is so sweet.

That's... That's one explanation.

Well, look at this.

-She's just beautiful.

-Yeah.

So they went to England and they took the horse with her?

She looks very attached to it.

I've got to tell you, Kitty, I don't have

as much information as I'd like about the horse.

This is interesting.

The shadow falling from the horse

is headed that way,

and then there's shadows from those bushes

going in what seems to be the opposite direction.

You know, when I was on the battlefield today,

I saw a lot of things.

I saw life happen. I saw death happen.

I saw people pissing themselves willy-nilly.

And it's sad to think

we thought that Charles had dodged that.

We thought that our great-grandfather

was some kind of a coward, a turncoat,

but we were wrong.

He was a big old romantic.

And brave as a boot.

And I think that he'd be proud to know

that that particular fruit didn't fall far from the tree.

Because when a Chadwick sees fear...

he doesn't run.

He looks it in the eye

-and he...

-HE SNEEZES

Fuck off.

# When I found you I found myself

# I was going to love you Like nobody else

# But I never really had a clue

# How to love a girl like you

# Two true believers

# We devised

# A temporary paradise

# Now our future is in the past

# I should have known

# It wouldn't last

# I should have been a better man

# You could have been a better friend

# I'm alone, but that's OK

# I guess the dice

# Just rolled that way. #

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