George Washington Is Cash Money

by Cory O'Brien; Illustrated by Soren Melville

  Unlike the Revolutionary War

  which was fought because a group of rich white guys

  (who happened to own slaves)

  didn’t like the dude in charge of their country

  and decided to start a new one

  (SO NOBLE!)

  the CIVIL war

  is fought because some slave-owning white guys

  (who happen to be rich)

  don’t like the dude in charge of their country

  and decide to start a new one.

  (SO TERRIBLE!)

  Dudes on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line

  (the imaginary line that marks where slavery is)

  are joining up left and right

  to fight for this hella just cause.

  This cause is so hella just that even LADIES want in

  but the Union Army is like a vast treehouse

  with “NO GIRLS ALLOWED” scrawled on the front

  which stops most ladies from getting in on the fun.

  Sarah Emma Edmonds is not most ladies.

  Emma can’t legally join the army because vagina

  but here’s the thing:

  She REALLY wants to

  so what does she do?

  She mans up

  LITERALLY

  by dressing as a dude named Franklin Thomas

  and then bluffs her way past the recruiters

  whose rigorous medical screening process

  basically just consists of making sure she has hands.

  So now she’s in the army

  working as a nurse, ’cause that’s what she wanted

  but anyone who is willing to cross-dress for freedom

  is not gonna be satisfied nursing for very long.

  When an old homie of hers gets shot while scouting

  and another Union dude gets shot for spying

  she’s like hm . . .

  I’m already basically spying in this army

  might as well become a DOUBLE-SPY

  So she goes to her boss, General McClellan

  who has NO IDEA she’s a lady

  and she’s like “Hey, I hear you need spies”

  and he’s like “Do you love freedom?”

  and she’s like “Shit yeah”

  and he’s like “Do you know military stuff?”

  and she’s like “Yup I read some books”

  and he’s like “Let me feel the bumps on your skull”

  and she’s like “. . . What?”

  and he’s like “Don’t diss phrenology, it’s totally real”

  and she’s like “. . . What?”

  and he’s like “The bumps tell me you’re hired

  you start in three days

  not gonna train you at all

  figure it out”

  and Emma’s like “. . . Okay, sure.”

  So she’s like “Hm, I need a disguise.

  Guess I could just go as a woman.

  That’s lame though.

  How about I go as a BLACK MAN.

  YES, EXCELLENT.”

  So she buys a woolly wig from a minstrel show

  (hooray for racism)

  dyes her skin black with silver nitrate

  names herself “Cuff”

  and then shows up in Yorktown

  behind Confederate lines

  like “’Sup, guys, I’m a slave and I’m lost

  plz show me all your military defenses.”

  AND IT WORKS.

  So when a dumb Rebel officer puts her on guard duty

  she escapes back to the Union side

  and she gets to keep the gun he gave her as a prize

  and go back to working as a nurse

  FOR LIKE TEN MINUTES

  before McClellan is like “Hey, Frank

  (I still don’t suspect that you are a lady)

  we need some more facts about enemies.

  Can you hook us up?”

  This time Emma decides to take it easy

  and go dressed as a lady

  OH, NOPE, TOO EASY

  make that a fifty-year-old Irish lady

  named Bridget O’Shea.

  So she sneaks into Rebel territory on a boat

  and accidentally finds a dying dude in an old house

  who she takes care of until he dies

  and he gives her a gold watch

  to deliver to a major in the Confederate camp

  and she’s like “Oh no, so sad, he died”

  but she’s also like “YESSSS ULTIMATE COVER.”

  I should mention at this point

  that when Emma goes a-spying

  she NEVER HAS AN ESCAPE PLAN

  she just shows up in a fancy costume

  and expects that some chumpalicious soldier

  will at some point bend over backwards

  to make sure she can leave with all their secrets.

  THIS IS ALWAYS WHAT HAPPENS.

  Like, she shows up to the camp

  makes friends with the major

  sells everybody soap

  learns all about their defenses

  and then they GIVE HER A HORSE

  and ask her to lead them to the dead dude’s body

  which she does

  shortly before disappearing on her new horse

  which she names “Rebel,” just to rub it in.

  She keeps pulling this shit for a while

  delivering top-secret messages

  and exploiting slavery for covert data.

  At one point she moves to Kentucky

  poses as a young Canadian gentleman

  and becomes the accountant

  for the HEAD OF A REBEL SPY RING

  who she then totally ruins.

  And this WHOLE TIME

  nobody in the Union figures out that she’s a chick

  She is a double agent in the best possible way

  until she comes down with malaria

  and she’s like “Aw shoot

  if I go to the hospital tent to get fixed

  they will take off my clothes and see my boobs

  that will be totally embarrassing/ruin my career

  OH WELL, GUESS I BETTER DESERT.”

  So she runs away to DC

  changes back into a girl

  and works as a nurse for the rest of the war.

  After the war is over

  she calls up her old war buddies

  and she’s like “Hey

  remember that dude Frank Thompson?

  Yeah, that was me.”

  And they’re like “WHAT?!”

  And she’s like “Yeah. So hey, I need a favor

  could you come tell Congress that I’m me?

  I wanna get a military pension

  also an honorable discharge.”

  And they’re like “Sure, no problem.”

  So that happens

  and Emma eventually gets married and has kids

  and lives a pretty boring life

  because she used up all her adrenaline in the army.

  So the moral of the story

  is that if you assume every man you meet

  is a woman in disguise

  it will make bus rides way more entertaining.

  JOHN HENRY WORKS HIMSELF TO DEATH

  So after the Civil War

  slavery is officially over

  yayyyyy!

  But there are still a lot of dudes

  who got super used to owning slaves

  so even though they can’t own slaves

  they figure out that they can still give ex-slaves jobs


  that are a whole lot LIKE slavery.

  Let’s take fictional man-drill John Henry, for example.

  Now, John Henry was a steel-drivin’ man.

  I SAID

  JOHN HENRY WAS A STEEL-DRIVIN’ MAN.

  Do you guys know what that means?

  That means that he was a dude

  whose job

  was to KILL MOUNTAINS.

  Now, the way he did this

  was that some poor son of a bitch named Little Bill

  would hold a steel drill in place against the rock

  while John Henry BEAT ON IT

  AS HARD AS HE COULD

  WITH A TWENTY-POUND HAMMER

  and Bill had to turn the drill after every strike

  and eventually the drill would get dull

  so he had to swap it out

  for another drill

  that someone would hopefully hand to him

  WITHOUT MISSING A BEAT

  and then they would take the old drill to a blacksmith

  so the blacksmith could fix it

  and then bring it back to Bill

  so he could switch it out AGAIN

  and meanwhile

  John Henry’s hammer is whistling past Bill’s junk

  or face, or ribs, or wherever he has to hold the drill

  in order to brutalize the rock in the right direction.

  Meanwhile, John Henry has it easy.

  All HE has to do

  is heft a TWENTY-POUND HAMMER

  over and over again

  with perfect accuracy

  all day

  burrowing through solid rock

  never stopping, never getting tired

  under constant threat of massive rock slides.

  So this is this guy’s job.

  Now, John Henry works for a pack of rat bastards

  called the C&O Railroad Company.

  One day John Henry’s railroad team arrives

  at this BIG, BIG MOUNTAIN

  and the railroad crew is all like “Oh wow, bummer.

  Guess we better start going around this mountain.”

  And aforementioned rat bastards from C&O

  are like “NOPE.

  GOIN’ STRAIGHT THROUGH.

  IT IS ONLY LIKE A MILE AND A HALF THICK.

  YOU GUYS LIKE HAVING JOBS, RIGHT?

  SO DO IT.”

  So they do it.

  Most of these guys are freed slaves

  so they don’t exactly have their pick of employment.

  This goes double for John Henry

  who, like Nicki Minaj’s ass

  DOES NOT QUIT.

  (Note:

  This is basically the only trait John Henry shares

  with Nicki Minaj’s ass.)

  So every day all the steel-drivers go to work

  and they fling themselves at this mountain

  and like twenty people die

  but John Henry just keeps abusing that stone

  making a solid ten-foot tunnel every day, at LEAST.

  So, you know, great for him

  but all his friends are still dead

  and the dicks at C&O are getting impatient

  so when this traveling salesman shows up

  with a steam-powered drill machine

  they are like “SIGN US UP.

  P.S.: Everyone who works for us is fired now.

  ESPECIALLY JOHN HENRY.”

  Now, John Henry takes guff from no man.

  It is unreal how little guff this guy takes.

  Like, if there were a great big pile of guff

  just laying by the side of the road

  and John Henry walked by

  that pile would remain completely undisturbed

  because he would take none of it.

  So when he sees this guff coming his way

  he just sidesteps the lot of it

  and then he turns around like “Hey

  traveling salesman

  I bet I can drill harder, better, faster, AND stronger

  than your candy-assed machine.”

  And the traveling salesman is like “YOU’RE ON.”

  So John Henry lines up next to this machine

  along with his trusty shaker Little Bill

  and TWO TWENTY-POUND HAMMERS

  and they get

  to

  work.

  So John and the drill are staying pretty much tied

  maybe the drill is even doing a little better

  but then it gets STUCK in a hole in the rock

  and John Henry just goes grunting and flailing away

  FOURTEEN FEET INTO THAT MOUNTAIN.

  BAM CLINK CACHANG POW BOOM PEW PEW

  I DON’T KNOW HOW A HAMMER SOUNDS.

  So, final score:

  Newfangled steam drill: nine feet.

  One man armed only with sweat and hammers:

  fourteen feet.

  Oh wait.

  John Henry was using two hammers

  so he drilled TWO HOLES

  so really, the score was nine to TWENTY-EIGHT.

  Yeah.

  But there’s some bad news too.

  As soon as he finds out his score

  John Henry puts down his hammers and dies

  because he just hammered that rock so hard

  he gave himself a stroke.

  It doesn’t say in the ballad

  but I like to think that his last words

  were something like

  “. . . Damn right.”

  Anyway, then he’s dead

  so they end up using the steam drill anyway

  although they have to cancel work for like a week

  because everyone thinks John’s ghost is in the tunnel

  also the tunnel turns out to be way unstable

  because it is a bad idea to use contests

  to construct delicate railway tunnels.

  But none of that matters

  because the real hero of this story

  is Little Bill

  who held two drills

  right next to all the tenderest parts of his body

  against a solid stone wall

  while a muscular dude repeatedly charged at him

  flailing two twenty-pound hammers.

  And he kept holding those drills

  and turning them

  and shaking out the stone debris

  and switching out the drills when they got dull

  FOR THIRTY-FIVE MINUTES

  AND TWENTY-EIGHT FEET

  and he didn’t have a stroke

  or even poop himself a little.

  So let’s hear it for Little Bill

  the real American hero.

  CUSTER’S LAST STAND IS HIGHLY UNNECESSARY

  So the Union wins the Civil War

  (spoilers)

  and slavery is over(?)

  but there is still a problem

  America is just CRAWLING with Indians

  and all the REAL Americans

  (that is

  the white dudes who showed up a few years ago)

  are like “We’ve been in this country for a while now

  it is pretty clear to us that this is not India

  so obviously these Indians do not belong here

  let’s murder them until they leave.”

  Except, it’s a little more complicated than that.

  Sure, some dudes just wanna kill Indians

  but for some dudes

  (and these dudes are considered Indian sympathizers)

  it’s just like when a
cat is sitting in your chair

  and you’re like “Okay, cat

  I’m going to sit down in this chair now

  and if you are under my butt when that happens

  well, that’s on you

  literally.”

  Except instead of a chair it is all of North America

  and instead of a butt it’s millions of white people

  and instead of getting sat on

  it is total annihilation.

  So on the one side you have gung-ho murderers

  and on the other side

  you have people who just don’t give a shit.

  Luckily, the U.S. hits upon a brilliant strategy

  this strategy is to make treaties with Indian chiefs

  (none of whom have the authority to do this

  because being an Indian chief

  is sort of like being Benedict Cumberbatch:

  Everybody likes you

  but nobody has to do what you say)

  and then, once they make these treaties

  they break the treaties

  pretty much immediately

  and if any Indians complain about it

  they shoot them and their entire families

  and then set their whole village on fire.

  It’s a pretty killer strategy.

  Obviously this pisses some Indians off

  specifically a big group known as the Sioux

  which is a French word for “enemies”

  and therefore pretty biased

  so I’m going to call them what they call themselves:

  Lakota

  which basically means “friends.”

  This is also pretty biased

  but way easier to type than Sioux.

  When I say the Lakota are pissed off

  I mean SOME of the Lakota are pissed off

  other Lakota just want to make peace.

  But all the peace guys get massacred

  because they’re way easier for white dudes to find

  being as they are hanging out near white settlements

  TRYING TO MAKE PEACE.

  So pretty soon, all the Lakota

  (and most of the Cheyenne

  who have been having the same problems)

  are ready to rumble.

  But when I say “ready to rumble”

  I mean “ready to be attacked.”

  Like, they don’t go running all over the place

  setting random houses on fire.

  They mostly stay home

  inside the bounds of the latest bullshit treaty

  and occasionally blow up a railroad agent

  or show up to a treaty negotiation

  just to tell the U.S. delegation how full of shit it is.

  Obviously, they must be stopped.

  THANK GOD FOR GEORGE CUSTER.