Is Red Dead Redemption 2 Historically Accurate?

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CHAPTERS
0:00 – Intro
1:56 – CHAPTER 1 — Outlaws from the West
16:45 – Enter, Pursued by a Memory / Aftermath of Genesis
23:25 – Old Friends
27:18 – Who the Hell is Leviticus Cornwall?
34:00 – Eastward Bound
37:37 – CHAPTER 2 — Horseshoe Overlook / Police Society, Valentine Style
47:04 – Extortionists / American Dreams / Newspaper
52:24 – Valentine encounters
56:47 – Noblest of Men, & a Woman
1:03:38 – Good, Honest Snake Oil
1:08:01 – Americans at Rest
1:12:51 – Valentine encounters
1:16:28 – First Shall Be Last
1:20:16 – Who is Not Without Sin
1:24:27 – Smoking & Other Hobbies / All That Glitters
1:29:52 – Exit Pursued by a Bruised Ego
1:33:57 – Paying a Social Call / Money Lending & Other Sins
1:40:20 – A Quiet Time / We Loved Once & True
1:45:43 – Spines of America / Geology for Beginners
1:52:00 – Arcadia for Amateurs / Strawberry encounters
1:58:24 – Blessed Are the Meek? / Logging camp
2:01:05 – A Fisher of Men / A Fisher of Fish
2:06:39 – Pouring Forth Oil
2:13:03 – Newspaper / Hunting (Charles) / To the Ends of the Earth
2:19:18 – A Test of Faith / An American Pastoral Scene
2:24:18 – Sheep and the Goats
2:29:12 – Newspaper / A Strange Kindness
2:32:45 – CHAPTER 3 — The New South
2:38:51 – Rhodes encounters
2:43:59 – Iniquities of History
2:51:33 – KKK
2:57:52 – No Good Deed / Ties That Bind Us
3:07:03 – Further Questions of Female Suffrage / Course of True Love
3:12:57 – American Distillation
3:17:47 – He’s British, Of Course / Aberdeens
3:22:33 – An Honest Mistake / Companion activities
3:30:02 – Lemoyne Raiders / Hayden Russell
3:32:38 – Advertising, the New American Art / Fine Joys of Tobacco
3:36:53 – Horse Flesh for Dinner / Magicians for Sport
3:43:39 – Newspaper / Preaching Forgiveness
3:49:52 – Friends in Very Low Places / Sodom? Back to Gomorrah / Blessed are the Peacemakers
3:57:30 – A Short Walk in a Pretty Town
4:00:20 – Blood Feuds, Ancient & Modern / The Battle of Shady Belle
4:05:31 – CHAPTER 4 — Saint Denis
4:22:45 – Joys of Civilization
4:29:43 – Angelo Bronte, Man of Honor
4:37:34 – High & Low Finance / No, No & Thrice, No / Gilded Cage
4:42:45 – Idealism & Pragmatism for Beginners
4:47:30 – Duchesses & Other Animals
4:50:58 – A Bright Bouncing Boy / Mercies of Knowledge
4:56:46 – Horsemen, Apocalypses / Fatherhood & Other Dreams
5:01:30 – Urban Pleasures / Newspaper
5:05:35 – American Fathers
5:09:30 – Fine Night of Debauchery
5:15:17 – Companion activities / Money Lending & Other Sins
5:21:08 – Oh, Brother
5:25:08 – Help a Brother Out / Brothers & Sisters
5:26:17 – Country Pursuits
5:33:46 – Arcadia (2) / A Fine Night for It / Carolina parakeets
5:37:44 – Ghost / Ghost train / Vampire
5:39:52 – Revenge is a Dish Best Eaten / Banking, the Old American Art
5:46:49 – CHAPTER 5 — Welcome to the New World / A Kind & Benevolent Despot
5:52:09 – Savagery Unleashed / Hell Hath No Fury
5:57:57 – Paradise Mercifully Departed / Dear Uncle Tacitus / Fleeting Joy
6:02:18 – That’s Murfree Country
6:08:30 – Wisdom of the Elders / Roanoke Ridge encounters
6:16:10 – CHAPTER 6 — A Fork in the Road
6:25:30 – Icarus and Friends / Visiting Hours
6:30:46 – Just a Social Call
6:34:13 – Annesburg encounters
6:37:27 – Delights of Van Horn / Van Horn man
6:39:42 – Smell of the Grease Paint
6:42:02 – Money Lending / Course of True Love
6:45:26 – Do Not Seek Absolution / Of Men & Angels
6:49:02 – A Rage Unleashed
6:52:59 – Saloon rats / Goodbye, Dear Friend / Arm amputation
6:58:21 – Artist’s Way
7:02:50 – Favored Sons / Archeology for Beginners
7:08:07 – Honor, Amongst Thieves / Fine Art of Conversation / King’s Son
7:17:03 – Mrs. Sadie Adler, Widow / Bridge to Nowhere
7:18:34 – Veteran / Charlotte
7:24:59 – My Last Boy / Our Best Selves
7:29:55 – Red Dead Redemption
7:34:56 – EPILOGUE 1 — The Wheel / Newspaper
7:42:05 – Simple Pleasures / Farming, for Beginners / Fatherhood, for Beginners
7:46:26 – Old Habits / Jim Milton Rides, Again?
7:48:12 – Fatherhood, for Idiots / Motherhood
7:51:06 – Landowning Classes / Newspaper
7:58:25 – EPILOGUE 2 — Gainful Employment / Bare Knuckle Friendships
8:03:22 – Honest Day’s Labors / Armadillo encounters
8:08:16 – Home Improvement for Beginners / Tool Box / New Jerusalem
8:14:26 – Quick Favor for an Old Friend / Del Lobos
8:18:58 – Uncle’s Bad Day / Newspaper
8:23:00 – Best of Women / A Really Big Bastard / Trying Again / A Better World
8:26:38 – Fisher of Fish / An American Inferno, Burnt Out
8:31:45 – A New Future Imagined / Newspaper
8:38:40 – American Venom
8:42:06 – Rains Fall / An American Inferno
8:44:01 – Conclusion & Credits
Limited to 100; for a full list, go to https://realpixels.store/pages/rdr2-history-chapters

#rdr2 #rockstargames #history

There’s a line of dialogue in the first cutscene 
of Red Dead Redemption 2 that, if you’ll forgive   the histrionics, kinda changed my life.
It’s a very random throwaway line in which Hosea complains about the weather. 
[Hosea: “This weather, it’s May…”]  On one of my many playthroughs, 
this line got me thinking: what was the weather like in May of 1899?
In fact, what was any of this like in 1899? Over four years, hundreds of hours, thousands 
of sources, and more than a dozen videos,   it’s a question I’ve tried to answer, using the 
game as a lens through which to view history. And now—combined, corrected, expanded, and 
remastered—I’d like to do so once more. So, let’s take a look at the real 
history of Red Dead Redemption 2. The game’s opening text is entirely accurate. 
By the end of the 19th century, the Old West was nearing its end. The 1890 U.S. census showed 
that the frontier had nowhere else to conquer. The Civil War was long since over, and laws were 
commonplace. Historian Frederick Jackson Turner argued that the American frontier had already 
come to an end by 1893, citing the end of westward expansion and the arrival of civilisation. 
However, in support of the Red Dead games,   several historians believe the period lasted 
just a bit longer—typically up until the 1910s, citing Arizona’s admission to the Union 
and the events preceding World War I.  Some gangs still roamed but they were being hunted 
down and destroyed. In fact, a lot of gangs were ultimately destroyed around the turn of the 
century. The Alvord-Stiles Gang, formed in 1899, ended when one of its leaders was captured 
in Mexico in February 1904. The Chacon Gang, a dangerous group formed around 1890, was finally 
stopped when the leader was captured and hanged   in 1902. The Ketchum Gang, formed in 1896, ended 
after three years when its members were captured, sentenced, or hanged. Few gangs made 
it very far into the 20th century—and   the Van der Linde gang is on the path to 
suffering an unfortunately similar fate. In the gang’s first appearance, they’re moving 
wagons with horses, which is, of course,   entirely historically accurate; horses were 
domesticated thousands of years before the game’s setting, and horse-drawn carriages 
have been used for just about as long.  Unsurprisingly, all of the horse breeds in the 
game are based on real breeds—like the Arabian, considered one of the oldest human-developed 
breeds; the Suffolk Punch, said to have the   “longest unbroken written pedigree” of any 
horse; the Morgan, which can be traced to the foundation sire named Figure, owned by 
Justin Morgan; and the Missouri Fox Trotter, developed from a combination of Arabian and Morgan 
horses, with later contributions from the American   Saddlebred, Tennessee Walker, and Standardbred.
The state in which the Van der Linde gang are travelling—Ambarino—could be based on any number 
of Rocky Mountain states (like Idaho, Montana,   or Wyoming), though a lot of evidence points 
towards Colorado: its geographical placement (specifically, Colorado’s placement near 
New Mexico and Texas); its name—in Spanish,   ‘Colorado’ means to be ‘reddish’ or 
‘red-coloured’, and Ambarino means ‘amber’; and its state flag, which bears a striking 
resemblance to the 1907–1911 Colorado state flag. In this opening cutscene, Hosea complains 
about the snowstorm. [Hosea: “This weather,   it’s May…”] Despite Hosea’s apparent confusion, 
snowstorms in this region—namely, the Colorado valleys—were said to be pretty common in May, 
though apparently not in 1899, when the game   is set. One newspaper claims that the preceding 
winter was heavy with snowfall, but not May 1899. That being said, there was at least one snowstorm 
in the region in May—on the second of the month,   a snowstorm hit the northern town of Windsor, 
Colorado, forcing a ballgame to be postponed until the following week. Perhaps not strong enough to 
have held back the law so significantly against   the Van der Linde gang, but notable, nonetheless.
While the dates don’t match up, the snowstorm may actually be inspired by a “Great Blizzard” that 
impacted the United States some months prior,   in February, which saw record-breaking 
low temperatures in at least five states, including −2 °F (or –18.9 °C) in Florida; Montana 
went as low as –61 °F (which is –51.6 °C), though even that wasn’t a record low. It impacted much 
of the country; ice was even seen flowing past New Orleans, down the Mississippi River to 
the Gulf of Mexico. It’s estimated that more   than 100 people died during the cold wave, 
with significant deaths and damages caused to livestock, crops, and infrastructure.
Eventually, the Van der Linde gang settle down in Colter, a mining town that was abandoned 
during a storm fifteen years prior. In real life, the mining industry boomed about fifty years 
before the events of the game, during and after   the California Gold Rush in 1848. After about ten 
years of mining, California’s resources began to wane, and by the 1860s, prospectors were moving 
towards the mountains. Colorado experienced an enormous boom after the discovery of silver 
at Leadville in 1879. Around 1893, however, the price of silver dropped rapidly. Several 
years of depression in the state followed,   and mining towns were abandoned; in 
the 1990s, more than 18,000 abandoned mines were identified in Colorado alone.
Interestingly, it appears the abandonment   of Colter in Red Dead Redemption 2 is not due to 
the price of silver or any other metals; it’s due to heavy snow—and it’s not the only mining town to 
have suffered such an incident around this time.  In December 1883, a boarding house for 
the Virginius mine outside of Ouray, Colorado was swept over by an avalanche, 
resulting in at least six deaths. However,   unlike Colter, the mine, owned by the Carolina 
Mining Company, was not abandoned; it had 35 employees at the time and continued to operate, 
eventually becoming known as the Revenue Mine. Also in 1883, a 23-day blizzard in Animas Forks, 
Colorado, could have led to a similar fate. The blizzard blanketed the mining town with 25 feet 
of snow, forcing the locals to dig tunnels simply   to move between buildings. Despite this major 
setback, the mine continued to grow for several years, and in 1904, the Gold Prince Mill was 
constructed. Eventually, however, it suffered the same fates as most mining towns of the time: 
the Mill ceased operation in 1910, and in 1917, miners removed its major parts for use in a 
new mill in Eureka. By the 1920s, Animas Forks was a ghost town—100 years later, it still is.
The fate of Colter may not be an exact replica of any particular real-life event, then, but 
it certainly could have been inspired by many. The next few scenes in this mission 
feature several interesting historical   connections—obvious though some of them may be.
The gang use fuel-burning lanterns to light their path, and this is an item that 
Arthur can use all throughout the game.   The kerosene lamp—which, unsurprisingly, 
uses kerosene as a fuel—was invented by Ignacy Łukasiewicz in 1853, replacing the 
lanterns of the 1700s, which were lit with the more expensive whale oil or sperm oil.
After Davey’s death, the gang put coins over his eyes. It’s often believed that this ritual 
dates back to the Ancient Greeks, but there’s   actually only one known occurrence of this 
happening in Judea around the 2nd century A.D.; in reality, the coin was placed in or on the mouth 
of a dead person as a payment or bribe for the   ferryman who transported them from the world of 
the living to the world of the dead. Much later, in Gaelic-speaking areas like Ireland or 
Scotland, placing coins on the eyes of a   dead person was more of a practical task than a 
religious one; it was used to stop the eyes from springing open to muscular contraction, which 
would have been pretty disturbing. Eventually,   this version of the tradition made its way to the 
Old West, and evidently to the Van der Linde gang, where its prevalence is even less surprising 
considering Molly and Sean’s Irish heritage.   Nowadays, however, morticians simply glue the eyes 
shut or use eye caps to hold the eyelids in place. When Arthur, Dutch, and Micah make their way 
to the Adler Ranch, they tether their horses to   hitching posts. These, of course, were very common 
during this time period—they were essentially the parking spaces of the time. They likely originated 
in Europe in the 1600s, and, when they made their way to the U.S., were typically made of stone 
or wood. Charles Bush of Newbury, New York,   was issued the first patent for the hitching 
post in 1861; many others followed in the next few decades with more patents in many different 
designs—and, by the end of the 19th century,   they were as common as they are in the game. 
Interestingly, there’s a story from Kansas City, Missouri, in 1899, in which the city forester 
believed the addition of more hitching   posts would lead to fewer injured trees—which 
suggests their growing popularity at the time. The men at the ranch recognise Dutch and move 
to attack—so Arthur, Micah, and Dutch kill them, the first of many people to die throughout the 
game. Laws may have been commonplace at the turn   of the century, but violence was certainly not 
uncommon. Possibly part of the reason for violence was the laws: by the late 19th century, the U.S. 
had largely moved away from its original English laws and adopted ones that allowed people to 
use force in response to threats—there was   no longer the “duty to retreat”—and that 
remains the case in most states today. The sheer volume of deaths accumulated by the Van 
der Linde gang throughout the game is certainly   extreme, though largely understandable considering 
the medium. In real life, some of the gangs who mirror the Van der Linde gang, like Butch Cassidy 
and his Wild Bunch, were known for their avoidance   of violence, for the most part. Butch was 
known for breaking the law—but not for murder. Once inside the homestead at the Adler 
Ranch, Dutch and Arthur begin looking for   supplies—including in the medicine chest. For 
centuries before the game, people would store their medicines and cosmetics in a chest 
or pantry, often in or near the bedroom,   to protect them from bugs, rodents, and children. 
It wasn’t until the late 1800s and early 1900s that the bathroom became the more prominent 
location, particularly in wall-hanging shelves.   In 1894, an advertisement claimed that “every 
family should have one”. So, by 1899, it’s no surprise that the Adlers were one such family.
All of the supplies that Dutch and Arthur come across are based on real equivalents, 
too. Oatcakes—known in the game as classic   oatcakes—existed in Scotland as early as the 1st 
century during the Roman conquest of Britain, and they eventually made their way to Canada via 
Scottish immigrants in the late 18th century.   It’s highly feasible, then, for them to have 
moved from Canada to the U.S. sometime over the next 200 years, before the events of the game.
The canned fruit and vegetables are most certainly historically accurate. In 1795, as France was 
involved in several battles around the world, the French government offered a cash reward 
of 12,000 francs to anyone who could invent   an effective and cheap way of preserving food in 
large quantities. Enter French confectioner and brewer Nicolas Appert, who observed that food 
packed into airtight champagne bottles did not   decay; he soon progressed to glass containers. 
In 1810, a British merchant patented his own method—said to have actually been created by a 
Frenchman—though this time packed within a tin   can. Thus, modern-day canning was born and made 
its way to the United States before too long, the first factory being established in 
New York City in 1812 by Robert Ayars. On that note, Arthur picks up a can of baked 
beans in the homestead, too. Interestingly,   the timing on this one is relatively tight, though 
not entirely implausible. The origin of baked beans can be traced back to Native Americans, but 
the first example of mass-produced, commercial   baked beans in cans is in 1895 by the H. J. Heinz 
Company in Pennsylvania—four years before the game is set. In Colorado specifically, there’s 
mention of some Heinz products making their way   there in 1897, and a wider range in 1898, but 
there’s no mention of beans specifically until 1902—three years after the game. But certainly not 
impossible in 1899—especially considering the lack of shops in Ambarino, likely prompting the Adlers 
to purchase their supplies from elsewhere anyway. Salted beef, which Arthur finds on the table in 
the homestead, also has an interesting history.   Salting meat is theorised to date back to ancient 
times, when it was discovered that, in cold areas, meat didn’t spoil when it had enough salt. 
Though they can also refer to separate products,   the name ‘salted beef’ is often used 
interchangeably with ‘corned beef’; the latter was seemingly named by the English in 
the 17th century due to the size of the salt used   to cure it. Interestingly, corned beef can 
be consumed in the game, but only in cans. Schiffer beer, created by the Amos Schiffer 
Brewing Co. of Chicago, could be based on any   number (or combination) of companies, but its name 
and logo are reminiscent of two in particular: the F. & M. Schaefer Brewing Company, founded in New 
York in 1842 by Frederick and Maximilian Schaefer, and known for its Schaefer Beer; and the Joseph 
Schlitz Brewing Company, founded in Milwaukee in   1849, and taken over and renamed in 1858 by 
Joseph Schlitz, known for its Schlitz beer. Schlitz became the largest beer producer in 
the U.S. in 1902 and had this title several   times throughout the 20th century. While the 
companies themselves have undergone several changes and acquisitions in their more than 170 
years, the actual beers, at least in some form, continue to be produced today.
Interestingly, “Schiffer” is a   German surname and the similar “schiffen” 
is an old term meaning “to sail”, but, colloquially, it also means to urinate—which 
is totally consistent with Rockstar’s typical   branding for its fictional beers, like Dusche 
Gold, which essentially means “golden shower”, and Pißwasser, which speaks for itself.
Arthur takes money from a coin purse found in a chest. Versions of coin purses 
have existed for thousands of years,   potentially dating back to 3300 B.C., though 
the design of the one found in the homestead is a reflection of the typical designs of the 
time, demonstrating class and eccentricity. While in the house, Dutch references “Uncle Sam”, 
and this isn’t the last time he mentions his   estranged uncle. But, of course, he’s not talking 
about a relative of his; “Uncle Sam” refers to the United States—or, more specifically, the federal 
government. The origin of the name is disputed,   though a common story is that it’s based on Sam 
Wilson, a meatpacker from New York, who supplied food rations during the War of 1812 to American 
soldiers. When somebody asked what the labels on one of the cans stood for, a worker joked 
that the “U.S.” stood not for “United States”,   but for “Uncle Sam”, and the nickname remained.
However, there’s evidence of the term being used as early as 1810, so this story may be entirely 
false. The nickname was really popularised when it was personified by a well-known recruitment 
poster during the First World War in 1917,   but there’s no reason why Dutch wouldn’t 
have known the meaning of the name in 1899. At the end of the first mission, Micah 
complains about the living arrangements   at camp—particularly his roommates. [Micah: “How 
come Arthur gets a room and I get a bunk bed next to Bill Williamson and a bunch of darkies?”]
Even in historical texts, that last word isn’t very frequently used, but it is, of course, a 
racial slur. It was first used around 1765 to 1775, but, at the time, it may have actually 
been used without direct intention of offence.   For example, in the 1853 song “My Old 
Kentucky Home”, Stephen Foster uses the term alongside the word “gay”—which, at the time, 
of course, meant “carefree” or “cheerful”. But,   regardless of the intention behind the term at 
the time, it was still likely seen as offensive and patronising by those to whom it referred.
Over time—particularly around the late 19th and early 20th centuries—the term became 
known as more offensive and unacceptable,   and this is almost certainly the intention 
behind Micah’s usage in the game. In 1986, Stephen Foster’s song, which by that time had 
become the official state song of Kentucky,   underwent a change, replacing the offensive 
term with the word “people” whenever it was used officially by the government. Since then, 
the term has become nigh obsolete—and rightly so. In the second mission, Arthur and Javier save 
John and protect him from wolves. Grey wolves were fairly common around the Rocky Mountains in this 
time; in fact, there were attempts to exterminate   them entirely in Wyoming. They made their way 
north of Fort Collins, Colorado, in 1899, and attacks certainly weren’t uncommon. In Nebraska 
in 1899, Peter A. Watson was attacked by a grey wolf but managed to kill it in close combat with 
a small revolver. Watson was a wolf hunter for the   State Stock Association, killing an average of 400 
grey wolves per year, though it was closer to 200 per year by the turn of the century. In Colorado, 
the last wild wolf was shot in 1945, and it wasn’t until 2020 that an initiative was approved to 
finally reintroduce them back into the wild. Speaking of animals in the wild, one of the next 
missions involves hunting deer with Charles—but,   before that, Arthur talks to Pearson, the 
camp’s cook, who enjoys speaking of his time in the Navy. Assuming that Pearson was 
born around the middle of the 19th century,   he technically could have joined the Navy 
at the age of 14 with parental consent. This lines up with the end of the American 
Civil War, so he likely joined the force   during the post-war period of decline.
[Pearson: “When I was in the Navy…”] [Arthur: “I do not wish to hear about what you got up to 
in the Navy, Mr. Pearson.”] There’s a fairly good chance that Arthur simply does not wish to hear 
more of Pearson’s stories, especially considering   their circumstances. But there’s also a chance 
he’s slyly referencing a common stereotype that men in the Navy, stranded at sea for so long, 
would, naturally, have sexual relations. There   were known examples of this—Philip van Buskirk, 
for instance, wrote fairly extensively and candidly of his and others sexual experiences 
at sea, claiming that the majority partook. There have been suggestions that port cities like 
Chicago, New York, and San Francisco have become   gay capitals partly because they were often the 
locations that military members who received a blue discharge—often for homosexuality—disembarked 
in the 20th century; by 1946, around 9,000 blue discharges had been issued for homosexuality 
among the Army and the Navy. The stereotype   itself likely grew more in the 20th century 
after the 1919 scandal of Newport, Rhode Island, when the U.S. Navy investigated gay personnel 
by enlisting other personnel to essentially   seduce them into entrapment; a Senate Committee 
later denounced the investigation’s methods, calling the behaviour of the Secretary and 
Assistant Secretary of the Navy “reprehensible”.   The latter was Franklin D. Roosevelt, later the 
longest-serving president of the United States. As Arthur and Charles leave, Pearson gives them 
some assorted salted offal. Typically referred   to as “variety meats” or “organ meats” in 
the United States, offal is the organs of a butchered animal. Unsurprisingly, 
it’s not hugely popular to Americans,   which might explain Arthur’s reaction. 
[Arthur: “Starving would be preferable.”] Before long, Arthur and Charles encounter some 
deer. This isn’t too surprising, as white-tailed deer are native to North America, especially near 
the Rocky Mountains, though it’s more likely that   mule deer would be found in Colorado. Looking 
specifically in 1899, though: white-tailed deer were spotted and hunted in October and November 
after heavy storms in the mountains, so the   encounter in the game is certainly not impossible.
On their way back to camp, Arthur and Charles almost run into a grizzly bear. This wouldn’t be 
the only encounter in this area around this time: in May 1899, R. W. Bryan of Maybell, Colorado, 
fought with a grizzly bear after it had killed a mountain lion and focused its attention on him. 
Sadly, by this time, the grizzly bear population was already in steady decline; between 1850 and 
1920, they were eliminated from 95% of their original range. In the North Cascades area in 
Washington, more than 3,700 grizzly bear hides were shipped from trading posts between 1827 and 
1859. In Colorado, the grizzly bear was considered locally extinct in 1951—that is, until Ed Wiseman 
killed one with an arrow in his hand in September 1979, after being attacked and mauled by it. By 
this time, bears were protected by law, so an investigation followed, but it was eventually 
determined that he had acted in self-defence.   Unfortunately, this was the final sighting 
of a grizzly bear in the wild in Colorado. [Charles: “For a feller with a black father and 
an Indian mother…”] The term “Indian” to refer to Native Americans dates back to Christopher 
Columbus. Around the time of his voyage to the   Americas in the late 15th century, Europeans often 
referred to South and East Asia as “India” or “the Indies”. Upon arriving in the Americas in 1492, 
Columbus, believing he had reached the Indies, called the indigenous people “Indians”, 
a name which soon became commonplace   among the Spanish and other Europeans.
Of course, there remains some opposition to this name, since it technically arose from 
a historical error and it inaccurately reflects   the origins of the people and their varied 
groups—though some see it as more acceptable since it’s been in use for so long, despite its 
origins. Some also object to the term “Native   American”—also a name assigned by white oppressors 
after colonisation. Different indigenous Americans had (and have) their own names for the country, 
continent, or even world, like Turtle Island for   many Algonquian and Haudenosaunee peoples, 
and Abya Yala by the indigenous Kuna people of Colombia and Panama. Generally speaking, the 
best way to refer to indigenous peoples is simply by whatever name they prefer—typically 
the name of their own tribe or nation.  [Charles: “He treats me fair. Most of you do 
… That ain’t normally the case.”] He’s right, of course; the country has a long history of 
discrimination against both African Americans   and Native Americans, especially around this time. 
That the Van der Linde gang is fairer and more welcoming, though, is not an inaccuracy. Butch 
Cassidy’s gang was all white, but Cassidy was   said to have stood up for one black man with whom 
he frequently worked and socialised. There were several people and groups who were actively 
supporting civil and political rights for   marginalised communities at the time too—plus 
many more who likely didn’t have much of an opinion either way—so to have a group of less than 
two dozen criminals with similar enough ideologies   is not that farfetched (not to mention that some 
of them are still racist and sexist anyway). When Arthur and Charles return to camp, Pearson 
shares his drink with them—and Arthur is in   for a shock. [Arthur: “Jesus, what is that?”] 
[Pearson: “Navy rum, sir. It’s the only thing, the only thing.”] Based on the actual properties 
of Navy rum, though, Arthur’s reaction is not at all surprising. In 1794, when the U.S. Navy 
was officially established, it inherited the British Royal Navy’s tradition of providing 
sailors with a daily rum ration—in the UK,   the rum was 57% alcohol by volume. So, the term 
“Navy strength” certainly places emphasis on the “strength”. Sailors were originally given 
about half a pint of distilled spirits,   reduced to a quarter-pint in 1842, and 
to nothing during the Civil War in 1862. [Micah: “I thought you liked 
action. Couple of days on the lam, and you lot have all turned yella.”]
In a modern context, “on the lam” refers to   fugitives on the run, and it makes more sense when 
it’s pulled apart: to “lam” is to “beat”, and to “beat it” in Old English means to “leave”—so, “on 
the lam” is essentially “on the leave” or “on the run”. In 1938, a New York police office claimed 
to have heard the phrase about 30 years prior, which would be around 1908—later than the game’s 
1899 setting. However, cabaret society apparently used the word “lam” around 1900, so it’s 
feasible that it was in use during the game.  As for “turning yellow”: the source of “yellow” 
and “yellow-belly” meaning “coward” is unclear, though it may date back to the 13th century, when 
heretics who repented were forced to wear yellow   crosses. It wasn’t until 1856, however, that 
the word first appears in print as a synonym for “coward”, as P.T. Barnum wrote: “we 
never thought your heart was yellow”.   Thirteen years prior, a newspaper quoted 
Captain Wright of New York using the term “yellow belly” to refer to Mexicans, though 
it’s more likely that this referred to their   uniform or was intended as racist, rather than 
meaning “cowardly”. The actual etymology of the term “yellow-belly” might be based on the 
fact that those with “yellow guts”—and thus   are “yellow-bellied”—have “fake” courage, as 
“guts” began to mean “courageous” around 1893. Regardless, it’s safe to say that Micah was 
likely well aware of the term “yellow” by 1899. When the gang arrive at the O’Driscoll’s camp, 
Arthur observes them through his binoculars. This   piece of equipment has an interesting history, 
tracing all the way back to Hans Lipperhey, the first person to file a patent for the 
telescope in 1608. Lipperhey was asked to   build a binocular version of the telescope, 
which he reportedly did later that year, but it was criticised for its lack of efficacy. 
Several other attempts were made over the next   two hundred years, but it wasn’t until 1811 that 
the drawbacks were corrected by Johann Friedrich Voigtländer with the binocular opera glasses. 
The first pair of binoculars that modern users   are familiar with were invented by J. P. Lemiere 
in 1825. Another familiar design is the Porro or prism design, invented by Ignazio Porro in 
1854, though Arthur won’t use these in the game. Inside the O’Driscoll camp, Arthur and Bill find 
a large stash of dynamite, which also has an   interesting history. In France, Swedish chemist 
Alfred Nobel studied under a Russian chemist, whose other pupil, an Italian chemist, was the 
first to synthesise nitroglycerin in 1847. Over time, Nobel, along with his father and brother, 
experimented with nitroglycerin, and he performed   the first successful detonation in 1863. He 
originally sold it as “Nobel’s Blasting Powder”, but changed it to “dynamite”, based on the 
Ancient Greek word dýnamis, meaning “power”.   The “Giant Powder Company” was incorporated in San 
Francisco in August 1867 to manufacture dynamite, having obtained the exclusive rights from Nobel, 
and thus it made its way to the United States—and, thirty years later, into the hands of the 
O’Driscolls, and stolen by the Van der Linde gang. Interestingly, there’s a story that a French 
newspaper published an obituary for Alfred   Nobel while he was still alive, criticising 
his invention of military explosives, which inspired Nobel to leave a better legacy: upon his 
death, per his instruction, the majority of his wealth was used to found the Nobel Prize, which 
continues to be awarded today. Whether or not this   obituary actually existed has been questioned by 
historians, but an interesting story, nonetheless. Towards the end of the mission, Arthur uses 
his lasso to capture Kieran. Interestingly,   the history of this tool may date back as far as 
around 1280 B.C., when carvings in Egypt showed the pharaoh holding a lasso. A few thousand 
years later, Native Americans were said to   have used lassos in the battles against Spanish 
conquistadors, and, when the Spanish introduced horses to the “New World”, the Native Americans 
improved their ability by learning to attack on   horseback. A few hundred years later, and 
Arthur seems to have mastered it himself. In the next mission, the gang prepare to 
rob a train. Bill sets up the dynamite   below the railway bridge, and Arthur 
helps him connect the wire to the detonator. This method is basically 
as old as dynamite itself: in 1864,   Alfred Nobel realised that nitroglycerin could 
not be detonated by a fuse, but it could be detonated by the explosion of a small charge of 
gunpowder, which could be detonated by a fuse. Not far from the planned detonation spot, above 
the railway track, is a water tower. Elevated water storage tanks have existed in some form 
since ancient times, but these modern water   towers were developed in the mid-19th century. 
The one in the game is a railroad water tank, used to refill the boilers of steam locomotives 
on the line. Interestingly, some settlements were   built around water stops; some locations were 
too insignificant for a regular train station, but the existence of a water stop in the town led 
to the nickname “jerkwater towns”. One notable example is the city of Coalinga, California, 
whose name developed from “Coaling Station A”, the original name of the station established in 1888.
Just before the train comes around the corner, the gang members pull up their bandanas to disguise 
their faces. The predecessor of the bandana, the   kerchief, dates back centuries, but the bandana 
was popularised during the American Revolution, during which Martha Washington had a bandana made 
depicting her husband, General George Washington. As Arthur runs from the back of the train 
to the front, there are a few items found   in the carriages, all with interesting histories.
The phonograph was actually fairly recent in 1899, having been invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison—the 
first of his inventions to gain him notoriety—and commercialised in the 1880s.
The globe was much less recent,   having been sold in the U.S. since 1813. They 
were created by James Wilson of New Hampshire, who had taught himself map-making after becoming 
interested in cartography. He opened the first   geographic globe factory in the country, and 
his products were widely successful, but quite expensive, with the first 13-inch globe priced 
at $50—the equivalent of almost $1,000 today. Even older than the globe is the harp; they 
have been known since antiquity in Africa, Asia,   and Europe, dating back to as early as 3000 B.C. 
Another item dating back that far is the candle, but the candelabra is a bit more recent. 
Candleholders made of clay date back to 400 B.C., and it is understood that candelabra were used 
during the Middle Ages from 400–1400 A.D., though the earliest existing records date back 
to the 1600s. The invention of the light bulb in   the 1870s somewhat diminished the need for the 
candelabra, though it appears that the train’s owner, Leviticus Cornwall, must have maintained 
an affinity for them—not too surprising,   considering their prevalence as part of the 
ongoing Art Nouveau movement at the time. Once Arthur breaks into Cornwall’s private train 
car, he can find some interesting items. The cigar has its origins as early as the 10th century, 
with the ancient Mayans wrapping tobacco in   a palm or plantain leaf to smoke. The first 
Westerners to encounter tobacco in recorded history were Christopher Columbus and his men 
in 1492, after encountering the indigenous   Taíno people in Cuba. The word “cigar” was first 
recorded in English in the 18th century, when its use became more popular; by the mid-19th century, 
approximately 300 million cigars had been sold. The pocket watch evolved in the 17th century from 
the earlier clock-watches, as men began to wear   them in their pockets instead of as pendants, 
partly due to fashion but mostly because it kept them safe from the elements and other damage.
Brandy was first distilled in France in the 14th century, though production in the United 
States really began in the 18th century,   and it became truly popular in the late 19th 
and early 20th centuries; “fine” brandy, as Arthur finds, typically refers to high-quality 
French brandy, which isn’t entirely unsurprising   to find here, considering Cornwall’s riches.
The last—and most valuable—items that Arthur collects from the private mail car are some bearer 
bonds. These are government- or corporate-issued   instruments of debt that are unregistered, with 
no listing of the owners’ names. They were first introduced to the United States in the late 1800s 
to fund Reconstruction after the Civil War, but, by the 20th century, became virtually unused as 
they offered no protection from loss or theft.   Their anonymity made them ideal for illegal and 
unlawful activity like tax evasion and money laundering—and an easy target for heists, 
especially in popular media—and in 1982, they were essentially outlawed in the U.S. by 
the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act. Perhaps the most interesting historical 
comparison to be made in this mission   is of the train robbery itself—in many 
ways, it’s a homage to the 1899 Wilcox Train Robbery in Wyoming, likely orchestrated 
by Butch Cassidy and his gang, the Wild Bunch.  The beginnings of the heists are quite 
different—one of Butch’s men waved down the train, while Arthur and Lenny dive aboard theirs and 
stop it themselves—but the similarities become   clearer when it comes to the opening of the mail 
car. In both cases, the men inside the car refused to exit, prompting the robbers to riddle the 
carriage with bullets and blow open the doors. It   was at this point in Butch’s robbery that a second 
train began to bear down on them, so he eventually got the engineer to move down another mile or 
so, just beyond a newly constructed bridge.  When the train stopped, Butch placed ten 
pounds of “giant powder” beside the track and lit the fuse. Like in the game, the bridge 
remained in place, though in Butch’s case,   an explosion actually occurred, and the bridge 
appeared fairly impassable. Butch and his gang blew open the second mail car and both its 
safes, and, at around 3:30 a.m., walked away   with about $50,000 in cash, coin, and jewellery.
Or, at least, that’s one version of the story. Whether or not Butch was directly involved 
in the robbery is somewhat disputed, but,   considering Dutch’s involvement in the in-game 
robbery, it appears that it’s this version of events that the game decides to follow.
Regardless, the millionaire who ran the   Union Pacific, E. H. Harriman, read the 
news report about the robbery and hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to track down the 
Wild Bunch. It appears that Leviticus Cornwall,   the millionaire who owned the train 
in the game, has the same idea… Thanks to the snowstorm subsiding, in this mission 
Arthur can get a good look at the night sky,   which demonstrates Rockstar’s attention to detail. 
The constellations in the sky appear to be based on real constellations—and not just that, but 
they appear to be grouped together according   to how they might appear on particular nights 
of the year, since many constellations are only really visible in particular seasons.
The observation and interpretation of   constellations dates back millennia—to Mesopotamia 
in 3200 B.C.—and one of the first to specifically and systematically catalogue constellations was 
the Greco-Roman geographer and astronomer Claudius   Ptolemy. His catalogue of 48 constellations forms 
the basis of contemporary astronomy, particularly in the list of the 88 constellations published by 
the International Astronomical Union in the 1920s. Early in the next mission—the last 
one of chapter one—Arthur, Charles,   and Hosea encounter some Native Americans, from 
a distance. Hosea tells Arthur of their troubles. [Hosea: “Stolen clean away from them it was, 
every blade of grass. Killed or herded up to the reservations in the middle of nowhere.”]
Sadly, this is very much true. The Indian Removal Act—signed into law in May 1830 
by President Andrew Jackson—authorised the president to negotiate with southern Native 
American tribes for their removal to federal   territory, also known as reservations. As 
expected, however, these negotiations were full of corruption, and laden with coercion.
This could certainly be said about the Lakota   people, on whom the in-game Wapiti appear to 
be based, whose land borders were defined by the Fort Laramie Treaties of 1851 and 1868. 
These were soon broken by white settlers and the U.S. government, leading to wars that killed 
hundreds and the significant reduction of Lakota   lands—including the unilateral and illegal 
seizure of the Black Hills mountain range. In the southeastern United States, part of 
the forced displacement of Native Americans   has become known as the Trail of Tears. One 
particularly brutal part of this was the removal of the Cherokee Nation from their lands, 
conducted through a treaty that was not approved   by the Cherokee National Council nor signed 
by the nation’s Principal Chief. Despite this, the government ratified it anyway, and the 
removal ultimately resulted in at least   4,000 deaths—equating to one-fifth of the 
Cherokee population—but likely even more. [Hosea: “I just heard some of the army out here 
was particularly, uh, unpleasant about it.”] Unfortunately, Hosea is right about 
this, too—though the unpleasantness   certainly wasn’t restricted to any one 
area. Of the approximately 100,000 Native Americans forced to relocate between 1830 
and 1850, thousands—as many as 20,000—died. Slightly later in the mission, Hosea gives 
Arthur some yarrow and ginseng. [Hosea: “Good   for the health.”] He’s not wrong.
Yarrow is native to Europe and western Asia, but was naturalised in Australia, New Zealand, 
and North America. Its botanical name is said to be named after Achilles, the Greek mythical hero 
who used the herb to stop the bleeding wounds of   his soldiers in the Trojan War of 1200 B.C. In 
Medieval times, yarrow leaves were rolled up and stuffed into the nose to stop bleeding. Most 
similar to the in-game usage, however, yarrow was   popular in European folk medicine for centuries, 
as it contains plant-based chemicals that help to support healthy digestion. In the game, yarrow 
replenishes Arthur’s health and can be crafted   into medicine, so its usage is fairly accurate.
American ginseng, meanwhile, was discovered around 1716 in Montreal, Canada, and, in 
the U.S., it’s native to the deciduous   forests to the east. It was one of the earliest 
marketable herbs to be harvested in the country, becoming one of Minnesota’s first major exports; 
in 1860, more than 120 tons of dried ginseng roots were shipped from Minnesota to China. In the U.S., 
pharmacists classed the herb as rather mild, but the Chinese apparently believed it to be powerful, 
so its success continued. The genus name, Panax, is derived from the Greek word “panakeia”, 
meaning “universal remedy”—not quite universal,   as may be discovered later in the game, but it 
certainly helps to cure Arthur’s health. By 1901, the price of the wild dried ginseng root was 
around $5 per pound, while the cultivated product   was $9–$9.50 per pound—a far cry from the 25 
cents that Arthur gets for it, but it’s a lot more abundant in the game, and at that price, all the 
gang had to do was find some ginseng in the wild   and they’d have been in Tahiti in no time, so some 
changes to the economy had to be made somewhere. Once the gang has settled in their new 
camp, Hosea gives Arthur a cup of coffee.   Knowledge of coffee drinking and coffee 
trees dates back to the late 15th century, but they were first brought to the Americas 
when they arrived in the Caribbean in 1720. It   didn’t truly become the drink of choice until 
after the Boston Tea Party in 1773, however, as Americans decided that tea—largely associated 
with the British—had become unpatriotic. There are several interesting things inside 
Arthur’s sleeping quarters, but perhaps my   favourite is the flower in the glass jar. At first 
glance, it seems most similar in appearance to an Echeveria plant, though those are only native to 
Mexico and Central and South America. It’s likely based on a Dudleya plant, several of which were 
actually formerly classed in the Echeveria genus.   In chapter 4, Arthur tells Mary-Beth that the 
flower is native to the Western United States, around California and Oregon. Two Dudleya plants 
closely fit this description: Dudleya cymosa, native to the rocky areas in low elevation 
in California and southern Oregon mountains;   and Dudleya farinose, which is native 
to Oregon and northern California. Elsewhere in Arthur’s quarters is a newspaper 
clipping from his first bank robbery in 1887—which bears a striking resemblance to a New York 
Times newspaper story from 1863. In the game, a brazen bank robbery—in real-life, a bold bank 
robbery—involved three men robbing the bank of Lee and Hoyt—in real-life, Waters, Bishop & Co. In 
both instances, the robbers scored about $5,000, but, while in the game, the men escaped and 
were reported to have used to money to help   orphans and the poor, in real-life, all of 
the robbers were eventually captured. The story of the men using the money to help poor 
people and orphans may be inspired by similar   stories attributed to Jesse James—though their 
truthfulness, in both instances, is questionable. Over in Dutch’s sleeping quarters are 
a few books, several of which appear   to have real-life inspirations. Existence and 
Oblivion by Nikolai Federov is not a real book, but Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov was a real 
Russian Orthodox Christian philosopher. The   title Existence and Oblivion may be inspired by 
Crime and Punishment, while its contents—a tale of theology, faith, brothers, and murder—are 
likely inspired by The Brothers Karamazov, both well-known novels written by Russian 
author Fyodor Dostoevsky. Interestingly,   one of Dostoevsky’s brothers was named Nikolai.
Elsewhere in the camp is a game of dominoes, which has a much more recent history than one 
might expect. The oldest confirmed written   mention of the game comes from 13th century 
China, but the modern “game of domino” didn’t surface in Europe until the early 18th 
century, and it doesn’t seem to appear   in American literature until the 1860s. By 1889, 
however, the game has spread worldwide, so the Van der Linde gang’s enjoyment of it is unsurprising.
Within the camp, the Van der Linde gang keep some chickens around. Chickens arrived in the New 
World in 1493 as a passenger on Christopher Columbus’s second voyage to the Americas, 
so they’re nothing new, but, by the end of   the 19th century, they were becoming rarer as 
many people began moving towards industrial cities. To eat chicken—especially chicken 
salad—around this time was a symbol of wealth,   as the rarity of chicken in cities meant 
that only the rich could afford to eat it. In the first mission of chapter 
two, Arthur kicks Uncle awake,   and they decide to head into town with some 
of the women. Before long, they start to sing a song. [“I got a girl in Berryville, can’t be 
screwed ‘cause she’s too damn ill…”] They sing four verses in total, and they’re all based on 
real-life verses that were heard or re-told around   Arkansas and Missouri in the late 19th and early 
20th centuries. They’re all pretty much identical, besides some minor censoring, an occasional word 
change, and, of course, the complete replacement   of the first two lines of the second verse, 
changing the location from Baltimore to Valentine. Speaking of Valentine, it doesn’t take too long to 
arrive, and it certainly doesn’t take long for the   women to mention the sheep—or their smell. [Tilly: 
“Smell those sheep!”] [Karen: “Or is that Uncle?”] Because, of course, Valentine is a livestock town. 
Although Valentine focuses specifically on sheep, cattle towns were fairly common in the 19th 
century—midwestern settlements catering to the   cattle industry. The first to be established was 
Abilene, Kansas, which became a market for Texan cattle in 1867. Dissatisfaction with the Kansas 
Pacific Railroad, however, led several Texan cattle drivers towards Nebraska in the 1870s, and 
eventually towards Cheyenne, Wyoming. Cheyenne became the centre of the cattle trade in Wyoming, 
which was unusual for cattle towns at the time as   it was also a centre of society and culture; its 
diverse economy allowed it to prosper through the off-season. Its proximity to the Colorado 
state border, and relative proximity to the   Rocky Mountains, also makes Cheyenne a pretty good 
candidate for the inspiration behind Valentine. It wouldn’t be the only one, though; for instance, 
Cheyenne had a fairly large population and was   home to a Union Pacific Railroad Depot, while 
Valentine appears a bit less populous and only seems to have is a fairly standard train station. 
Some believe it may be inspired by Valentine,   Nebraska, not only in name but also its relative 
youth by this time and its status as a cattle town; or Eureka, Colorado, for its distinct 
look at the turn of the century; or Deadwood,   South Dakota, for appearance and prevalence 
in popular media. It’s also seen a number of comparison to fictional towns from famous films, 
like Harmonville from Open Range and Big Whiskey from Unforgiven. So, as with other parts of 
the game, it seems Valentine is a bit of an   amalgamation of several different locations—the 
quintessential, stereotypical livestock town that one might expect to see in the Western genre. The 
name itself could be inspired by a real location   by the same name, or perhaps by real person with 
the name—like Valentine McGillycuddy, known for his efforts to build and maintain relationships 
between Native Americans and the U.S. government. On their way through town, the group ride past 
two saloons. Of course, saloons feel like the   quintessential image of the American frontier, and 
the first one—Brown’s Saloon—opened in 1822 near the border of Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah, serving 
mostly fur trappers at the Brown’s Hole trading fort. Before long, saloons became especially 
popular with soldiers, cowboys, and miners, and poker tables were present at virtually every one.
When Arthur eventually stops the wagon, the women tell him that they’ll get to work. 
[Karen: “We’ll start at the saloon.”] This is   especially interesting, because, typically, 
women weren’t allowed at the saloon—so it’s unlikely that the women simply walked 
into the saloon looking to a buy a drink;   they more than likely started acting like 
dancehall girls or sex workers. Dancehall or saloon girls were tasked with brightening 
the evenings of the men, singing for them,   dancing with them, talking to them—anything to 
get them to remain in the bar and continue buying drinks. Based on where Karen ends up, though, 
it’s more likely that she acted as a sex worker. As the women get to work, Uncle takes Arthur into 
the general store. General stores existed in the United States as early as the 18th century, but 
they became increasingly important in the 19th,   as the country grew and railroad lines were built. 
They generally grew with the times, too, offering a range of services—banking, shoe fitting, 
postage, pharmacy, school supplies, gun and whiskey sales. General stores became especially 
important after the American Civil War, so it   should come as no surprise that there’s basically 
one in every town in Red Dead Redemption 2. Inside the general store, Arthur can select 
items to purchase on the shelves, or in a   catalogue on the store counter. The in-game 
catalogues appear to be based on the Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalogues of the 1890s and early 
1900s. Some adaptations have been made to fit with the in-game items and the user interface, but 
the designs are undoubtedly influenced by the real   catalogue. The Sears catalogues were primarily 
used for mail orders, while those in game are primarily—though not exclusively—used 
as a product directory for the stores. If Arthur sticks around the store long 
enough, he’ll notice Uncle buying a jaw   harp. Interestingly, these were originally known 
as a Jew’s harp and later a juice harp, and these are still terms often used for them today, though 
the exact origin and reasoning behind the name is   unknown. The name “jaw harp” first appeared 
around the late 18th and early 19th century, roughly 100 years before Uncle buys one here.
Once their shopping trip is over, and after a quick nap, Arthur tracks down Karen in the hotel 
across the street. Places of accommodation date back to biblical times, but the widespread 
construction of hotels was facilitated by the   industrial revolution of the 1760s. One especially 
prominent early hotel was Tremont House in Boston, Massachusetts, opened in 1829—the first hotel 
to have indoor plumbing, toilets and baths, a reception area, and locked rooms 
for guests, among other innovations. At the end of the mission, if 
Arthur spares Jimmy Brooks,   he is rewarded with a steel pen. Based on the 
appearance, this looks to be a fountain pen. Metal nibs for pens—typically made of copper and 
bronze—date back as far as back ancient Egypt; however, the quality of writing was inferior to 
that of reed pens, and, until the 18th century,   they were really only made as one-off, luxury 
items. In 1809, Peregrine Williamson was the first recorded maker of steel pens as a 
primary occupation in the United States,   sold for $1 each—the equivalent of over $25 
today. They began to take off in the decades that followed, with mass manufacturing 
beginning in the early-to-mid 1800s. A little south of Valentine, Arthur can meet 
a man and his two sons building a house—and,   in one encounter, helps to defend them against 
outlaws demanding “protection money”. Such protection rackets are not new—there’s some 
evidence suggesting they existed as early as   the 12th century. They certainly existed during 
the Old West as well; often it was lawmen who used their power and position to earn some 
extra money racketeering. Jim Courtwright,   known as “Longhair Jim”, was a lawman in 
Fort Worth, Texas, who was said to have run a protection racket for several years; it’s 
believed that it was him offering protection to   one business that resulted in the confrontation 
that ultimately led to his death in 1887. Also south of Valentine—then elsewhere in the 
world—Arthur encounters three mutilated bodies, each accompanied by a note from the killer 
taunting him. One such note simply asks   the question “Do you see?”. This is a fairly 
generic phrase, but, considering its context, it might be inspired by Thomas Harris’s novel 
Red Dragon—not so much historically, since it   was published about 80 years after the game takes 
place, but perhaps as a reference. In the novel, a serial killer taunts a journalist by showing 
him several disturbing slides while repeating the   question “Do you see?”—a scene that became known 
in the film adaptations Manhunter and Red Dragon. Accompanying one of the other bodies is the 
taunt “Look on my works”. Both historically   and referentially, this may be based on 
Percy Shelley’s 1819 sonnet “Ozymandias”: “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: 
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”. The poem is considered a “lesson to tyrants” 
about their “inevitable decline”—perhaps fairly   relevant to the killer in this context, then.
Speaking of which, the killer is revealed to be a man named Edmund Lowry Jr. He could really 
be based on any number or combination of real and fictional serial killers. In fact, there were 
several around this time—in the decades before and   after—with whom Lowry shares some similarities, 
like: Stephen D. Richards, who was considered polite and well-dressed; Jack the Ripper, who sent 
letters boasting about his crimes; H. H. Holmes, who wanted people to know about his crimes 
to the point where he seemingly exaggerated   and fabricated several, and whose real name, 
Herman, resembles one of Lowry’s victims; Albert Fish, a real jerk, who tortured and mutilated his 
victims; and Ed Gein—real named Edward, like one   of Lowry’s victims—who kept mutilated body parts 
in his shed—like Lowry does in a basement—and whose violence was directed towards women who 
physically resembled his mother, just as Lowry   appears to have similar issues with his mother.
In the letter from Lowry’s mother, she recommends that he takes the laudanum given to him by 
a doctor to improve his nerves. Laudanum is   a tincture of opium that was widely used 
in the nineteenth century as a sleeping aid and painkiller. It is highly addictive, 
however, and often leads to drug addictions. Back in Valentine, Arthur can purchase an issue of 
the New Hanover Gazette; elsewhere in the world,   he can also purchase the Saint Denis Times 
and the Blackwater Ledger, whose contents are identical. There are several articles written in 
these newspapers—which become available throughout   the story—with interesting historical connections. 
In fact, some stories bear striking resemblances to real stories published in real newspapers.
A story in this first paper mentions that   Francisco Torres, who “seized the presidency of 
Mexico in the bloody coup of 1876”, has “placed troops along the border”, prompting retaliatory 
action from U.S. President MacAlister. A somewhat similar event occurred in real life many years 
before the events of the game: Porfirio Díaz,   who seized the presidency of Mexico in 1876, 
sent troops to the border in retaliation to U.S. President Hayes ordering that the U.S. Army 
could cross it if necessary. Tensions soon calmed as a mutual agreement was made. Interestingly, 
the 1890s marked the beginning of a different dispute along the border—that of the land known as 
“El Chamizal”, in which shifts in the Rio Grande made the land appear to be American soil, despite 
Mexico never ceding it as such. The dispute was finally solved in the 1960s, under Presidents 
John F. Kennedy and Adolfo López Mateos. Another article in the paper mentions the 
bubonic plague breaking out in Hong Kong and   India and killing several American soldiers 
in the Philippines—specifically in the city of Manila. Interestingly, there are similar 
articles written in 1899 with similar phrasing: specifically, the “loathsome disease” breaking out 
in Hong Kong and India and killing “a number of   American soldiers … in the hospitals at Manila”. 
This was part of what’s known as the third plague pandemic, which started in China in the mid-19th 
century, making its way to Hong Kong in 1894, Bombay in India in 1896, and the Philippines 
in 1899, as the articles suggest. American soldiers were stationed in the 
Philippines at this time because of the   Philippine–American War, which is discussed in 
another newspaper article. It talks of the First Philippine Republic “effectively” declaring war on 
the U.S. by “objecting to the Treaty of Paris in   which the U.S. took possession of the Philippines 
from Spain after the Spanish American War”, and the U.S. Navy subsequently bombarding 
the city of Iloilo. This is all true;   the First Philippine Republic’s objection to 
the Treaty of Paris led to battles in Manila and Iloilo from February 1899. The article talks of 
the War Department’s expectation that hostilities would cease “quickly” due to the strength of the 
American military; ultimately, the war lasted   over three years (with additional conflicts 
an additional decade beyond it) and saw the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people—mostly 
civilians, and largely due to disease and famine. Opposite one of Valentine saloons is a man named 
Mickey, who claims to be a war veteran. Based on his outfit, this would be believable; it bears 
a resemblance to the Union Army uniform of the   Civil War era. Some of Mickey’s comments 
aren’t entirely unbelievable for a veteran, too. [Mickey: “I fought in a war, mister. I did. 
Sent me strange seein’ all them… fellas die.”] Mental health issues, including post-traumatic 
stress disorder, were certainly present after   the Civil War, and, as mentioned before, the use 
of opiates during medical operations led to drug addictions. Some evidence suggests that the “vast 
majority of soldiers … weren’t traumatised” by the   war, but times were certainly different; 
many soldiers were strongly religious and relied heavily on their personal perceptions 
of glory and honour—so discussing any pain,   especially mental health, was quite uncommon, much 
less seeking any assistance for dealing with it. Elsewhere in Valentine, Arthur spots a pair of 
men stalking through a window. [Man: “They’re   three sheets to the wind, I reckon.”] This 
phrase refers to being drunk or inebriated. It was fairly common by at least 1817, referring 
to the sheet that controls the sails on a ship: the ship loses control if the line isn’t secure, 
and is said to be out of control if all three   sails are loose, hence “three sheets to the wind”.
Inside the window is a couple smoking opium. Historically speaking, this is entirely 
unsurprising. Opium was used to treat the sick   and wounded during wars—including the American 
Revolutionary War. Several well-known American figures took opium for pain, like Founding 
Fathers Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton, the former to deal with a bladder stone and the 
latter after his duel (that eventually led to his   death). Its usage increased dramatically during 
the Civil War: Union forces alone received almost 10 million opium pills and almost 3 million ounces 
of tinctures and powders during the war. Addiction   often followed: from the 1840s to 1890s, the 
number of addicts in the country increased more than sixfold, to nearly one in twenty Americans. 
Around the era of the game, usage gradually began to decrease, as doctors—and consequently 
state laws—began regulating its distribution. Also in Valentine—but certainly not exclusive 
to it—Arthur can witness a public hanging.   This was also not too uncommon in the Old West, 
though it certainly wasn’t without controversy. One particular judge, Isaac Charles Parker,   became known as the “hanging judge” of the Old 
West. Of the more than 13,000 cases he tried, 8,500 pleaded guilty or were convicted, 
160 were sentenced to death, and 79 were executed. The final public execution in 
the United States was in Kentucky in 1936, when about 20,000 people gathered to watch Rainey 
Bethea hanged after confessing to rape and murder. Less than two years later, Kentucky outlawed 
public executions—the last state to do so. In a brief but common encounter, Arthur is 
challenged to a gun duel. This certainly isn’t the   last time duel seen in the game—and it certainly 
isn’t the first time the United States had seen one. The first recorded American duel was between 
two men named Edward in what is now Massachusetts, back in 1621—about a year after the arrival 
of the Mayflower. They fought with swords; pistols became the more popular weapon of 
choice for duels about 130 years later.  In the years that followed, there were, of 
course, several duels—including quite a few between particularly notable people. In 1777, 
Founding Father Button Gwinnett was killed in a duel by political rival Lachlan McIntosh. 
In 1804, in perhaps the most well-known duel, former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander 
Hamilton was killed by sitting Vice President   Aaron Burr. In 1806, attorney Charles Dickinson 
was killed in a duel by lawyer Andrew Jackson, who later became the only U.S. president 
known to have killed a man in a duel. In 1842, state auditor James Shield and state legislator 
Abraham Lincoln agreed to a duel with broadswords, but it was cancelled shortly before it occurred, 
the reason itself the subject of some debate;   Lincoln, of course, famously became president 
less than 20 years later. And in 1859, in what was later called “the last notable American 
duel”, David C. Broderick became the only   sitting U.S. senator to be killed in a duel after 
he was shot by his former friend David S. Terry, who, the day before the duel, had resigned 
as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of   California. By the time of the Civil 
War, such duels had mostly declined. [Theodore Levin: “This is Jim ‘Boy’ 
Calloway—the Jim ‘Boy’ Calloway.”] [Arthur: “Who?”] [Levin: “The gunslinger. Fastest 
left-handed draw that ever drew breath.”] In addition to this entire mission strand 
possibly being inspired by the 1992 film   Unforgiven, a possible inspiration behind 
Jim ‘Boy’ Calloway is John Wesley Hardin, an outlaw and gunfighter who lived in the latter 
half of the 19th century. Like Calloway, he is thought to have been left-handed—which was rare 
at the time, or at least rarely recorded. Hardin   claimed to have killed more than three dozen men, 
though evidence suggests that some of these may be exaggerated or fabricated—similarly, Calloway 
claims to have killed over a dozen people, but, as the other gunslingers in this mission 
suggest, this may not have been the case.   It seems Hardin was at least a little more 
proficient as a gunslinger than Calloway, at least, regardless of the exaggerations.
Interestingly, one of Hardin’s signature weapons was a Smith & Wesson Model 3, one 
variation of which was known as the “Schofield”, which is included in the game as the Schofield 
Revolver, Calloway’s weapon of choice. In this mission, Calloway’s biography 
is being written by Theodore Levin,   whereas in real life Hardin famously wrote 
his own autobiography—though, in both cases, they appear to have the same effect of 
exaggerating the outlaw’s reputation.  [Levin: “What really happened at Sylvia’s Saloon 
back in ’76?”] [Calloway: “Just a lot of bunk, Plato. It’s just a lot of bunk!”]
The word “bunk” referring to “nonsense”   is thought to date back to February 1820. When a 
speech by North Carolina Congressman Felix Walker was met with disapproval by his colleagues, Walker 
refused to cut his speech short, claiming that he   was making the speech “for Buncombe”, referring 
to Buncombe County in North Carolina. An alternate spelling subsequently became slang for “nonsense” 
in the U.S. by around 1841 and was shortened to “bunk” by at least 1900, around the same time as 
Calloway’s usage—though it was perhaps made more   famous a little while later by Henry Ford, who 
in 1916 claimed “History is more or less bunk”. Throughout this mission, Calloway consistently 
refers to his biographer as “Plato”, who was,   of course, an ancient Greek philosopher—one 
of the central figures of philosophy, in fact, often considered one of its originators.
[Levin:   “Oh, get photos!”] The camera given to Arthur 
bears a striking resemblance to the Original Kodak Camera, created by George Eastman around 1888, as 
well as the subsequent Brownie, created by Frank A. Brownell for the Eastman Kodak Company around 
1900—both fairly appropriate for the time period. In this mission, Arthur is initially tasked with 
finding and talking to four famous gunslingers,   each of whom have a varying degree of similarity 
with real-life outlaws. For example, Emmet Granger, an outlaw who received a federal pardon 
about four years before the events of the game,   has a similar name to Emmett Dalton, an 
outlaw and member of the Dalton Gang who was pardoned after serving 14 years in prison.
There’s also Flaco Hernández, a wanted Mexican outlaw associated with the Del Lobo Gang who fled 
a lodge near the snowy Cairn Lake. Similarly, in real-life, there was Red Lopez, a wanted 
Mexican outlaw who, according to some,   ran a gang with former members of Butch 
Cassidy’s Wild Bunch—and fled on foot across snowy mountains to a ranch near Utah Lake. 
The nickname given to Hernández—the “Terror of the Grizzlies”—is similar to those given to 
several other Mexican bandits around this time:   like Manuel Lozada, the “Tiger of Álica”; 
Joaquin Murrieta, the “Robin Hood of the West”; and Heraclio Bernal, the “Thunderbolt of Sinaloa”.
Another gunslinger to track down is Billy Midnight, a man who was relatively 
unknown until he killed his boss,   the famous gunslinger Rabbit Matthews. This 
sounds very similar to the story of Robert Ford, the outlaw who became famous for killing the 
legendary Jesse James, with whom he worked as   a junior member of his gang. Billy Midnight is 
said to have become an overnight sensation and national celebrity, giving speaking tours 
and reenactments all across the country;   Robert Ford similarly became a national 
celebrity, posing for photographs and reenacting the murder in a stage show that 
toured across the country. Midnight received   several death threats and murder attempts, but 
is ultimately killed by Arthur after running from a bar. Ford similarly survived attempts 
on his life for several years—until he didn’t, eventually killed in his own saloon in 1892.
[Billy Midnight: “I didn’t shoot him in his sleep, and if I did, it was the only way.”] Like 
Billy Midnight, Robert Ford also denied   cowardice at the death of Jesse James. And, 
just as Midnight became known as “the man who killed Rabbit Matthews”, Ford became 
known as “the man who killed Jesse James”. Arguably the most impressive of the gunslingers 
is ‘Black’ Belle, the “Grande Dame of the   Gunslingers”, said to have married six times and 
never divorced. She’s likely based on Belle Star, the “Bandit Queen”, said to have married at 
least three times—possibly with as many as eight   lovers—but never divorced. ‘Black’ Belle’s choice 
of clothing colour is suggested by her name, and Belle Star was similarly said to have dressed 
in black velvet, with a “plumed hat”, two pistols, and “belts of cartridges” across her hips.
[Calloway: “I’m an old man. This never happened to Achilles, nor Gawain, nor Caesar.”] Calloway is, 
of course, referring to three legends of history: Achilles, the Hero of the Trojan War, the 
greatest of the Greek warriors; Gawain, a knight in Arthurian legend and King Arthur’s closest 
companion; and Julius Caesar, the Roman general and dictator who saw the initial transition 
from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire. [Calloway: “Well, I always hated Slim Grant.”] 
[Arthur: “Well, where’s Slim Grant? Who’s Slim Grant?”] [Levin: “He’s state marshal now out 
of Annesburg.”] Insofar as a lawman also being known as a gunslinger, Slim Grant may be based 
on Wyatt Earp. Best known for his role in the   gunfight at the O.K. Corral in 1881, Wyatt Earp 
was associated with the law for much of his life, becoming assistant marshal, deputy marshal, 
and full marshal of towns and cities at several   points in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
After completing this mission, Arthur receives $350 for his services—the equivalent of over 
$13,000 today—and a letter from Levin telling him that the book is “selling like hot cakes”. 
This phrase meaning for something “to be in great   demand” seems to originate around 1839. There’s 
nothing in particular that apparently led to its origin, but hotcakes were always popular at 
church events and fairs, so it’s an apt idiom.  As for a book about famous gunslingers selling 
well: this is entirely unsurprising. Dime novels were especially popular around the 1840s to 1890s 
and beyond, often for representing real people in America and for telling fictionalised stories 
about famous real people—including gunslingers   and outlaws like Jesse James, Wyatt Earp, and 
Billy the Kid. Audiences enjoyed reading about the “heroes” and “villains” of the Old 
West even before that time had passed. Back in Valentine—and, of course, elsewhere in 
the game—Arthur can make more money by completing   bounties for the local sheriff’s office. This 
system was implemented due to failures brought on by a lack of finances and public faith in the 
criminal justice system; the reward system allowed bounty hunters to push beyond the financial and 
physical restraints of law enforcement officials.   However, there were some drawbacks; whenever a 
law enforcement officer wanted to offer a reward, they were required to contact the attorney-general 
in Washington, D.C. for approval—generally,   they waited for a reply before offering a 
reward, which could often cause delays in capturing the criminals in a timely manner.
As for the term itself—[Lawman: “You a bounty hunter, mister?”]—curiously, it’s more of a 
feature of popular media than actual history. The   word “bounty” in English originally referred to 
goodness, valour, and kindness around the 1300s; it was in the early 1700s when it began to 
refer to a gift or reward, which is somewhat   closer to the game’s usage. “Bounty hunter” 
was used a significant amount in the 1800s, but generally to refer to those seeking 
reward for hunting animals and their pelts,   not criminals; it was seemingly not 
until around the 1950s that it was commonly used in reference to vigilantes of 
the Old West. But not impossible here, and,   considering its iconic nature in relation to the 
Western genre, it seems like a logical inclusion. The first bounty Arthur captures is Benedict 
Allbright, a snake oil salesman. Chinese   water-snake oil was used around the 1840s by 
Chinese railway labourers who worked long days of physical labour on the Transcontinental Railroad. 
The oil is suspected to have had real benefits due to its high concentration of the omega-3 fatty 
acid EPA. Later in the 19th century, rattlesnake oil was promoted as a similar cure-all; however, 
genuine rattlesnake oil is not known to have any health benefits—the Chinese water-snake oil 
has almost three times the amount of EPA. Despite this, some people took it a step further, 
substituting the rattlesnake oil for something   even cheaper, thereby misleading the customers. 
Clark Stanley’s Snake Oil Liniment was taken to court over its ingredients; he was found guilty 
and fined $20—equivalent to almost $500 today. As a result of these deceptions, “snake oil” has 
become a euphemism for health care fraud or scams. Allbright is accused of selling a “miracle cure” 
that actually contained not just empty promises   but harmful substances. He wouldn’t be the first. 
Investigative journalist Samuel Hopkins Adams wrote a series of articles uncovering many of 
the false claims made by these so-called “cures”,   like Peruna, advertised from 1885 as a cure for 
catarrh (a buildup of mucus in the airways); it was actually harmful to some, made up 
of around 28 percent alcohol by volume,   and sale eventually stopped by around the 1940s.
Mrs Winslow’s Soothing Syrup was marketed to mothers as a method of calming babies during 
the pain of teething; it actually contained,   in at least one iteration, morphine sulphate and 
alcohol, and was blamed for the poisoning and death of several infants in the early 1900s—though 
it continued to be sold until the 1930s. The next bounty in Valentine is Ellie Anne Swan, 
the “Black Widow”, whose wanted poster accuses of her matricide—the killing of her mother—though 
it seems more likely this is intended as   mariticide, the killing of one’s husband (or, 
in Ellie’s case, husbands—or, at least, lovers, and at least four of them). There are several 
historical and mythological examples that are   quite similar, but one pair with a strikingly 
similar nickname are the “Black Widows of Liverpool”. Two Irish sisters—Catherine and 
Margaret Flannagan—allegedly killed at least four   people and collected their burial society payouts, 
including Catherine’s son and Margaret’s husband; they were convicted for the latter and hanged in 
1884, but not before Catherine made allegations   naming several more victims and their killers, 
leading to rumours that there was a murder ring of “black widows”. Unsurprisingly, there are 
several other murderers with that nickname too. Another similar story is that of Tillie 
Klimek, whose first husband died after a short   illness—as did her second husband, her boyfriend, 
and her third husband, on whom she carried life insurance. When her fourth husband became 
ill, tests confirmed it was arsenic poisoning,   and the exhumed bodies of her other husbands 
confirmed the same. It was also discovered that at least 20 neighbours had also become ill, of 
whom 14 died. There were rumours of a group of murderers, but other wives in the neighbourhood 
were released. Klimek died in prison in 1936. In the next main story mission, Arthur meets 
some fellow gang members at the saloon. There   are several songs that he might hear on 
his visits to saloons—including “Maple Leaf Rag”. [Music] This is a real song written 
by the “King of Ragtime”, Scott Joplin. [Music] It was written in 1897 or 1898, and the 
copyright was registered in September 1899, so a fairly accurate inclusion here. 
Sales of the sheet music had a slow   start—the first printing of 400 said to have 
taken a full year—but it soon kicked off, selling 3,000 a month by 1905 and over a million 
by 1915, apparently the first instrumental piece to do so. The sheet music for this song is 
also present at a party later in the game. It’s interesting to note that there are women at 
the saloon—but, as mentioned before, these are   likely working girls whose presence is expected. 
The same, however, cannot be said about black men, Native Americans, or Mexicans—three ethnic groups 
into which Charles and Javier can be classified. Native Americans were excluded from saloons 
by law, and black men were only occasionally   accepted begrudgingly, or at least ignored if he 
was a noted gambler or outlaw—Charles is neither, though he certainly wouldn’t take any crap from 
anyone else. Meanwhile, it’s unlikely that a   Mexican would have been totally ignored at this 
time, especially with some of the racial tensions between the United States and Mexico around the 
turn of the century. That being said, segregation   was often informal, sometimes limited more to 
sections of the bar than complete exclusion, and whether these practices were actually 
enforced was up to the bar owners and patrons,   so a scenario like the one in this mission 
is not entirely unrealistic—especially in some more western regions, and even more 
so if the patrons pay for their services,   as Charles and Javier almost certainly did 
with their drinks here. The lack of visual segregation cues—like signs explicitly 
separating black and white people—here   and elsewhere in the game is not entirely 
inaccurate either, as such systems were still fairly young at the time, though it would not 
have been totally inaccurate to see some too. One of the women at the bar calls Arthur a 
[“tough as teak mountain man”]. Interestingly, real mountain men would have been located 
relatively close by, though likely many years   earlier. From 1810 to the 1880s—and especially 
around the 1840s—mountain men were explorers who lived in the wilderness, most commonly around 
the Rocky Mountains. They were instrumental in   the opening of several trails in the country, 
which were eventually widened into wagon roads that allowed eastern Americans to settle into 
the far west. They arose in the first place due   to the lucrative earnings available in the fur 
trade, but the failing fur industry around the late 1840s led to their eventual decline. Of 
course, Arthur isn’t actually a mountain man in the traditional or historical sense, but he 
sure resembles the stereotypical image of one. Before long, the boys find themselves involved 
in a bar fight. These occurred around this time,   of course, but media loves to romanticise their 
frequency. In truth, fights happened everywhere, but the presence of alcohol likely played a part 
in their locations at bars; during the early 19th century—especially around 1830—Americans consumed 
almost three times as much alcohol as they do today. This number dropped as the century went on, 
especially before prohibition in the 20th century. Interestingly, some words or phrases 
mentioned towards the end of the   mission seem to have originated in the 
decades before Red Dead Redemption 2. [Tommy: “Come here, you little greaser.”] 
“Greaser” dates back to at least the 1840s,   a popular insult for Mexicans at the time 
as it apparently referred to how people of darker complexions were said to have oilier—or 
greasier—skin. Some also think that it refers   to the greasing of wagon axles, considered a 
lowly occupation typically held by Mexicans. [Stranger: “Ya bum.”] The word “bum” in this 
context is meant to refer to a homeless person, or a vagrant. It was first used in this way around 
the 1860s, apparently taken from the German word Bummler, which means “loafer”—somebody 
who is idle, slow, or unemployed. [Tommy: “Come on, pretty boy.”] “Pretty boy”, 
at least in this place, time, and context, is meant as an insult, referring to a man who is 
too interested in his own clothing and personal   appearance. Not that there’s anything wrong 
with that, of course, but Arthur is meant to be a rough and tough cowboy who doesn’t have 
any feelings, so it’s pretty offensive to him.   The term is known to have been used as early as 
1835, so it’s no surprise that Tommy has added it to his own vocabulary. Interestingly, there 
was a bank robber known as Pretty Boy Floyd who lived in the early 20th century—though he hated 
the nickname. Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover declared him “public enemy number 
1” in 1934, and he was shot and killed in October. Back in the saloon, Arthur can meet Jon, 
perhaps best known for his unique raccoon   hat. Jon loves to complain to thin 
air about lots of different things, and brags about how many different animals and 
people he’s killed. [Jon: “Don’t know how many   redskins I killed. But they deserved it. They 
weren’t Christians, so I sent ‘em to hell.”] This isn’t too surprising; there were several 
incidents of Christian settlers killing Native   Americans in the name of the Bible, like Ralph 
Lane in 1586, whose battle cry was “Christ Our Victory!”; or William Bradford in 1637, who 
described a scene as “a fearful sight” but “a sweet sacrifice” to God; or John Underhill, 
who, of the same incident, felt that “women and children … perish[ing] with their parents” 
was sometimes demanded by the “Scripture”.   Even Christopher Columbus’s adventures to the New 
World are said to have been inspired by the Bible, rather than any kind of science or reason.
[Jon: “…how many redskins I killed.”] Some research suggests that this term emerged 
from Native Americans themselves; an early   appearance was in an 1812 meeting between 
President James Madison and a delegation of chiefs from western tribes. However, a linguistic 
analysis of books published between 1875 and 1930 determined that the term was used negatively 
far more than it was positively. Today,   it’s generally considered offensive—which 
is likely how Jon intended it here. Behind the saloon in Valentine, Arthur 
witness—and has the ability to stop—a scene of   domestic violence, as a man attempts to drown what 
appears to be his wife or partner. Unfortunately, this is not entirely out-of-place for the time 
or era. Some decades earlier, the Mississippi   Supreme Court essentially established that men 
could beat their wives if they were provoked and “responded reasonably”. North Carolina 
saw a similar conclusion reached in 1852, stating that husbands could not be prosecuted 
if the injuries were not permanent—meaning black   eyes, bruises, and cuts were acceptable.
The growing first-wave feminism movement in the 19th century began to see some changes 
made in legislation as well as public opinion.   Tennessee is credited as the first U.S. state 
to explicitly outlaw wife beating in 1850, and other states followed. However, while judges 
and police would sometimes punish or condemn male perpetrators by the early 20th century, 
arrests remained rare, and a Supreme Court   case in 1910 declared that a wife was unable to 
sue her husband in civil court for assault. So, a scenario like the one presented in the 
game is likely not entirely inaccurate. Back at the saloon, Arthur encounters a sex 
worker who claims to have a killed a man in   self-defence—though it’s strongly suggested 
that she is a more prolific killer than she’d have Arthur believe. There’s a well-known example 
of this happening in real life—and much later. In 1989 and 1990—90 years after the game—sex 
worker Aileen Wuornos shot dead and robbed seven male clients, claiming that she had done 
so in self-defence after they had raped her,   or attempted to. She was sentenced 
to death for six of the murders and executed by lethal injection in 2002.
If Arthur decides to help hide the body, they do so by placing it in a nearby pig 
pen and letting the pigs dispose of it.   This is alleged to have happened in real 
life, too. Joseph Briggen, a hog farmer, was known for his prize pigs; it turns out 
the reason for their success was that they   were being fed the farmhands he was employing. 
This was discovered in 1902 when his newest employee found two severed fingers near his bed 
and alerted the authorities, who found evidence   of at least 12 or 13 bodies. Briggen received 
life imprisonment but died shortly thereafter. One of the next story missions is called “The 
First Shall Be Last”—a reference to the Gospel   of Matthew in the New Testament: “many that are 
first shall be last; and the last shall be first”. In this mission, Arthur and some gang members 
set out to rescue Sean. Trelawny finds out that   Sean is being transported to a federal prison. 
From 1776, prisoners charged with federal crimes were confined to state and county prisons, 
as there simply weren’t enough to justify   a separate facility; over time, however, 
the number of federal prisoners increased, prompting the Three Prisons Act in 1891, 
authorising the operation of the first three   federal penitentiaries in the United States. 
Two of these didn’t begin operation until the 20th century, but one—on McNeill Island in 
Washington—had already been open since 1875, before Washington was admitted to the Union, so 
it essentially became the first federal prison   in the country after the Three Prisons Act. 
Its placement on an island—only accessible by sea—is reminiscent of Red Dead Redemption 2’s 
Sisika Penitentiary, but more on that later. After they rescue Sean, the gang decide to throw 
a party to celebrate his return. Over the course   of the night, Arthur hears several different 
songs performed by different members of the gang—and all based on real folksongs of the time. 
The first, named by Uncle as The Louisville Maid, is based on a folksong called The Amsterdam Maid. 
This written version—the one used by Rockstar as a reference—was sung in 1933 by a man from 
Missouri, who recalled learning it around 1890. The lyrics are basically identical.
[Uncle: “When I was just…”] The next song, lovingly known as The Ring Dang-Doo, is much 
more well-known. Likely originating in the United States and sometimes known as London Town, the 
song is said to have been continually learned by   new generations, particularly 12- or 13-year-old 
boys. Due to the widespread nature of the song, it’s difficult to track its exact origin 
or its original lyrics—the version in the   game is an amalgamation of different versions, 
with verses dating from the 1920s to 1940s and appearing pretty heavily edited for the game. It’s 
possible that some of the in-game verses may not   have actually existed in 1899, but the song’s 
history is so convoluted that it’s likely that it existed long before it was ever written 
down—even if the game is inaccurate here,   it’s only by a few decades at most, and who 
would complain about hearing Uncle sing this? The next song is called Jack o’ Diamonds, but 
this wasn’t always the case. It has its earliest   origins as far back as the 17th century, as the 
Scottish folk song Way Up on Clinch Mountain, though the lyrics are significantly different. 
Another version of the song appears in print   in 1874, this time known as The Rebel Prisoner, 
with—again—very different lyrics. It’s also known by the name Rye Whiskey, perhaps most famously 
in a song by country singer Tex Ritter in the   1930s. The version from the game, however, 
appears to be based on one printed in 1910; the lyrics remain mostly the same, but towards the 
end it starts to swap several verses around—though this is completely unsurprising, considering 
Sean’s… state at the time of his performance. The last song is a solo performance by a very 
drunk Sean. Known as The Sprig of Shillelagh, this is an Irish song, appearing in print 
as early as 1825. The original song has four verses of eight lines each; Sean sings most of 
it, deciding to skip a few lines and the final   verse—perhaps partly because it doesn’t align 
with his political views of Irish nationalism. The lyrics are pretty much identical, too, which is 
doubly impressive considering his drunken state. One of the next few missions is for Reverend 
Swanson. The name of the mission, “Who is Not   Without Sin”, is from the Gospel of John in the 
New Testament. In the New International Version, it’s from John 8:7— “Let any one of you 
who is without sin be the first to throw a   stone at her”. This chapter isn’t the only 
one that Rockstar took inspiration from: John 8:32 states, “Then you will know the truth,   and the truth will set you free”—a familiar 
line for fans of the first Red Dead Redemption. The location of this mission—Flatneck Station—has 
a few historical artefacts of interest. Just above the water tower is a windmill; the placement 
of these so close to each other would make this   appear to be a windpump: a type of windmill used 
for pumping water. Early versions of windpumps were first introduced in the Middle East around 
the 9th century, eventually making their way to   Europe, and eventually to the United States 
and Mexico in harsh environments where water was only found deep underground. In 1854, Daniel 
Halladay designed the self-regulating windmill, turning automatically and only requiring 
maintenance as little as once per year. This   invention was crucial to the operation of steam 
trains, allowing further autonomy and development. Inside the main building at Flatneck Station 
is a wooden pallet on its side. An early   alternative form of pallet, known as a skid, 
can be traced as far back as Ancient Egypt in the 1st millennium B.C. Much later, they 
were used to move goods in American factories   in the late 19th century. However, skids aren’t 
the same as modern pallets—they lack the bottom deck boards that secure them when lifting with 
a forklift. The forklift wasn’t invented until   the 20th century, and the development of the 
wooden pallet didn’t appear to start until the 1920s—becoming much more popular during 
the Second World War in the late 1930s. At the beginning of the mission, Swanson tells 
Arthur, [Swanson: “I have removed myself from Morpheus’s embrace.”] This appears to be an 
adapted version of the more common expression,   “In the arms of Morpheus”. The Greeks believed 
Morpheus to be the god of dreams, so to be in his arms is to be asleep, or in a state of 
unawareness or being forgotten. By apparently   removing himself from such an embrace, Swanson 
is attempting to snap back to reality—to return to the land of the living—though it appears 
the alcohol may be preventing him somewhat. Of course, Swanson’s line is also a reference 
to his apparent addiction to morphine,   an opiate which was also named after the Greek 
god of dreams. Morphine was first isolated in the very early 1800s, marketed commercially from 
1827, and became widely used around the 1850s after the invention of the hypodermic syringe, so 
its usage in 1899 is entirely unsurprising. The same could be said about Swanson’s addiction: 
morphine is highly addictive. Many soldiers   became addicted during and after the Civil War, 
when it was used to treat soldiers in pain; an 1866 report indicated that Union soldiers alone 
were issued 850 kilograms of morphine, in addition to nearly ten million opium pills and over eighty 
tons of liquid and powdered opium. Many more became addicted in the following decades, and 
it’s estimated that there were at least 200,000   opiate addicts in the United States by 1900, 
probably many more; in fact, one article suggests there were around 400,000 soldiers alone who were 
addicted to morphine by the end of the Civil War. When Arthur finds Swanson, he is playing a 
game of poker. Of course, poker is basically   synonymous with the Old West. During the American 
Civil War in the early 1860s, poker was played by both sides during the large stretches of downtime 
between fights. The soldiers who survived the war   took the game home with them, and its popularity 
grew, eventually making the game synonymous with the expansion of the western frontier in the late 
19th century. It’s no surprise, then, that it can   be played so frequently throughout the game.
What might be a little more surprising is the specific type of poker that is being played in 
the game; it’s generally called Texas hold ‘em. A resolution passed by the Texas Legislature in 2007 
suggests that it originated in Robstown in the early 1900s, which would make it accurate in the 
game, but evidence suggests that it actually came   much later. In any case, it was popularised in 
Las Vegas in the 1960s, quite some time after Red Dead Redemption 2, so its prevalence throughout 
the game is certainly questionable. Perhaps more   likely variants would be draw or stud poker, both 
played during and after the American Civil War. At the same location, Arthur encounters 
Phineas T. Ramsbottom—a possible reference   to Phineas T. Barnum, a showman also drawn to 
money—who has a curious collection obsession. [Phineas T. Ramsbottom: “Cigarette cards … 
The value is in completing the set … And the   amount of money. A veritable fortune, sir.”] 
[Arthur: “Fortune?”] [Phineas: “Oh sure, sure. A complete set of any 
series is worth a fortune.”]  Cigarette cards were rather new at the time of the 
game, having been introduced in the mid-1870s by the U.S.-based tobacco company Allen & Ginter; 
they were collectible cards often included with   packages of cigarettes and released according to 
themes, including film stars, sports athletes, nature, and military heroes. In the game, 
there are 12 series with 12 cards each;   in real life, there were often plenty 
more within a set—30, 50, even 100. They were mostly used as a way to advertise 
cigarette brands—and while they might have been   worth something at the time, they’re definitely 
worth a lot more now. There are more expensive cards generally, but the most expensive 
cigarette card is the T206 Honus Wagner, of which approximately 50 to 200 were distributed 
before Wagner refused for production to continue. In 2022, one card sold for $7.2 million.
By collecting every card and sending them to Phineas, Arthur earns a collective total of 
$1,000—equivalent to more than $38,000 today. Not far from Flatneck Station, Arthur 
encounters a self-professed ‘renowned’   explorer. [Máximo: “There has been much written 
about me. I once had high tea with the Viceroy of India.”] One such version of “high tea” is also 
known (at least in England) as “afternoon tea”, which is probably what he’s talking about. 
It’s considered to have originated around   1841 by Anna Russell, Duchess of Bedford. Having 
become hungry between her lunch and late dinner, she requested tea and some small foods be brought 
to her room in the late afternoon. She soon turned   this into a habit and started to invite friends to 
join her. Before long, it became a popular social event for the wealthy, often as a way for them to 
show off their wealth and discuss social events. As for the Viceroy of India: Máximo doesn’t 
say when he apparently had high tea,   but Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess 
of Lansdowne, was viceroy from 1888 to 1894, followed by Victor Bruce, 9th Earl of Elgin, 
until 1899, so, if he’s telling the truth, there’s a good chance he’s referring to one of them.
[Máximo: “I helped liberate South America.”] He may not be telling the full truth here. Most South 
American countries gained independence between   1809 and 1825, at least 74 years before 
the game—Suriname and Guyana, meanwhile, gained their independence in the mid-to-late 
20th century. Unless he’s referring to smaller   or failed rebellions—or he’s a lot older than 
he appears—it’s unlikely that Máximo helped to liberate any South American country. The closest 
successful revolution around this time was the   Cuban War of Independence in the mid-to-late 
1890s, but Cuba isn’t considered part of South America geographically. He could be using the 
word “liberate” in a more metaphorical sense,   aligning with whatever side of the conflict he was 
on—like the War of the Pacific from 1879 to 1883, Chile against Bolivia and Peru; or the Chilean 
Civil War in 1891, resulting in the resignation and suicide of the president—but his lack of 
context makes it difficult to say for certain. [Máximo: “Beautiful country, 
reminds me a lot of Almería.”] Almería is a city in Spain where, notably, 
several films, especially Spaghetti Westerns,   were shot, including the famous Dollars Trilogy.
[Máximo: “You see this map here? It was made by the Jack Hall Gang.”] Elsewhere in the game, 
Uncle sings a song about Jack Hall and his gang,   which is almost identical to an old song about 
Cole Younger, a leader in the James–Younger Gang alongside Jesse and Frank James. According 
to the song, they had identical journeys:   robbed a California miner, rode towards Texas, 
met another gang on the Nebraska prairies, robbed a train, killing the engineer and fireman, 
and travelled north-westward to Minnesota, where   they attempted to rob the Northfield Bank but were 
captured, imprisoned in a jail in Stillwater. The game’s version of the song ends with a quote 
that is commonly attributed to Cole Younger,   but seems to actually be from his brother, Bob.
[Máximo: “They robbed banks all the way from here to California.”] The James–Younger 
Gang are known to have committed several   robberies across several states, but no California 
robberies were specifically attributed to them. The closest is the second verse of the song, 
which references robbing a California miner. Máximo offers to sell Arthur the map for $10, but 
Arthur can haggle down to $5—the equivalent of haggling around $380 down to around $190 today.
[Arthur: “Why the hell not? Can’t be that hard to suss out.”] The use of the word “suss” as a 
verb meaning “to suspect” dates back to the 1920s in text, and “to figure out … and discover” 
is thought to be even later—so Arthur using   it similarly here, over 20 years earlier, is a 
little… curious. But this is the kind of phrase whose casual use predates its first literary 
documentation, so it’s not totally illogical. If Arthur follows the maps, he will eventually 
find two gold bars, worth $500 each—around $18,380 today. There are several rumours that Jesse James 
and his gang buried gold or money somewhere in   the United States—but, to this day, nothing 
major is ever known to have been discovered. The name of one of the next missions is also 
based on an old text—though not quite as old   as the Bible. “Exit Pursued by a Bruised Ego” 
is based on an infamous stage direction from William Shakespeare, “Exit, pursued by a 
bear”. The direction appears in Act III   of The Winter’s Tale, and its random nature has 
led to significant confusing about the staging of the scene. The name is also a hint towards 
the animal seen much later in the mission. Speaking of which, Hosea tells Arthur that 
he has seen a bear. [Hosea: “One of the   biggest I ever saw. I reckon nearly a thousand 
pounds.”] [Arthur: “My God.”] The Kodiak bear actually commonly reaches sizes of 1,320 
pounds, with some as heavy as 1,500—that’s 680 kilograms—but these are native to the Kodiak 
Archipelago, a group of islands south of Alaska, so it’s unlikely that this is what Hosea saw. 
The only native bears in the Rocky Mountains region—the area that most closely resembles 
Ambarino and the Grizzlies—are grizzly and   black bears. The legendary bear that Hosea 
and Arthur look for is a male grizzly, which are typically between 400 and 800 pounds, 
but there are reports of some reaching as much   as 1,000. In the 19th century, one grizzly 
bear in captivity was apparently fed so much by the thousands of visitors that he could not 
walk, only moving by crawling. He was estimated between 1,800 and 2,200 pounds, but after 
his death he weighed a little under 1,200. Something quite curious about Hosea’s accent 
is how unique it sounds in comparison to the   rest of the gang. It’s somewhat reminiscent 
of a 1929 interview with an 84-year-old man seemingly from Missouri—so, he would have been 
roughly the same age as Hosea in 1899. [Man: “He struck Will Morgan in the face with a rock, and 
John Morgan shot him with an old-fashioned horse pistol.”] [Hosea: “Some big, loud-mouth bastard 
tried to rob me when I was out riding so I… well, you know how it is.”] [Arthur: “I see.”] 
This isn’t too surprising, considering   Hosea’s actor was born in the Northeastern 
United States and raised in Eastern Canada. Before they head out, Hosea tells Arthur to move 
his saddle to a different horse. Some evidence   suggests that saddles have been used since around 
700 B.C., and they were fairly common during the Middle Ages. When the Moors invaded Spain in 
711 A.D., they brought with them a distinctive saddle. The Spanish adapted the basic design 
to create the Spanish War Saddle. Over time, the saddle evolved—and as the Spanish colonised 
the Americas, the saddle made its way there,   too. Mexican vaqueros—early cattle 
handlers and horse trainers in the U.S. and Mexico—developed a saddle for working 
cattle across vast lands. And, thus, with some modifications, the Western saddle was born.
[Arthur: “I miss her, she was quite a horse. This one’s okay but… ain’t no Boadicea.”] 
This name is likely a reference to Boudica, also known by other names like Boadicea, 
a queen of the ancient Celtic Iceni tribe,   who led a failed uprising against the Roman Empire 
around 60 or 61 A.D. Interestingly, several of the other gang members’ horses have names that 
may also be references to other historical,   legendary, or fictional figures or locations, 
like: Javier’s horse Boaz, also a figure from the Hebrew Bible whose name is suggested to mean 
“in strength” or “sharp mind”; Sean’s horse Ennis, also the name of a town in County Clare, Ireland; 
Kieran’s horse Branwen, a character in the Welsh   mythological cycle the Mabinogi; Trelawny’s 
Gwydion, a magician and trickster in another cycle of the Mabinogi; Sadie’s Hera, the Greek goddess 
of women, family, and marriage; Charles’s Taima, a Meskwaki chief who lived in the late 18th 
and early 19th centuries; Bill’s Brown Jack, an Irish racehorse who won several races 
in the 1920s and 30s; and Micah’s Baylock, also the name of a character in The Omen who 
is sent to watch over the Antichrist. Fitting. In preparation for the bear hunt, Arthur crafts 
some bait out of fish and berries. This is pretty accurate for a bear’s diet; grizzly bears are 
big fans of fish, and eat lots of berries,   especially around September and October, in 
preparation for hibernation in the winter months. In another mission, Bill threatens Kieran with a 
pair of gelding tongs. The name of this tool is   interesting. A gelding is a castrated animal, 
usually a male horse, while tongs, of course, are a type of tool used to grip and lift objects. 
What Bill appears to be using, however, is an emasculator, a tool used in livestock castration. 
It works by simultaneously crushing and cutting the spermatic cord, preventing haemorrhaging while 
still detaching the testis. While the intended use of the tool is accurate, its portrayal is not 
quite. The act of castrating a horse is more complicated than simply cutting off the testicles 
and cauterising the wound. Kieran, having a good   knowledge of horses, probably knows this—perhaps 
that’s why he’s even more scared, because he knows the correct way to do it and knows that Bill might 
not be so precise. Or maybe he’s just scared of   Bill holding a hot, metal tool. That makes sense.
[Dutch: “You know, in Imperial Rome, eunuchs was among the happiest and most loyal 
of courtiers.”] He’s not kidding; eunuchs were considered important to royal service, helping 
with a variety of tasks, as it was believed   they would be “unencumbered by sexual passions”. 
The emperor Caracalla left the eunuch Sempronius Rufus in charge of Rome in 214 A.D., while he was 
on campaign. The next century, Eutropius became rather powerful under the emperor Arcadius, 
and was the first eunuch appointed as consul   in 399 A.D. So, Dutch’s words, threatening 
though they may be, are entirely accurate. As the group ride off towards the O’Driscoll’s 
camp, Bill tells Arthur that he’s put some   throwing knives in his saddle bag. Throwing knives 
may date back to ancient Libya around 1350 B.C., but they can confidently be traced to central 
Sudan around 1000 A.D. In the United States, they were popularised in the late 19th century 
by travelling acts like the Barnum & Bailey   Circus. Interestingly, despite their portrayal 
in video games and films, they’re unlikely to be 100% effective in combat—unless perhaps as a 
ranged stealth attack, as they’re used in this   mission. They’re more likely to be used as a 
distraction technique, focusing the target’s attention away while the attacker readies 
something a little more useful, like a gun. Inside the cabin at the O’Driscoll camp, Arthur 
can find a bottle of Kentucky Bourbon. As the name suggests, bourbon is strongly associated with the 
state of Kentucky, its suspected place of origin;   the term “bourbon” began to appear in newspaper 
advertisements for Kentucky by the 1820s, but its origin story from Bourbon County, 
Kentucky, didn’t appear in print until the 1870s.   Some believe that bourbon can or could 
only be named as such if made in Kentucky, but this is a popular misconception; half of all 
bourbon was made in Kentucky before Prohibition,   but it was also made elsewhere. One story suggests 
the drink may have been named after—or, at least, its generic name popularised by—Bourbon Street in 
New Orleans, where it was popular in the French   Quarter saloons. Regardless, its placement 
within an O’Driscoll camp—and eventually in Arthur’s satchel—is entirely unsurprising.
Above the chimney in the cabin, Arthur finds a double-barrelled shotgun, which he cleans. This 
was and is a common activity done by any diligent gun owner, especially if the gun is exposed 
to harsh elements. Dirt and dust can damage   the internal parts; dirty or rusty bore can alter 
a rifle’s accuracy; moisture can create internal rust; and so on. Plain soap and water—preferably 
hot water—was the cheapest cleanser, and sperm oil was the best. Other whale oil was second-best, 
though an 1878 U.S. Army manual warned that it could become “gummy and hard on exposure to 
the air”. Even a temporary dab of olive oil,   castor oil, animal fat, or wagon wheel grease was 
better than nothing. Nothing but the best pocket oiler for Arthur, though, which very closely 
resembles its real, 19th century equivalent. Another mission in this chapter is given to 
Arthur by Leopold Strauss, the gang’s loan shark.   In the late 19th century, banks and other major 
financial institutions stayed away from small-time lending as they were viewed as irresponsible and 
unprofitable due to the low legal interest rates.   Instead, plenty of small lenders offered loans 
at profitable but illegally high interest rates, presenting themselves as legitimate. By the 
1890s, usury—now known as loan sharking—had become a large cottage industry throughout the 
United States, especially in the west. Around   the time, loan sharking was viewed as one 
of the country’s two greatest social evils, alongside alcohol consumption—and it wasn’t long 
until prohibition temporarily dealt with that. To force a defaulter into paying, the lender would 
often threaten legal action or public shaming;   in the 1920s and 30s, a new breed of illegal 
lender was finally beginning to be noticed: one who used violence to enforce debts.
One of the defaulters from whom Arthur can reclaim the debt is a man named Wróbel, said 
to be from Silesia. Silesia is a historical area that was contested between Poland and Prussia for 
centuries. Wróbel is from the Polish region of   Upper Silesia. After World War II, most of Silesia 
was transferred to Polish jurisdiction; a small part remained in Germany, and an even smaller 
part in Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic). Wróbel briefly tries speaking to Arthur in 
German, calling it “the language of the Empire”:   a reference to the German Empire, as Germany 
was known at the time until the end of the First World War in 1918. His apparent enthusiasm to 
switch from Polish to German is not an accident: around this time, during the Partitions of Poland, 
efforts were made to systematically remove the   Polish language from the region, particularly 
in the Prussian and Russian Partitions, including in governments and schools—so it seems 
logical that Wróbel would be hesitant to speak it   when faced with someone he believes to be German.
In Polish, Wróbel also says that he “should never trust Prussians”, likely referring to the people 
of Prussia, the leading state of the German Empire   until 1918—which, notably, does not include 
Strauss, who was raised in the Austrian Empire. Within Wróbel’s home, Arthur can find 
and take a wedding ring. Interestingly,   men didn’t frequently wear wedding bands in the 
U.S. at this time; it wasn’t until around the 1920s that the industry began paying attention to 
the groom. In 1926, manufacturers and jewellers launched a major campaign to popularise the 
custom of male engagement or betrothal rings,   and it wasn’t until the 1940s and 50s that 
this advanced to wedding rings. That’s not to say that it didn’t happen beforehand, of 
course; it had occurred many years earlier   in other countries and cultures, and in World 
War II, many men would wear wedding rings as a reminder of their wives and families, so perhaps, 
many years earlier, Wróbel kept his—in a drawer, notably, not on his hand—to remind him 
of a wife back in Silesia or passed away. In one of the game’s most iconic missions, Arthur 
and Lenny get drunk at the Valentine saloon.   Before they’ve finished their first drink, 
though, there are a few terms of interest. Lenny describes Micah’s state on their trip to 
Strawberry. [Lenny: “He was half-soaked before   we even got there.”] “Soaked”, of course, is a 
synonym for “drunk”—one of many, actually—thought to have been first used in this context in 1737.
At the bar, a local man tries to insult Arthur and Lenny. [Jeb: “They’re dullards!”] This 
word, meaning a stupid person, a dunce,   a simpleton, originated in the mid-15th century.
In this mission, yet again, we’ve got Lenny—an African-American man—happily drinking 
at the bar. In this instance, however,   he is preceded by Arthur, who has a bit of 
a reputation in Valentine and is therefore unlikely to receive much opposition, so Lenny’s 
acceptance makes a little more historical sense. At the end of the mission, if Arthur gets caught 
and arrested with Lenny, the deputy offers them   a way out. [Deputy: “It’s ten dollars and 
you’re free to walk.”] While he claims that this is a fine for drunken violence, this may not 
actually be the case. In the nineteenth century,   there was a growing belief—in the United States, 
especially—that prison sentences and probation should focus on rehabilitation instead of 
punishment, so they became the primary type   of sentence instead of criminal fines. That’s not 
to say that they were completely removed, though. According to the Judiciary Act of 1789, bail—money 
paid to secure the release of a prisoner—can be decided upon by any judge, used in all non-capital 
crimes. In medieval England—which is what the American system is loosely based on—local 
sheriffs could dictate the conditions under   which a defendant could be detained; however, this 
system was abandoned in the 13th century, long before the United States was colonised, so it’s 
unlikely that the depiction in the game is bail,   at least legally. Unless the deputy was really 
telling the truth and it is a ten-dollar fine for drunken violence—which is certainly possible 
in a small cattle town like Valentine—then it’s   more than likely that this transaction was 
an undetected bribe. Unsurprising, really. [Mary: “Dear Arthur…”] When Arthur meets up 
with Mary, she tells him that her husband died of pneumonia. Symptoms of pneumonia were 
first described by Greek physician Hippocrates   around 460 B.C., and in the thousands 
of years that followed, it carried many different names and was often identified as 
a sickness. This wasn’t corrected until 1875, when German pathologist Edwin Klebs identified it 
as its own infection, and not just a symptom of other diseases. Around this time—specifically, 
the late 1800s and early 1900s—pneumonia was one of the leading causes of death. The first 
antibacterial agent used to treat pneumonia,   sulphapyridine, was introduced in 1937, 
and successfully used to treat Winston Churchill’s bacterial pneumonia in 1943, but 
was soon superseded by antibiotic penicillin. In this mission, Arthur tracks down Mary’s 
brother Jamie, who has fallen in with the   religious order known as the Chelonians. 
Elsewhere in the game, Arthur can find the Chelonian Handbill, which reveals that the group’s 
headquarters—Chelonia House—is based in Boston, Massachusetts. They’re not the only ones. After 
John Winthrop—one of the leading figures in the   founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony—invited 
Puritans to build a mythical “city upon a hill”, the area continually attracted seekers of utopia: 
of a perfect, desirable world. In the 19th century especially, several new religious movements 
were introduced to the United States, so the   existence of one like Chelonia—apparently founded 
in the late 18th century—is entirely unsurprising. An interesting behaviour of the Chelonians 
is the “shell of safety”, a formation used   when confronted with potential danger. This 
may be inspired by the testudo formation, a type of shield wall which was commonly used by 
the Roman Legions during battles. Testudo is the   Latin word for “tortoise”, and is also a genus 
of tortoise, while Chelone is the Greek word for “turtle”, and chelonia is the order of the turtle 
family. Considering the Chelonians’ obsession with   turtles, this inspiration isn’t too surprising.
As Arthur rides Jamie back to Valentine, Jamie tells him that he likes [Jamie: “Apples, I guess.” 
Arthur: “Apples?” Jamie: “Yeah, I love apples.”] Funnily enough, apples had a similar introduction 
to the United States to John Winthrop’s Puritans.   Pilgrims who settled in modern-day Massachusetts 
in 1620 brought young apples trees from England and planted seedling orchards throughout New 
England. The Massachusetts Bay Colony requested   seeds and cuttings from England, which were 
brought over on subsequent voyages to Boston. Speaking of orchards, Arthur suggests 
to Jamie that he go and work in one,   due to his love of apples. There are apparently 
four periods in the history of American orchards: the 17th and 18th centuries focused on planting 
for pleasure, followed by the development of   fruit varieties until the 1880s; 1899, when 
the game is set, is in the third period, which focused on commercialisation, technology, 
and regionalism—so it might not be so difficult   for Jamie to work in one, after all.
[Arthur: “That woman confuses me and plays me for a fiddle like no one else alive.”] The first 
known publication of this phrase is in June 1822, in a letter written by Mr. Robert Morgan 
to his brother John. Interesting names. In its full meaning, the term appears 
in 1846: “A lady’s heart is said to   be like a fiddle—because it is played 
on to the best advantage by a beau”. In the mission “The Spines of America”, if Arthur 
chooses to commit the robbery during the day,   Hosea puts on a fake salesman routine to 
distract the owner of the house. However, not all of what he says is fake. [Hosea: “Did 
you ever meet a Scot who didn’t hobble in old   age? But the English stand tall, sir. Gin! They 
drink gin.”] After gin made its way to England, its popularity rose significantly in the 
1700s after the government allowed unlicensed   production. Meanwhile, in Scotland, gin has 
always been popular, but there’s a reason Scotch whisky is called Scotch whisky, and the 
drink has always been a staple of the country. [Hosea: “And what is gin made with? Junipers! And 
what does a juniper do? Creates movement in the spine!”] This one isn’t entirely wrong, either. 
Gin does, in fact, derive its main flavour from juniper berries, and always has, though the 
use of juniper berries to create movement in   the spine is not necessarily proven to be true. 
That being said, juniper berries have been used for centuries for health purposes; Romans 
burned juniper branches for purification,   and distilled drinks containing juniper were 
sold in pharmacies to treat kidney and stomach ailments, gallstones, lumbago, and gout. Today, 
essential oils extracted from juniper berries are used in aromatherapy for body massage. 
Hosea might have been onto something here… [Hosea: “Whereas your whiskey, made with grain 
as it is, leaves the spine brittle!”] His knowledge of whiskey is basically the same as 
his knowledge of gin. He’s right: whiskey is a   type of distilled alcohol made from fermented 
grain mash. As for leaving the spine brittle: this isn’t directly proven, but excessive alcohol 
consumption can lead to a myriad of health issues,   including osteoporosis, decreased bone density, 
or the aggravation of pre-existing joint pain. This might even be a subtle reference to 
monkey shoulder, a muscle injury which was   often caused by the physical labour of 
creating whiskey—on which the name of a modern Scotch whisky brand is based. Regardless, 
Hosea wasn’t exactly trying to be accurate here,   so the truthfulness and context behind his 
statements isn’t really relevant anyway. In one of the game’s most cryptic missions, 
Arthur meets a man named Francis. [Francis:   “What’s eating you, partner?”] [Arthur: 
“Eating me?”] [Francis: “Oh I’m sorry, I’ll dry up.”] If this accent sounds out 
of place in Red Dead Redemption 2—well,   there’s a reason for that. This is a Mid-Atlantic 
or Transatlantic accent. A blend of American and the British RP accents, it’s typically associated 
with the entertainment industry (film, television, and radio) and therefore the American upper 
class; some well-known speakers included   Katharine Hepburn and President Franklin D. 
Roosevelt. Interestingly, it’s a purely learned accent—it’s said that “no Americans actually 
spoke it unless educated to do so”. It was   mostly used in the 1930s and 40s, largely fading 
in the 50s after the Second World War following some cultural changes in the United States.
Another interesting feature of Francis is his clothing, particularly his trousers (or pants), 
which appear to be at the length of plus fours,   extended four inches longer than the regular 
knickerbockers (or knickers). They developed from the baggier clothes worn in the First 
World War, introduced around the 1920s.  Notably, Francis’s trousers have a 
loop for his belt. Around this time, non-ornamental belts were often worn as part of 
military uniforms—during the Civil War and World   War I—and sporting uniforms like baseball. 
But the more distinctive modern belt rose in popularity around the 20th century—the 1920s 
and 30s. That’s not to say that it’s impossible in 1899, of course, but perhaps unusual.
Francis’s shoes and socks are of great interest, too. His sock design is an argyle pattern, 
which derives from older patterns but itself   was popularised after the First World War, 
especially in the 1920s after it was adopted by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII, 
then the Duke of Windsor). Francis’s shoe design, meanwhile, appears to be a spectator shoe, which 
also dates to the nineteenth century but was   popularised around the 1920s and 30s, one of the 
most famous wearers being Wallis Simpson (later the Duchess of Windsor, Edward’s wife).
[Francis: “Hey, can I ask you a strange question? I mean, it sounds ridiculous, 
but I’m on the level.”] “On the level”   is an American colloquialism thought to have 
originated in the late 19th century—so around this time—assumed to originate from 
freemasonry, in which the level of a   carpenter is thought to symbolise integrity.
[Francis: “I know, it sounds ridiculous, but I’m on the up and up.”] This phrase has a 
bit of a mysterious origin. Some date it to 1863, while others say it originated around 
the 1920s, 30s, or 40s. In any case,   certainly an interesting usage here.
[Francis: “You’ll think I’m jazzed if I tell you.”] [Arthur: “What?”] [Francis: 
“Drunk.”] This one also has contested dates,   but all seem agreed that it seemingly originated 
after the game—around 1920, perhaps even 1955. If a lot of these dates appear out of place for 
the game’s setting—well, there’s a reason for   that too. After Arthur finds all of the rock 
carvings, he meets Francis again—this time as a one-year-old child—and finds a mural on the 
wall. Essentially, the mural—with its depictions of several events throughout history, including 
futuristic creations like supertall skyscrapers   and models of the atom—seems to suggest that 
Francis might be a time traveller, and the fact that he’s a one-year-old child in 1899 suggests 
that the adult Francis who Arthur met was from the 1920s or 30s—so perhaps some of these apparent 
inaccuracies aren’t so inaccurate after all. As for the mural itself, visually it appears to be 
inspired by Diego Rivera’s mural Man, Controller of the Universe from the 1930s, a recreation of 
his unfinished earlier work Man at the Crossroads. Rivera’s mural represents politics—namely 
socialism and capitalism—whereas the in-game mural mostly appears to represent time travel, showing 
different stages in history. The original mural   was painted in the new RCA Building at Rockefeller 
Center in New York City. After a newspaper called the mural anti-capitalist propaganda, Rivera added 
a portrait of Vladimir Lenin, the former leader of the Soviet Union. Nelson Rockefeller—the director 
of the Rockefeller Center—requested the removal of Lenin’s portrait, but Rivera declined, 
and the mural was later destroyed. Rivera recreated it in Mexico on a smaller scale based on 
photographs of the original, with some additions. Elsewhere in the world, Arthur meets Albert Mason, 
a wildlife photographer. Interestingly, possibly the earliest photograph of a living animal dates 
to around 1842. Photographs of domesticated and zoo animals became more popular in later 
decades—like the only five known photographs of   a quagga at London Zoo from 1863 to 1870, before 
the species went extinct in the 1880s. Heavy camera equipment and long exposure times made the 
hobby difficult at first, but it began to improve   around the 1880s with quicker shutters. The first 
natural history book with illustrations consisting entirely of wild photographs was published by 
brothers Richard and Cherry Kearton in 1895; they used several techniques, such as tall tripods, 
one standing on the other’s shoulders, artificial   rocks, and stuffed animals. Wildlife photography 
in general became more popular by the end of the 19th century, leading to the establishment 
of the Zoological Photographic Club in 1899. There are several well-known pioneering 
photographers who could be the inspiration   behind Albert, including the Kearton 
brothers. Another could be George Shiras III, called “the father of wildlife photography”, who 
began taking photographs in 1889 and was said to have been the first to use flash photography and 
camera traps to do so. There’s also Ansel Adams,   who bears a striking resemblance 
to Albert. He was born in 1902, so started his photographic career much later 
than the game, but he was known for his iconic   landscape photographs and environmental advocacy.
[Albert Mason: “If I have to take another picture of a grumpy house frau, or pompous middle-class 
burgher, I will feed myself to the lions.”] A “house frau” is a German housewife, while a 
“burgher” likely refers to the social class: often synonymous with bourgeoise, 
considered the materialistic middle class. Albert’s camera is accurate for the time period, 
particularly resembling the Premo cameras of the   Rochester Optical Company, invented in 1883. The 
company was taken over in 1903 by Eastman Kodak, who continued Rochester’s cameras until 1921.
Albert also uses flash powder to light his photographs. This method, introduced by two German 
inventors in 1887, involves measuring an amount of flash powder into a pan or trough and igniting 
it by hand. While seemingly effective at lighting photographs, it was also known to have injured 
some photographers or those in close proximity. In their second encounter, Arthur saves Albert 
from being attacked by wolves. [Albert: “What   a way to… literally a dog’s dinner.”] This 
phrase is thought to have originated in the UK, meaning “a complete mess”, especially regarding 
fashion. It was first recorded in the early 1900s, but, of course, likely originated earlier. 
And, of course, Albert is using it in the   literal sense—though it only really makes sense 
with the figurative version in mind anyway. A little further north from where Arthur meets 
Albert is the town of Strawberry. Interestingly,   there are several real-life areas by this 
name in the U.S.: a town in Arkansas, a ghost town in Nevada, and at least six unincorporated 
districts in Arizona, California, South Carolina, and Utah. Of these, the town in the game most 
closely resembles the unincorporated community   of Strawberry in El Dorado County, California, 
which became a popular tourist resort around the 1850s—not too dissimilar to the town in 
the game. (On a completely unrelated note, it’s also the name of a neighbourhood of Los 
Santos in Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V.)  Interestingly, the water mill in Strawberry 
bears a striking resemblance to the Glade Creek Grist Mill, a popular photography 
spot in Babcock State Park, West Virginia. In Strawberry, Arthur meets an alleged conman. 
[Man: “Sold me a serum made from rhino horn for a… little problem I’ve been having.”] This is 
a believable scam, as it’s believed Chinese medicine has used rhino horns for over 2,000 
years, including for disorders like fever,   gout, and rheumatism. The belief that it was 
prescribed as an aphrodisiac, however, appears to be a misinterpretation or misunderstanding 
by Western media—but that hasn’t stopped it   from catching on, including in recent years, 
leading to increased interest in rhino horns. Elsewhere in Strawberry, Arthur encounters the 
mayor, who is doing his best to promote the town’s   image to those around him. [Nicholas Timmins: 
“Temperance, diligence, forbearance shall make for a happy land here.”] These are essentially 
three of the seven virtues, the opposite of the seven deadly sins: temperance, which opposes 
gluttony; diligence, the opposite of sloth;   and forbearance, which is essentially patience, 
the opposite of wrath. These are based on the revision by Pope Gregory I around 590 A.D.
[Timmins: “By living in peace and harmony, we are building a great Jerusalem.”] Historically, 
comparing one’s town or city to Jerusalem is a logical promotion method. Jerusalem is sacred 
to several religions. It is the holiest city in Judaism, considered the homeland of the Jewish 
people since the 10th century B.C. It’s considered the “cradle of Christianity”, the city where 
Jesus was brought after his birth, and the home   of the most important church in Christendom, 
where Jesus was crucified, buried, and later resurrected. It is the third-holiest city in Sunni 
Islam, where Muhammad was transported during his Night Journey. It is also believed by Mandaeans 
to be the birthplace of their chief prophet,   John the Baptist.
[Timmins: “A new Athens in the mountains.”] This is 
also a logical comment. Athens is one of the world’s oldest cities—the oldest capital 
in Europe, with recorded history beginning   in at least 1600 B.C.—and it is often 
regarded the “birthplace of democracy” and the “cradle of Western civilisation”.
[Timmins: “It’s a magnificent little community we’re building here. Almost Tolstoyan, if 
you know what that means.”] [Arthur: “I don’t.”] [Timmins: “Well, neither do I.”] As the 
name suggests, this is a social movement based on the views of Leo Tolstoy, a Russian novelist 
who lived in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Its followers generally identify as Christians 
but opt specifically to follow Jesus’s teachings   rather than his divine nature. They prefer 
a simple lifestyle, avoiding meat, alcohol, smoking, and sex, and preferring pacificism and 
nonviolence. It’s known to have inspired Mahatma Gandhi and thought to have had an influence 
on Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez. The mission title “Blessed are the Meek” is, 
unsurprisingly, a reference to Matthew 5:5 in   the New Testament: “Blessed are the meek: for 
they shall inherit the earth.” To be ‘meek’, in this sense, meant to be gentle, humble, merciful, 
and compassionate. Today, it’s often meant in a   less favourable manner, referring to one who is 
submissive or powerless—not unlike Micah here. If Arthur speaks to the sheriff in the 
Strawberry jail, he gives a description   of two of the men locked up downstairs. [Sheriff 
Hanley: “Now, one of them’s an idiot, the other’s some kind of dumb mick, so maybe them’s your 
boys.”] The term “mick”—a derogatory term for   a person of Irish birth or descent—dates back to 
the early 19th century, most notably in Britain and America. By the late 19th century—around 
the time the sheriff uses it here—it had spread pretty far across the English-speaking world.
One of the ways that Arthur can break Micah out of his cell is by using a steam donkey. These were 
invented by John Dolbeer in Eureka, California, in August 1881. It’s a steam-powered winch that 
was once widely used, primarily in logging to pull logs but also in mining for construction or 
lifting large loads. In logging specifically, the steam donkey was superseded by the diesel-powered 
tractor crawler in the early 20th century, while   in mining it was abandoned in favour of cheaper 
and easier techniques like hydraulic mining. At the end of the mission, with half of Strawberry 
dead and Arthur and Micah safe and sound,   Micah gives Arthur a holster. [Micah: “My way 
of saying ‘thank you’.”] Holsters mounted on a belt began appearing in photographs around 
the 1840s, though these were usually primitive   at best—often just slits in the belt that were 
just large enough for a pistol to slide through. The California Gold Rush in the 1850s saw 
the introduction of more modern holsters,   and later in the century, shoulder 
and hip pocket holsters became more popular as the West began to be tamed, 
and discreteness became necessary. North-east of Strawberry, Arthur can find and 
assist a logging camp run by the Appleseed   Timber Company. The company is possibly named 
after Johnny Appleseed, named as such for his introduction of apple trees to large parts 
of the United States and Canada. He was said   to have “radiated a spirit of peacefulness” that 
led to him becoming a bit of an American legend. There were several companies similar to the 
Appleseed Timber Company operating around this   time, though “Lumber Company” seemed more common: 
some were named after the area, like the Atlantic, Pacific, and Oregon Lumber Companies, and 
several were named after their founders,   like the Babcock and Long-Bell Lumber Companies. 
All of these were founded between the 1860s and 1890s, as logging operations increased 
with the introduction of the railways,   so Appleseed’s existence is entirely unsurprising. Unsurprisingly, yet again, the name 
of another mission in this chapter   is based on the New Testament—specifically, 
Matthew 4:19 and Mark 1:17. The former says: “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men”.
Pretty early in this mission, Jack tells Arthur that he left a storybook back in Blackwater. This 
opens an item quest, which eventually leads Arthur   to a penny dreadful storybook. Penny dreadfuls 
were cheap, popular serial literature produced in the United Kingdom during the 19th century. 
They were first published in the 1830s, released   in weekly parts of eight to sixteen pages and 
costing one penny each. More than a million of the periodicals were sold each week; they have since 
been described as the “Victorian equivalent of   video games”. The rise of competing literature in 
the 1890s, especially the half-penny periodicals, led to the waning popularity of penny dreadfuls. 
However, these were basically exclusive to the UK; the American equivalent was the dime novel, 
popular fiction issued in series of cheap   paperbound books. That being said, it’s not 
unquestionable for this British phenomenon to make its way to the United States in limited 
quantities, especially considering the gang   consists of one person from England and two from 
Ireland. A pretty cool collectible, in any case. Towards the end of the mission, Arthur and Jack 
are confronted by men from the Pinkerton Detective   Agency. This was, of course, a real detective 
agency. Originally known as the North-Western Police Agency, and later as the Pinkerton Agency, 
it was founded in Chicago, Illinois, in the 1850s by Allan Pinkerton. In the 1870s, the agency 
worked directly with the government to detect and prosecute those guilty of violating federal 
law; however, the passing of the Anti-Pinkerton Act in 1893 barred the employment of the agency 
by any government service or officer. As a result, Pinkerton detectives were limited to private 
employment, and they were well-known for their   work infiltrating unions and providing 
protection for workers’ strikes—something that Arthur mocks them for. [Arthur: “You 
enjoy being a rich man’s toy, do you?”]  And, of course, after Butch Cassidy and the Wild 
Bunch robbed a Union Pacific Railroad train, executive E. H. Harriman hired the 
Pinkerton Detective Agency to track   them down. Considering the Van der Linde gang’s 
recent robbery of a Cornwall train, it appears owner Leviticus Cornwall had the same idea.
Regarding these two specific Pinkerton agents: their appearance is pretty similar, from their 
hats to their coats, and even their badges.   Rockstar has clearly done its research—so much 
so that Securitas AB, the parent company of the modern-day Pinkerton agency, issued a cease 
and desist to Rockstar and Take-Two Interactive   based on the depiction of the company in the 
game. It withdrew its claims some months later. Elsewhere in the world, Arthur meets an 
allegedly famous fisherman. [Arthur: “Who   are you?”] [Jeremy Gill: “Jeremy 
Gill!”] [Arthur: “Who?”] Realistically, Jeremy could be based on any number of famous 
fishermen—or none at all—but some elements of   his character point in specific directions. 
For example, he writers a regular newspaper column called The Art of Angling by Jeremy 
Gill, which, in theory, bears resemblance to   a regular Daily Mirror cartoon strip called 
Mr. Crabtree Goes Fishing. It was written and illustrated by Bernard Venables, who later 
founded and edited the Angling Times and Creel   magazines and was said to have considered the 
“philosophy of angling to be a personal affair, developed and nurtured as the fisherman 
grows and matures”. Seems somewhat familiar. According to some in-game elements, Jeremy 
Gill also wrote a book called The Gentle Art:   Wisdom from International Angling Sensation Jeremy 
Gill. He’s very modest. There are several books that have been titled “The Gentle Art”, including 
The Gentle Art of Angling by Joseph Adams—but   perhaps the most notable here is The Gentle Art 
of Angling by Bernard Venables, published in 1955. In their first meeting, Jeremy shows Arthur 
another one of his books, titled The Piscary Poet,   which is somewhat similar in name to A 
Common of Piscary by Ben Wolf—but Wolf was more of an author of art than about 
fishing, so this is likely coincidental. Some suspect that elements of Jeremy Gill are 
based on Jeremy Wade, a television presenter   and biologist who has also written books about 
angling. Notably, they have somewhat similar surnames: Jeremy Gill, gill being a part of a 
fish; and Jeremy Wade, like the action that a fish   takes. The second episode of Jeremy Wade’s River 
Monsters—and apparently the first to be filmed, perhaps even the inspiration behind the series—was 
called “Killer Catfish”, following the search   for a catfish species that can reach up 
to two metres (or 6.6 feet) in length. So, not a completely illogical comparison.
[Jeremy Gill: “What I mostly do is send fans stuffed fish.”] This form of taxidermy had been 
popular for some time. Sir Hans Sloane’s museum in London recorded over 1,000 fish in 1725, though 
“a great proportion” were bones and some flesh, rather than fully stuffed. From around 
the 19th and 20th centuries, the “stuff   and mount” technique pivoted to focusing on 
realism and artistry, like Jeremy Gill here. [Jeremy Gill: “It helps them to know that out 
there, there’s some man fighting with Neptune on a daily basis.”] Neptune, of course, is the 
Roman god of the sea and of freshwater—essentially the Roman version of the Greek god Poseidon—so to 
“fight” with him on a daily basis is, seemingly,   to disrupt the sea: i.e., through fishing.
[Jeremy Gill: “Only the decent ones … No one wants to imagine Jeremy Gill catching 
a tiddler. There’s no money in tiddlers.”] This is thought to have originally been 
used as a nursery name for a stickleback,   a fish that usually grows to about two-to-three 
inches long, but it has also been applied to other types of small fish. The word was first 
published in at least 1885, so a logical use here. It wouldn’t be a Red Dead Redemption 2 
chapter without a robbery—and this one   involves stealing one of Leviticus Cornwall’s 
oil wagons. In addition to E. H. Harriman, the railroad executive, Cornwall also appears to 
be an amalgamation of several businessmen, including industrialist Andrew Carnegie, 
railway owner Leland Stanford, railroad   and shipping businessman Cornelius Vanderbilt, 
and business magnate John D. Rockefeller. This specific endeavour of Cornwall’s—Cornwall 
Kerosene and Tar—appears most similar to   Rockefeller and his Standard Oil Company. Both 
companies appear to have similar trajectories; Rockefeller co-founded his company in 1870 and 
ran it as chairman until his retirement in 1897. It was dissolved in 1911 and split into 34 
different companies, several of which (and   their own successors) still exist today.
Before the robbery actually begins, Arthur and Sean partake in their usual 
bickering. [Sean: “You’re threatened by me.”] [Arthur: “Threatened by you?”] 
[Sean: “My youthful vigour. It intimidates   you.”] [Arthur: “Does it?”] [Sean: “It’s a story 
as old as the hills.”] This is an interesting phrase, thought to have originated from the Bible 
verse Job 15:7: “Art thou the first man born? Or wast thou brought forth before the hills?” In the 
more verbatim usage, it first appears in print in the 1730s—“ As vales are as old as the hills, 
so loughs and rivers must be as old as they”. [Sean: “The changing of the guard, the fading of 
the light. You’re toast, old man.”] This one is a little more interesting. The earliest recorded 
usage of this phrasing is relatively recent:   an ad-lib by Bill Murray in Ghostbusters in 
1984. [Peter Venkman: “This chick is toast!”] Of course, being the first recorded usage 
doesn’t mean it was the first ever usage,   and there’s anecdotal evidence that it was in use 
for at least a decade before the film’s release, but nothing that dates it as far back as 1899.
Sean does something particularly interesting in this first cutscene that is almost unnoticeable: 
he reloads it through a swing-out cylinder. John does the same later in the game. This isn’t 
necessarily historically inaccurate—revolvers   had swing-out cylinders by this time, 
starting with the Colt Model 1889 ten years earlier—but this gun, the Cattleman Revolver, 
is modelled after the Colt Single Action Army,   which has a fixed cylinder. That so many people 
use this gun in the game is unsurprising; it served as the standard-issued revolver 
for the U.S. Army from its first production   in 1873 until 1892, during which time it 
received its nickname: the Peacemaker. On that subject, there are a few other minor 
oddities with some other weapons in the game.   For example, the Volcanic Pistol is based on the 
1855 model by the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company; however, the company was short-lived—as was the 
gun and the ammunition it used—so to be able to   purchase the gun and especially the ammo in such 
high supply in 1899 is certainly curious (though it’s enjoyable to use nonetheless). Interestingly, 
the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company was previously   called the Smith & Wesson Company, whose 
name would later return in a bigger fashion; the Volcanic Company, meanwhile, became the 
New Haven Arms Company and then the Winchester   Repeating Arms Company—also quite well-known.
In the mail car is a tennis racket on one of the shelves. Tennis rackets came into use in 
the 16th century, alongside the name “tennis”,   but the modern game was developed in the 
mid-19th century in Birmingham, England. The world’s first tennis club was founded 
in 1872, and Welsh inventor Walter Clopton   Wingfield designed and patented a lawn version 
of tennis the following year. Wingfield is often given credit for developing and popularising the 
modern version of tennis. From what can be seen,   the racket is pretty accurate to those made 
around the end of the 19th century, too. As for the mail car itself: the world’s first 
official carriage of mail by rail was by the   General Post Office in the United Kingdom in 
November 1830. In the United States, the first shipment of mail by train probably occurred in 
1831 on the South Carolina Rail Road. In 1838, Congress designated all railroads as 
official postal routes, and in 1862,   the first railway post office was introduced, 
using converted baggage cars. By the 1880s, railway post office routes were operating on 
the vast majority of passenger trains in the   country. Notably—and accurately—the foreman 
in charge was required to carry a regulation pistol while on duty to discourage 
mail theft—unfortunately for Sean. Fans of cinema might recognise some of the shots 
from the train robbery. This isn’t by accident;   Rockstar has been very open about its love for 
the 2007 film The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. But the inspiration 
here doesn’t just end with the shots; the train   robbery seems pretty closely inspired by the Blue 
Cut train robbery, depicted pretty early in the film and based on a real train robbery committed 
by Jesse and Frank James in September 1881. Blue Cut, where the real robbery took place, 
was a thirty-mile curve on the train tracks   that forced the trains to slow down—a perfect 
place for James-Younger gang to safely bring it to a stop. In the game, the robbery takes 
place just after a similar bend in the tracks,   also forcing the train to slow. At Blue Cut, one 
of the robbers—thought to be Clarence Hite—stood on the tracks and waved a lantern, signalling 
the train to stop; in the game, this is Arthur,   standing atop the oil wagon with his gun in hand.
The next parts of the robberies went a little differently. Jesse James and Wood Hite 
introduced themselves to the engineer and   ordered him to call back the express messenger, 
who opened the safe; when he saw such a small amount of money inside the safe, one of the 
robbers—probably Charlie Ford—hit the messenger   over the head with his pistol. In the game, 
the gang doesn’t wait this long for violence: as soon as the train stops, Charles knocks out the 
engineer, while Sean knocks out one of the guards. Jesse James ordered the gang to rob the 
passengers, reportedly boasting his identity   to those on board without a mask on his face; 
John and Arthur, on the other hand, keep their identities hidden while they rob the passengers. 
Once they were done with the passengers,   Jesse shook the engineer’s hand, gave him two 
dollars, and told him that his gang was going to ruin the railroad company; in the game, meanwhile, 
once he’s done with the passengers, Arthur joins   Sean in robbing the mail car, but they are 
ambushed by lawmen and forced to fight back. Jesse James and gang jumped off the train and 
vanished, and it was the final robbery ever   committed by the James brothers, while Arthur and 
gang jumped off the train and fled from the law, though it certainly wouldn’t be the 
last robbery they’d ever commit…  The final take at Blue Cut was around $1,000, 
with some reports as high as $3,000, while in the game the gang make away with around $1,500 
in total—equivalent to more than $57,000 today. After this mission, Arthur can purchase a new 
issue of the newspaper. In it, one story describes the President’s congratulations to the American 
people for coming together—north and south—for   victory in the Spanish–American War, described 
as a “splendid little war” in which the U.S. had 300 deaths and Spain had thousands. This is 
fairly accurate; the war was seen by some as the first time that northerns and southerners 
had joined forces against a common enemy   since before the Civil War. The “splendid 
little war” description is also accurate, coming from John Hay, the U.S. Ambassador to the 
UK. The death statistics are only partly accurate, however; the U.S. lost around 385 soldiers (a 
little more than the article suggests) while Spain lost around 900 (fewer than the article 
suggests). Accounting for deaths from diseases   see both figures increase significantly: more 
than 2,600 for the U.S. and 15,000 for Spain. Another story later quotes General Edwin 
Forsythe’s congratulations to the troops in   Washington, D.C., for their quick victory 
during the war; plenty of generals did the same in real life in 1899, including 
brigadier-general Harrison Gray Otis and,   perhaps most notably, the Commanding General 
of the United States Army, Nelson A. Miles. One article reports on the renewal of the 
Chinese Exclusion Act, which passed into law   in 1882. This is true: the law was signed 
in 1882 by President Chester A. Arthur, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese labourers 
(except for some diplomats, merchants, students,   and teachers). The Act was renewed in 1892 and 
1902—not 1899—but it was otherwise still relevant. The article quotes New York Senator Lancing, who 
called the act “nothing less than the legalisation   of racial discrimination”. This is also a direct 
quote from a biography of George Frisbie Hoar, a Senator from Massachusetts, though the quote is 
the biographer’s, not Hoar’s. He voted against the   act and its renewal, which led him to be scorned 
by the press; one San Francisco paper called him “a moral traitor” who “has lived too long … and 
should go forth like Judas and hang himself”. There’s an article about the “first recorded 
death by petrol driven vehicle”: Thomas Eberhardt,   who flew from his vehicle around Connecticut 
due to poor weather. In real life, the first recorded death in a motor vehicle collision 
in the U.S. was also in 1899: Henry Hale Bliss in New York City—though, unlike Eberhardt, 
Bliss was hit by an electric-powered vehicle. Back at camp, Arthur has an opportunity to go 
hunting for bison with Charles. [Charles: “My   mother used to tell me stories of how her tribe 
moved with the bison. They lived almost as one.”] This is pretty spot on. For thousands of years, 
Native Americans relied heavily on bison for   survival. They used every part of the animal, 
for many different reasons. [Charles: “… food, clothing, shelter, tools…”] Horns became 
spoons; bones became knives and needles; skin was used for tipis and water bags; hide 
became beds, blankets, winter counts, and drums. They were even used for jewellery and ceremonies.
[Charles: “They were the centre of all life; we   couldn’t survive without ‘em.”] Native Americans 
highly value their relationship with bison, who they view as sacred, treating them with respect 
to ensure their abundance and longevity. The   Lakota teacher and elder John Fire Lame Deer once 
said: “The buffalo gave us everything we needed. Without it we were nothing … When you killed 
off the buffalo you also killed the Indian”.  Sadly, this is exactly what Arthur and Charles 
find. [Charles: “No! Look, bison. Shot and left for dead, it looks like.”] This was all too common 
at this time; in fact, the number of bison that   Arthur and Charles encounter is almost too many 
for the time. At the beginning of the century, tens of millions of bison roamed North America; 
by the end, there were 300. European settlers were almost exclusive accountable for the animal’s 
near-extinction. Railroads even advertised   “hunting by rail”, where men would stand on the 
roof or near windows, leaving countless animals to rot where they died. That’s not to say that 
Native Americans were not also wasteful or that   they practiced sustainable hunting—it goes without 
saying that there would be unused carcasses, that not all of them could be used, especially 
in areas in which they drove herds off of   cliffs to kill them—but there’s nothing to 
suggest that the hunting was as systematic or sport-like as the European settlers saw it.
[Poacher: “We were paid to kill as many as we could, to make it look like it was Indians.”] 
In real-life, this wasn’t necessarily the case; overhunting wasn’t really motivated by 
framing the Native Americans, it was more   the government and military’s desire the limit 
the power of those whose diets and cultures relied on buffalo herds. Thankfully, at least, 
repopulation efforts began as early as the 1860s, with a handful of private citizens independently 
capturing and sheltering bison; those bison served as the foundation for most bison herds 
today, especially as repopulation efforts   shot up in the early 20th century. Today, it’s 
estimated that the population is around 500,000. In another short mission, Arthur encounters 
a man named William. [William: “You familiar   with the study of plants, my friend?”] 
Interestingly—but unsurprisingly—botany has been studied for thousands of years. Greek 
philosopher Theophrastus, who lived in the fourth   and third centuries B.C., is often considered 
the “father of botany” for his works on plants, and his Historia Plantarum is sometimes considered 
the beginning of taxonomy and an inspiration   behind modern botany and biology.
[William: “You see, there are thousands, maybe millions 
of plants all across this vast country we share.”] There are around 17 to 18 thousand 
vascular plant species native to the U.S., so it’s not a stretch to assume there are 
hundreds of thousands, if not millions,   of plants in the country, including back in 1899.
[William: “To know all of nature’s bounty, and all of her wonder.”] The concept of 
nature personified as a woman—typically   “Mother Nature”—like the study of plants 
itself, dates to at least ancient Greece. The Greek goddess Gaia is the personification of 
the Earth, and one transliteration of her name   gives “Mother Gaia”. The concept is also a part of 
the history of the Indigenous people of America: Algonquian legend refers to the “Earth-Mother”; 
the Anishinaabe talk of Shkaakaamikwe,   “Earth Woman” or “Mother Earth”; and Inca 
mythology refers to Pachamama, the “World Mother”. Elsewhere in the Heartlands, Arthur meets a 
palaeontologist named Deborah MacGuinness,   who might be partly inspired by Mary Anning, an 
English palaeontologist and fossil collector. Firstly, her clothing colour matches a 
known portrait of Anning. Like MacGuinness,   Anning was also overlooked and uncredited; she 
was ineligible to attend university or join the Geological Society of London and struggled 
financially for most of her life. That being said, Anning’s work was uncredited and overlooked 
because she was a woman in the 1800s; this may   be partly the case with MacGuinness, of course, 
but there were likely other reasons as well. [Deborah: “Are you quite certain you’re not 
a spy?”] Interestingly, there were similar accusations by palaeontologists of having 
spies sent to disrupt their work around this   time. It was known as the Bone Wars, wherein 
two palaeontologists—Edward Cope and Othniel Marsh—consistently attempted to outdo each other, 
using theft, bribery, and destruction of bones to do so. This mostly took place in the 1870s 
to 90s; Cope died in 1897, and Marsh in 1899. [Deborah: “Here. Just as I thought. Totalisaurus 
West Elizabethus.”] Like this one, several early palaeontology discoveries were incorrect, usually 
based on assumptions of few fossils. For example, early Megalosaurus reconstructions presented it 
as a quadruped, whereas modern reconstructions   depict it as a biped, and early Iguanodon depict 
a horn which was later discovered to be a thumb. Such mistakes made it to the Bone Wars too: in 
reconstructing the Elasmosaurus in the 1860s, Cope positioned the skull at the end of 
the tail, for which Marsh mocked him for   decades. It seems Totalisaurus West 
Elizabethus is another such mistake. In the next mission for Micah, he and Arthur rob 
a banking stagecoach on its way to Strawberry,   from the Boles Overland Stage Company. This 
company’s stagecoaches are available for fast travel in Rhodes and Saint Denis, since they 
apparently take passengers as well as bank loads.  In real-life, the Overland Trail was a stagecoach 
and wagon trail, most heavily used in the 1860s as an alternative route to the more popular Oregon, 
California, and Mormon Trails in central Wyoming. The Overland Trail was famously used by the 
Overland Stage Company—owned by Ben Holladay—to   run mail and passengers to Salt Lake City, Utah. 
The stage line operated until 1869, upon the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad.
Ben Holladay’s company appears to be pretty   similar to the one seen in the game. In 
1866, he sold it to the Wells Fargo Company, which consolidated it to become the undisputed 
stagecoach leader, if only for a brief period.   Wells Fargo was known for carrying loads of gold 
across the country; gold dust, bars, coins, legal papers, checks, and drafts were transported in 
treasure boxes stored beneath the driver’s seat.   Unlike other popular stagecoach companies before 
it, Wells Fargo employed shotgun messengers or “shotgun guards”—that name being the origin of the 
phrase “riding shotgun”. Between 1870 and 1884, their coaches were the target of 347 robbery 
attempts—averaging about two per month. By the late 1890s, the bulk of gold shipments were 
carried by rail, and stagecoaches became meagre pickings for robbers. Perhaps Arthur and 
Micah got one of the last few good ones. There are a few more minor points from this 
mission that are interesting. [Micah: “Dutch   said you was a big shadow cast by a tiny 
tree.”] [Arthur: “I don’t even know what that means.”] This term of phrase may be based 
on an Abraham Lincoln quote—“Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. 
The shadow is what we think of it;   the tree is the real thing.” In a more modern 
sense, it may be based on a quote from Chinese inventor and philosopher Lin Yutang: “When small 
men begin to cast shadows, it means that the sun is about to set”. However, since Lin Yutang was 
about the age of four when Micah says this here, this is likely not where Dutch got it from.
[Arthur: “What are you doing anyway, camping out here like some crazy hermit?”] In Christianity, 
dating back to around the 13th century,   this term refers to a “religious recluse, one who 
dwells apart in a solitary place for religious meditation”. The more modern definition—“a person 
living in solitude”—originates around 1799, around a hundred years before Arthur’s usage here.
On the wagon, Micah finds a Lancaster Repeater and gives it to Arthur. This rifle strongly 
resembles the Winchester Model 1866, nicknamed the “Yellow Boy”. It may have been introduced 
over thirty years prior, but this model was very   popular for many years; due to public demand, it 
continued to be manufactured and sold until 1899, so its placement here makes perfect sense.
[Arthur: “You’d be wearing a California collar now if I hadn’t broken you out of jail.”] 
“California collar” is classic cowboy slang, meaning “hangman’s noose”. The term is 
recorded as early as 1842 in Wyoming,   though was likely used long before that in oral 
form. It’s said to have originated as a joking term for the hangman’s noose when vigilante 
justice was popular in early California,   during the Gold Rush in the mid-19th century. One of the last missions of chapter 2 is 
called “The Sheep and the Goats”—yet another   Bible reference, this one from Matthew 25:32: 
“and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats.”
In the first half of this mission, John and Arthur round up a stolen herd of sheep and move them 
towards Valentine. Of course, this was pretty   common at the time, particularly towards this side 
of the country; beginning in the 19th century, sheep production in the United States moved 
westward. The predominance of low-value   grazing land unsuited to most range animals 
in the Rocky Mountains region meant that it was the logical home of the wool grower.
The herd that John and Arthur steal are   Merino sheep, which are historically relevant 
and were pretty economically influential, prized for their wool. In 1870, 80 percent of 
American sheep were Merinos or Merino grades. In 1900, the Merino and English breeds were about 
equally important; Merinos largely predominated the wool-growing regions of the far West, while 
English breeds predominated the farming states   east of the Rockies. The decline in the number of 
sheep in the Middle and Central West around the late 19th century was largely a decline in Merinos 
as a wool breed; mutton types were the majority, with wool only a secondary consideration.
[John: “Put a shot in near ‘em. I reckon they’ll hightail it.”] This phrase is 
said to have originated around 1890,   so if that’s true, then it’s fairly recent. 
It’s easy enough to assume by context, but it means to “move quickly”. It’s a 
Western expression, originally used to   describe the way a herd of wild horses or 
white-tail deer will break and race away when frightened by the approaching of cowboys.
[Arthur: “Marston, why don’t you leave the sheep to me? You ride shank…”] The more common phrase 
to use is to “ride shank’s mare”, meaning to walk, or to use one’s own legs, as the shank is the 
part of the leg below the knee. In this context,   Arthur is essentially telling John to take it 
easy—to move at his own pace and keep an eye out for any trouble. This phrase seems to first appear 
in text around 1948, where it is said to have been used for about 200 years, so it’s been around 
for quite some time before Arthur uses it here. [Arthur: “You start spinnin’ a yard…”] To “spin 
a thread”, meaning to tell a long entertaining story, was a popular expression used in the 1300s. 
This specific usage, though—“spin a yarn”—has only been in use since the early 1800s. A common 
belief is that it was originally a nautical idiom; seamen often had to spend time repairing rope 
onboard a ship. This involved twisting fibres   together, alleged to have been referred 
to as “spinning yarn”. While doing this, sailors would often tell each other 
stories to pass the time; over the years,   these stories came to be known as “yarns”, and 
telling the story came to be known as “spinning a yarn”. Or, at least, that’s the prevailing theory.
[Arthur: “You want me to put another hole in your   head?”] [Morris Peyton: “Folks swing for rustling 
livestock.”] There’s evidence of the word “rustle”   being used in this manner in 1882, though it was 
likely used much earlier as well. It’s probably   derived from earlier American English slang, 
meaning to “move about vigorously”—some suggest   it may be a combination of “rush” and “hustle”. 
What he’s actually saying is pretty accurate,   too. Livestock rustling was considered a 
serious offense in the American frontier,   and often resulted in vigilantes 
hanging or shooting thieves.  In the last half of the mission, Arthur meets with 
Dutch and Strauss before sitting down for a drink.   [Dutch: “Nothing like talking to old Strauss 
to make you want to blow your own brains out.   I should have left him where I found him all 
those years ago. Bookish little Austrian fresh   off the boat.”] These immigration statistics 
are difficult to interpret for years between   1861 and 1910, since the United States Bureau of 
Immigration categorised all inhabitants of the   Austro-Hungarian Empire together. However, 
it’s safe to assume that Strauss was one   of the earlier immigrants. In 1860, there were 
fewer than 3,000 Hungarians living in the U.S.;   according to Strauss’s stories, he entered 
the country around the New York City draft   riots in 1863. The last decades of the 19th 
century saw a much bigger boom of Europeans   entering the United States; by 1910, there were 
275,000 German-speaking Austrians in the country.  [Dutch: Bookish little Austrian fresh 
off the boat, his eyes out on stalks.”]   To have “eyes out on stalks” is to have eyes 
widened in amazement or inquisitiveness. In   its literal sense—an animal with its eyes at 
the end of a stalk-like structure—it was used   some decades before the game, but in this more 
metaphorical sense, the first published usage   is in the 1930s, some time after the game.
Of course, this mission is the first in which Dutch and Arthur come face-to-face with 
Leviticus Cornwall. It’s clear that he’s   starting to get a little desperate here—so 
did E.H. Harriman, who raised the price on the heads of Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch 
from $1,000 to $10,000 each. Cassidy’s gang, however, responded by pulling off a string of 
rapid-fire robberies over the next two years,   hitting trains and banks and escaping 
with impunity. Sounds familiar… If Arthur cautiously returns to Valentine—or finds 
a vendor elsewhere—he can read the latest issue of the newspaper, in which one article describes the 
“pneumatic wonder”: Thomas Rivington’s invention   of the motorised carpet sweeper, using a “large 
gasoline powered combustion engine”. This is historically accurate: John S. Thurman patented 
the “pneumatic carpet renovator” in October 1899, having filed the application the previous 
year—essentially the world’s first vacuum cleaner. Another article mentions Professor Cecil H. Peck, 
secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, working for years on the Aerodrome, “a steam-powered 
flying machine to be used for war purposes”,   for which he was given $25,000; according 
to the article, during testing, the machine “buckled upon launch and fell into the river”. 
This is all fairly accurate: Samuel P. Langley, also the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 
worked for years on the Aerodrome, for which he   was given $25,000 in 1898 (and another $25,000 
later); during testing in 1903, the machine fell into the river. The article mentions the 
Smithsonian receiving a letter from the Wright   Cycle Company in Ohio; the same thing occurred in 
real life, the company in question being operated by the Wright brothers, credited for inventing 
and flying the first successful airplane in 1903. One story criticises President MacAlister for 
signing the Tariff Act, “raising custom duties by an average of 60 per cent”. MacAlister’s real-life 
counterpart, William McKinley, was associated with increased tariffs around this time, but it was 
nine years earlier: when he was a member of the   House of Representatives, McKinley authored 
the Tariff Act of 1890 , which raised duties by an average of almost 50 per cent. The article 
also mentions a typhoid epidemic killing “2,500 troops in military bases across the country”; in 
real life, there were around 2,200 such deaths, the troops in question being those training in the 
southeastern U.S. before the Spanish–American War. A well-known newspaper article discusses the 
kidnapping of Princess Isabeau of Luxembourg   around 15 years earlier, when she was five years 
old. There were a few different princesses with familial tiles to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, 
but perhaps the closest in age was the daughter of   William III, the Grand Duke of Luxembourg; 
she was born in 1880 as Princess Pauline, and in June 1884—the same month Princess 
Isabeau was kidnapped—became Princess   Wilhelmina as heir presumptive. But 
she was not kidnapped; six years later, she became Queen of the Netherlands, a role she 
held for almost 60 years. Curiously, there was another Princess Pauline (also the daughter to a 
King William) who died at the age of six in 1806, though this was due to her poor health and bad 
weather—completely unrelated to any kidnapping. In the last mission of chapter 2, Arthur and 
Charles look for a new camp for the gang to lay   low. In doing so, they find and rescue a German 
man and return him to his family. His placement here is entirely unsurprising. The largest flow of 
German immigration to the United States occurred   between 1820 and the First World War, with six 
million Germans entering the country in this time. In German, the man says that his family owns a 
gold mining business, but he doesn’t say where.   Germany has gold, but the age of commercial 
gold mines in the country appeared to end around the 17th century, so it’s more likely 
that this business is in the United States.   This is completely unsurprising. Gold has been 
mined in the United States since at least 1799, and large scale production began with the 
California Gold Rush in 1848, so it’s certainly   not unfathomable for this man’s family to own a 
business in the gold mining industry at this time. Now that Arthur and the gang are set up at 
their new camp, there’s only one thing to do:   talk to Dutch. [Dutch: “My daddy died in a field 
in Pennsylvania, fighting this lot.”] Of course, he’s referring to the fact that his father 
fought for the Union in the American Civil   War. Being a southern state—an amalgamation of 
several real southern states—Lemoyne was part of the Confederate States of America, the breakaway 
state that fought for secession in the Civil War.  There were many different field battles in the 
Civil War, but the Pennsylvania battle that Dutch is referring to is probably the Battle of 
Gettysburg, which took place in July 1863. This battle is often considered the turning point 
of the Civil War, eventually leading to the   victory of the Union army. However, it wasn’t 
without its casualties: both armies were said to have lost at least 23,000 soldiers during the 
battle—Dutch’s father apparently one of them. As Dutch rides away from camp with Arthur and 
Hosea, he mentions the weather. [Dutch: “It’s   like I can breathe again. Thick and soupy as 
this air is.”] Anyone who lives in the Southern United States likely knows how true that is—the 
South has a reputation for being hot and humid,   with long summers and weak winters. This 
is because most of the southern states fall within the humid subtropical climate zone.
The deputy that Arthur meets later speaks about the weather a little more. [Archibald: “We are 
in dire need of some rain around here, let me   tell you.”] Though the state is fairly large and 
diverse in its inspirations, this close to the city of Saint Denis, Lemoyne is almost certainly 
taking most of its inspiration from the real state   of Louisiana—but Louisiana is certainly not dry. 
In fact, it’s the wettest state in the contiguous U.S., averaging almost 60 inches of rain and 60 
days of thunderstorms per year. That being said, the year 1899 in particular saw several reports 
regarding a lack of rain throughout the state   that negatively impacted the growth of crops, so 
the deputy’s comments have some truth to them. While the city of Saint Denis has its own 
inspirations that will become quite clear, Rhodes   is a little more ambiguous, taking elements from 
several different southern states. Most notably, the red clay soil that colours the town can be 
found in several such states—particularly Georgia,   but also Alabama, Mississippi, North and South 
Carolina, Virginia, Arkansas, and Oklahoma, whose name comes from the Choctaw language: 
‘okla’ meaning ‘people’ and ‘humma’ meaning ‘red’. In addition, however, there are more signs 
that point to Rhodes—and the entire state   of Lemoyne—being fairly heavily influenced by 
the state of Louisiana: from the plantation houses to the Lemoyne Raiders, and even to the 
feud between the Braithwaites and the Grays,   which the deputy tells Arthur about. 
[Archibald: “I’m sure you already know of the Braithwaites? … They’ve been fighting 
with the Grays for as long as I can remember.”] This dispute could be inspired by any number of 
family feuds—including fictional ones like that   in the 1964 film A Fistful of Dollars (itself 
based on the 1961 film Yojimbo), or real-life 19th century feuds like the Hatfield–McCoy 
feud from the West Virginia–Kentucky border, a   particularly popular one that has inspired several 
recreations and adaptations—but perhaps a closer match is the Jones–Liddell feud from Louisiana.
Both feuds were fuelled by speculation—the Braithwaites and Grays believed that 
the other had stolen their treasure,   while the Joneses blamed the Liddells when 
one of them were shot in the face. In reality, neither story was true—the family treasure was 
actually taken by lovers Lucile Braithwaite and   Douglas Gray to help finance local groups fighting 
to end slavery, while the gunshot to the face was from a family friend of the Liddells (though 
that didn’t stop the Joneses from blaming them   anyway). It’s also important to remember the 
economic, political, and social context that may not have only prompted such feuds but 
dragged them along for so long—taking and   destroying many real lives in the process.
The ideologies of the families in the game are also similar to the real ones. Both the 
Braithwaites and Grays benefited from slave-owning   and suffered financially after the war—especially 
the Braithwaites, who are said to be in debt, while the Grays appear a little better off, owning 
half the businesses in Rhodes. In real-life,   Colonel Jones aligned himself with the Union 
after the war in order to save his property, while the Liddell plantation, in financial 
ruin, was put up for auction—an auction that   even Jones couldn’t pass up on, beginning 
negotiations to purchase the property. Ultimately, General Liddell was 
killed by Col. Jones and his sons,   and, in revenge, Jones was killed a mob who 
wanted justice. And, with that, the feud was over. That the Grays appear to have non-family members 
on their side in the feud—like Archibald, whose   own family works for them—is unsurprising. The 
same was true of the aforementioned Hatfield–McCoy feud, where, in one instance, more than half 
of the 31 Hatfield supporters were not family   members; in fact, three of them were McCoys.
[Dutch: “Well, look what the cat drug in.”] This phrase—using the word “dragged” instead of 
“drug”—was first found in print in 1888, eleven years before Dutch uses it here—though, as an 
informal phrase, it was likely used much earlier. [Anderson: “Dumb bastard cop!”] While there are 
several interesting theories and stories about the origin of the word “cop”—that it’s an acronym for 
“constable on patrol”, that it derives from the   copper badges worn by police officers—truthfully 
it derives from the word “cop” meaning “to take or seize”, which also began referring to arrests 
in the mid-19th century, and subsequently to those   doing the arrests: coppers, or police officers.
[Dutch: “I will keep this fellow on the straight and narrow.”] This phrase is much older, being 
derived from the New Testament verse Matthew 7:14: “Because straight is the gate, and narrow 
is the way, which leadeth unto life,   and few there be that find it”. This 
is also where the word “straight” originates in the context of heterosexuality.
[Arthur, Dutch, Hosea (singing): “Well, we be three poor mariners, newly come from the seas.”] 
This song—performed beautifully here by Arthur,   Dutch, and Hosea—dates back to at least 1609, 
when it was first recorded in Deuteromelia as a song to entertain King Henry VIII. 
The lyrics in the game are identical. Back in Valentine, Arthur met Mickey, a man 
claiming to be a war veteran. Over in Rhodes,   he meets another, named Joe—though Joe’s 
stories seem to have more truth to them. Based on his uniform, he appears to be a 
veteran of the Confederate Army—and his words   certainly support this. [Joe: “Reckon they was, 
reckon they was Yankee spies during the war and everything.”] Nowadays, the word “Yankee” refers 
to Americans—sometimes in a friendly manner,   sometimes a derogatory one. It became the 
name of the New York baseball team in 1913, having been known as the Highlanders for a decade. 
Before this, though, it was the term used by   Southerners (Confederates) to refer to Northerners 
(Union) in the Civil War—just as Joe uses it here, and just as many Southerners still do today.
As for “Yankee spies”: well, they wouldn’t have   been the only ones. A particularly well-known 
spy was Allan Pinkerton, whose work for the Intelligence Service preceded the U.S. Secret 
Service; one historian called Pinkerton’s work   “the poorest intelligence service any general ever 
had”, though another argued that it was relatively accurate. Another spy was Pauline Cushman, an 
actress from New Orleans who ingratiated herself with Confederates and was later made an honorary 
major by President Lincoln; she was caught in 1864 and found guilty but escaped. Elizabeth van Lew 
cared for wounded soldiers in Richmond, Virginia, through which she received information 
that she passed on to Union commanders;   Commanding General Ulysses S. Grant appointed her 
Postmaster General of Richmond for eight years and called her work “the most valuable information 
received from Richmond during the war”.  Perhaps the most successful Union spy—though he 
was more of an intelligence officer—was Grenville M. Dodge, who was said to have had “one of the 
most accurate and comprehensive intelligence   networks” which was “absolutely vital” to Grant 
during the war. He apparently had over 100 agents working for him, of whom several identities 
were so well hidden that they remain unknown. The Confederates had their own fair share of 
spies during the war, too. Rose O’Neal Greenhow   was a socialite in Washington, D.C., before 
the war, and used her connections in the city to pass her information to the Confederacy; upon 
being discovered, she was forced to house arrest,   then imprisonment. In Virginia, Belle Boyd shot 
and killed a Union soldier, prompting several others to closely observe her actions; she charmed 
one of them, from whom she gathered information   and conveyed it to Confederate officers. She 
was arrested at least six times for her actions. In the Rhodes saloon, there’s a man who claims to 
be a successful gunslinger—though his hesitation   when faced with a real gunslinger, 
and his loss in the subsequent duel, certainly leads to concerns about the veracity 
of his claims. He wouldn’t be the first to   pretend to be a talented gunslinger—though 
in some real cases, men would claim that they were real outlaws who were thought 
to have died: like Brushy Bill Roberts,   who claimed to be Billy the Kid, who died 
in 1881, and was even apparently supported by some people who knew the real Billy the Kid; 
he died in 1950. There was also J. Frank Dalton, who initially claimed to be Frank Dalton (who died 
in 1895), then Jesse James (who died in 1882). He even convinced a journalist that he was Jesse 
James and was supported by James Russell Davis   (a man who claimed to be Cole Younger), as well 
as Brushy Bill. Dalton died in 1951. Some years later, a man offered a $10,000 reward for anyone 
who could prove that Dalton wasn’t Jesse James; when the daughter-in-law and grandchildren of 
the real Jesse James presented their evidence,   the man was ordered in court to pay the reward 
(though he died in 1972 without having paid). Elsewhere in Rhodes, Arthur overhears a couple 
arguing about whether they should stay in the town   or move elsewhere. [Woman: “I ain’t gonna work for 
the Braithwaites my entire life. Not like my pa, not like yours.”] [Man: “My pa worked for the 
Grays.”] Former slave families continuing to work for their former owners was not uncommon, 
even this many decades after Emancipation. Former slaves largely lacked education or money, 
and several laws remained to make their lives   difficult—they could marry, own property, and 
sue in court, but they couldn’t serve on juries, testify against white people, or serve in state 
militias. The Freedmen’s Bureau operated for seven years after Emancipation to assist former slaves 
to obtain food, clothing, shelter, and work. But, as part of this work, several former slaves had 
to work for large landowners—including some for   their former masters, and sometimes for multiple 
generations, as is suggested in the game here. [Man: “Just where would we go, huh?”] [Woman: 
“Saint Denis ain’t far! I hear tell they got these places there called tenements.”] 
Historically, this would be accurate.   Tenements were built to house working-class 
families, largely during and after the Industrial Revolution. They were especially common in New 
York City, which had more than 80,000 by 1900, housing 2.3 million people—around a third of the 
city’s total population at the time. The Tenement House Act, passed in 1867, defined a tenement as 
a building rented out to three or more families, who share some areas like halls and stairways 
but otherwise live independently. It wasn’t   until 1901 that the Tenement Act mandated 
fireproofing and indoor toilets connected to city sewers. New Orleans had tenements by then 
too, like in the French Quarter and Irish Channel, so its in-game counterpart, Saint Denis, 
also having them is historically accurate. In one of the game’s most interesting side 
missions, Arthur meet Jeremiah Compson,   who feels he’s had a lot taken from him—including 
his old house. [Compson: “Repossessed by the bank.”] Interestingly, the notice on the front 
door of Compson’s old house is signed by Judge   Meredith Holden—almost certainly a reference 
to the possible historical figure Judge Holden, popularised by his depiction in the 
novel Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy:   ‘Meredith’ likely being a reference to ‘Meridian’.
Inside the house is a letter of termination of employment, signed by the Head of Staff 
of the Central Union Railroad Company,   John James Freer. There’s a fairly good chance 
this is just a random name chosen for a random, unseen character, but there are several people 
whose names could have provided inspiration—such   as John James Thrasher, who died in 1899, when the 
game is set. Referred to as “Cousin john” and said to have been incredibly generous, Thrasher worked 
on the railroad in what is now Atlanta, Georgia,   and founded the nearby city of Norcross.
Another possible inspiration, based on his railroad association, is John Hough James, a 
builder of railroads and president of a company   responsible for building one of the country’s 
first. James, who died in 1881, was said to have been a “pioneer in the development 
of western banking and transportation”.  As for the surname, a possible candidate 
is Charles Lang Freer, a manufacturer of railroad cars who is now possibly best known 
for his role as an art collector, being the   founder and namesake of the Freer Gallery of Art 
at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. Speaking of the Central Union Railroad Company, 
its name is almost certainly referencing Central   Pacific Railroad and Union Pacific Railroad, two 
companies founded in the early 1860s that were primarily responsible for the construction 
of the first transcontinental railroad from   1863 to 1869, essentially revolutionising 
the economy of the Western United States. The Central Union Railroad Company actually 
has a camp located further north in the game,   which is largely staffed by workers speaking 
Cantonese—a likely reference to the construction of the first transcontinental railroad, 
during which the Central Pacific Railroad   hired around 12,000 Chinese men.
Elsewhere in Compson’s house is a daguerreotype gifted to him out of appreciation, 
[Compson (voiceover): “for your assistance on the   recovery of my Property.”] As suggested by the 
fact that this is from someone working at the Ascension Plantation—and as will soon be confirmed 
in the basement of the house—this “property” was,   of course, slaves—and Compson a slave catcher. 
This was not uncommon; several men specialised in such a profession, especially those who 
were illiterate and did not themselves own   slaves. For capturing runaway slaves, they could 
earn decent money: ten to fifty dollars, which, in the mid-1800s, is equivalent to around $300 
to $2,000 today. For example, Edward King of Louisiana charged six cents per mile and two 
dollars per day, plus expenses, in 1831. Oliver P. Findley of Georgia charged ten dollars per slave, 
plus additional money for performing punishments; in 1847, he earned $35 for capturing three 
runaways: $10 per slave and $5 for whipping one. This amount of money is similar to what is 
found in Compson’s ledger in the basement,   in which it’s said he earned between seven 
and twenty dollars for capturing and returning slaves in 1856, equivalent to around $250 
to $750 today. The ledger is visually and conceptually similar to slave ledgers of 
the time, such as William James Smith’s,   tracking the years 1844 to 1854—though, notably, 
Smith appeared to be a trader, not a catcher. Also found downstairs is a diary, presumably 
belonging to one of the slaves captured by   Compson. [Compson (voiceover): “Till the day I 
die I ain’t gonna forget the sound of that dog barking at my heels.”] Dogs were frequently used 
to help catch slaves around this time—and the fear of them is not inaccurate. Some runaways recalled 
being so frightened of them that they would rather   run through alligator-infested water than come 
face-to-face with the pursuing hounds. As Solomon Northup recalls in Twelve Years a Slave: “it 
was difficult to determine which I had most   reason to fear: dogs, alligators, or men”.
[Compson (voiceover): “It was fifty lashings yesterday and fifty more to come.”] A whip was a 
common form of punishment for slaves generally, including for runaways, and this amount is 
not inaccurate. Austin Steward, an author who   escaped slavery in Virginia, recalled 39 as an 
ordinary number of lashes for “the most trifling offence”. Francis Fedric, who escaped slavery in 
Kentucky for nine weeks before being recaptured, recalled receiving 107 lashes. Moses Roper, 
who was enslaved in Florida and North Carolina, said he received 100 lashes every time 
he attempted to escape, and 500 upon a   particularly notable escape. In 1804, judge 
Andrew Jackson placed an advertisement in a newspaper seeking the capture of one of his 
slaves, promising “ten dollars extra, for every   hundred lashes any person will give him, to the 
amount of three hundred”. Twenty-five years later, Jackson became President of the United States.
[Compson (voiceover): “I do hope I live to see the end of this war and justice win out. June 
’64.”] At this stage, there was about a year left until the American Civil War ended—or, more 
accurately, about ten months until Confederate   General Robert E. Lee surrendered. Of course, the 
Emancipation Proclamation, issued on January 1, 1863, had effectively declared slaves in 
the South as “free”—the North having done   so already—but this was unable to be enforced in 
regions still in active rebellion during the war. It wasn’t until the Thirteenth Amendment was 
proclaimed in December 1865 that chattel slavery   was formally abolished in the country. That 
didn’t remove it entirely, though: for example, the territory of New Mexico continued peonage—that 
is, the act of being bound in servitude due to   debt—until it was abolished in 1867, and there 
continued to be illegal examples of this happening as late as 1961, potentially even later. And, of 
course, involuntary servitude as a punishment for crime remains legal in the United States today.
Regardless, that Compson continued to work at the Ascension Plantation until April 1870—more than 
four years after emancipation—is certainly curious and leads to questions as to what his role was, if 
no longer a slave catcher. There’s potential that   the date is a developer mistake, considering it 
is the same date written on the termination letter from the railroad company—but, since Compson’s 
voiceover reads the date on the plantation letter   and not the railroad one, it’s more likely that 
the latter is the one in error, and he really did work at the plantation until 1870.
Speaking of the Ascension Plantation, there were several plantation houses in Ascension 
Parish, Louisiana, from which this name may have   been inspired, including the Houmas—also 
known as the Burnside Plantation—which is now a tourist destination and one of the possible 
inspirations behind the look of Braithwaite Manor.   Interestingly, there was also land apparently 
known as “Ascension Plantation”—later known as Chatham Plantation—which was established as 
a sugar plantation by Louisiana Governor Henry   S. Johnson and his father-in-law 
and operated until at least 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery.
[Squatter: “Finders’ keepers. (gun clicks) Gah!”] Compson’s pistol appears to be based on a U.S. 
Model 1836, made by Robert Johnson of Connecticut; he was contracted to make 3,000 in 1836, and 
15,000 in 1840. It was soon superseded by the very similar looking Model 1842, of which a 
total of 40,000 were contracted to Henry Aston, his company, and his business partner Ira N. 
Johnson at different stages from 1846 to 1855. Both models were used throughout the Civil 
War. Considering its age and condition, then,   it’s no wonder Compson’s pistol encountered 
some difficulties. [Compson: “Damn you!”] In one of the game’s most… interesting encounters, 
Arthur stumbles upon an initiation ceremony for the Ku Klux Klan. In real-life by this 
time, the KKK, as a unified organisation, was no longer around. The game somewhat 
implies this, as the leader of this group   complains about their low numbers. [Supreme 
One: “Our numbers are waning thanks to the fools in Congress and their ludicrous ideas.”] 
The Enforcement Acts in 1870 and 1871 prohibited violence to prevent black people from voting, 
which, alongside the subsequent labelling of   KKK members as criminals and terrorists, 
led to its disbandment around this time. That being said, an attempt to regroup the 
organisation in the late 1890s is unsurprising. Smaller, local groups—including paramilitary 
groups—emerged around this time. Attempts by   black and poor white people to create a movement 
to support themselves against the aristocracy of the Old South was promptly met with stronger 
efforts to suppress and manipulate black voters   and voices. The United States also saw increased 
immigration in the mid-to-late 19th century, and several laws were enacted and groups created 
in opposition to it—and, when the KKK reorganised in the 1910s, anti-immigration was on its agenda.
Interestingly, the infamous outfits worn by Klan members in the game are seemingly historically 
inaccurate. While members of the first era of   the KKK had occasionally worn masks, hoods, or 
robes—including plain white clothes—having a wider variety of outfits was considered important 
at the time in order to keep the organisation more   secretive. It’s said that some members wore more 
outlandish outfits—fake beards, animal horns, wizard hats—while others wore pillowcases 
or flour sacks. Some even wore blackface. It was the second iteration of the Klan—which 
emerged in the 1910s—that established the   consistent hood and robe that is well-known 
today and depicted in the game. It seems to have originated in the 1905 novel The Clansman by 
Thomas Dixon Jr. Its 1915 film adaptation, D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, popularised both 
the image and the organisation, and it regrouped   only months after the film’s release. The outfit 
began to be sold more widely in the early 1920s. The burning of the cross, as depicted in the game, 
is similarly not said to have been a symbol of the   original iteration of the Klan, having also 
been introduced in Dixon’s 1905 novel—drawn from his own Scottish heritage—and popularised 
in Griffith’s 1915 film. Dixon is thought to have drawn inspiration from the Scottish tradition of 
the Crann Tara, a cross that burned as a way of   bringing Scottish clans “to arms”. In November 
1915, ten months after The Birth of a Nation debuted, a cross burning took place atop Stone 
Mountain, Georgia, officially reviving the KKK. As Arthur approaches the group, one 
of them refers to their leader as   the “Supreme One”. [KKK member: “The Supreme 
One is talking.”] Using words like “Supreme” wasn’t uncommon for the KKK and related groups 
in the South around this time. In the 1920s, the “Imperial officers” of the KKK used “Supreme” 
before their titles, like Supreme Chief Executive, Supreme 1st Vice President, and Supreme Secretary. 
There’s precedent for this word, too; in the 19th century, the Supreme Cyclopean Council was a 
white extremist group operating in Tennessee. The meeting notes found on one of 
the members mentions that female   members were still not allowed in the group. 
Unsurprisingly, this appears to be accurate; women were excluded from the first era of the 
Klan. However, they did sometimes help in other   ways, like with sewing costumes. One of the Klan’s 
stated purposes was to protect women—though only white women, of course, and seemingly only middle- 
or upper-class white women who strictly adhered   to their cause; they were said to have abused 
and raped women who had lived with black men, or who had a “bad reputation”. Some decades 
after the game, in 1923, an auxiliary group called Women of the Ku Klux Klan was formed, 
becoming independent from the KKK. According   to the group, members numbered around 125,000 
and doubled to 250,000 within four months, with 36 states having chapters by November 1923.
A letter found on another member of the group claims to be seeking a “white utopia”. 
Interestingly, this was actually a phrase   that was once applied to the U.S. state of Oregon, 
whose founding constitution did not permit black people to live there until 1926. Those who 
were already living there when it was admitted   to the Union in 1859 were sometimes allowed 
to stay, though their numbers were limited. In another encounter with some Klan 
members, they’re attempting to erect   a large cross. [Supreme One: “Use your 
legs! That’s what you have ‘em for, for pete’s sake!”] Interestingly, this 
phrase was seemingly first published in 1903,   so around the same time period as the game. “Pete” 
seems to be a substitution for “Christ” or “God”, though why it’s “Pete” is difficult to say 
for sure. Perhaps in reference to Saint Peter,   one of Jesus’s apostles and believed 
to be the holder of the keys to heaven. One element of the KKK that is perhaps 
misrepresented in the game is the   intelligence of its members. The game takes 
a satirical approach to their behaviour, and this is both valid and entertaining—to some, 
perhaps, an appropriate stance to their hideous   ideologies, and an accurate caricature of the 
true intelligence of such principles. But the KKK and other white supremacists were able to spread 
their message with such speed, force, and success;   its leaders, at least, were capable of tapping 
into growing fears—of inadequacy, instability, otherness; of weakness and a loss of control—and 
manipulate those feelings into suspicion, hatred, and violence, often through means of manipulation 
and misinformation. And they were able to do so   with varying levels of success, often with 
great failure and cowardice, but sometimes integrating themselves into different levels of 
government—such as Colorado in the 1920s, which simultaneously had Klansmen as governor and mayor 
of its capital city, as well as at several levels   of city government—though it was often this level 
of visibility that also made the organisation a target and led to its downfall. In the early 
1920s, the KKK helped elect a new governor of Oregon, who—aware of the growing public resentment 
towards the group—subsequently distanced himself   from them, no longer in need of their help. They 
were often clever and powerful—but, ultimately, perhaps, not clever and powerful enough.
So, while the slapstick-like comedy of the   accidental immolation and crushing is entertaining 
and perhaps not even entirely inaccurate, there is certainly a fuller picture to be 
considered when it comes to the widespread   extremism of such an organisation, especially 
in the decades after the game’s setting. Elsewhere in Rhodes, Arthur encounters a doctor 
who apologises for offending him. [Arthur: “How could you have offended me?”] [Alphonse Renaud: “I 
have no idea. But I had no idea how I offended the last fellers, and they stole my wagon on account 
of my impudence.”] [Arthur: “Stole your wagon for back chat?”] Interestingly, the word “back chat” 
first appears to be published around 1902, a few years after the game, with a full description 
of its definition. The confusion of the author   implies it was not widespread, but the confidence 
with which the speaker uses it also implies its familiarity, so perhaps its usage was dependent 
on the region. Entirely unsurprising, then,   that Arthur would use it so confidently here.
[Renaud: “I was undercutting the competition. Or I was too coloured.”] In 1899 in the United 
States—and especially in the Southern United States—this was definitely a valid concern. 
Historian Rayford Logan declared the late   19th century—1877 to 1901—as the lowest point for 
American race relations; other historians argued it went as late as 1923 and some as late as 1940, 
but all include 1899. Logan accused the “weak Presidents” of facilitating and endorsing—or, at 
the very least, failing to address—white supremacy   in the South. As the scholar and writer W. E. 
B. Du Bois described the years that preceded it: “The slave went free; stood a brief moment in 
the sun; then moved back again toward slavery”. A big part of this consolidation of white 
supremacy was the disenfranchisement of black   voters. After the ratification of the Fifteenth 
Amendment in 1870 allowed black men to vote, they accounted for around half of the voters in 
several Southern states, and the majority in five;   some elections saw turnouts of 90% for black 
voters. This clearly didn’t sit well with white supremacists, who used intimidation to discourage 
black voters. Perhaps the most notable example is the Colfax massacre, which saw at least 100 
black men murdered in Colfax, Louisiana, after the contested gubernatorial election in 1872.
It wasn’t all violence, either; it was often slower, more intricate attempts to 
interrupt black people’s ability to   partake in the democratic process. Between 1890 
and 1908, all former Confederate states passed constitutional amendments to deliberately limit 
black voters from voting or registering to vote.   This included requirements to pay a poll tax 
or pass a literacy test, preventing poor and uneducated people from voting—including some white 
people, and a lot of black people. A lot of states included a “grandfather clause”, allowing 
men to be eligible to vote if their father   or grandfather was previously eligible before 
1867—which, of course, excluded black voters, since they were largely unable to vote until 1870.
The result was a significant decline in black voters: Louisiana saw a drop from more than 
130,000 to less than 750 within fourteen years; North Carolina and Virginia saw an estimated 
100% drop by 1904. It wasn’t until the mid-20th century that black voter registration saw 
an increase—from 3% in 1940 to 43% in 1964. But circling back on the doctor’s comment 
about being “too coloured”: even outside   of their role in the democratic process, simply 
existing as a black person in the South in 1899 was dangerous. In 1901, simply the idea of a black 
man—Booker T. Washington—dining at the White House with President Roosevelt caused an outrage in 
southern press and politicians. Benjamin Tillman, the infamous senator from South Carolina, called 
for the deaths of 1,000 African Americans so they   would “learn their place again”. One Memphis 
newspaper called the dinner “the most damnable outrage which has ever been perpetrated by any 
citizen of the United States”. (To be clear,   for some historical context: this was literally 
less than six weeks after an American citizen had assassinated the previous president.)
Even in 1929, when a black woman was invited for tea at the White House, a senator from 
North Carolina called it “a great blow to the   social stability of the south”, and one from 
Texas said that recognising social equality between races “is fraught with infinite 
danger to our white civilisation”. So,   all of this is to say that yes: being “too 
coloured” was, in fact, a concern at the time—not just in social circles, nor in political 
ones, but simply in the very nature of existing. [Arthur: “That ain’t very nice.] [Renaud: “That 
was my impression. Still, compared to the gutting, castration, defenestration, and crucifixion they 
offered me, I felt I got off lightly.”] This was also common in this era. Most of the lynchings 
around this time—from 1880 to 1930—occurred in the southern United States, and a majority 
of the victims were black. Several of these   lynchings included disembowelment, including 
the pregnant Mary Turner in 1918. And many included castrations, including Charles Kelsey 
in 1872 and 17-year-old Jesse Washington in 1916. For retrieving his wagon, the doctor 
gives Arthur a parting gift. [Renaud: “Provide a man a tincture, he’ll be well for a 
day. Teach him to make one, he might be well a   while longer.”] This is a play on the now-classic 
idiom about providing fish or teaching fishing. The first-known English publication of this phrase 
is from the 1885 novel Mrs. Dymond, written by Anne Thackeray Ritchie: “if you give a man a 
fish he is hungry again in an hour. If you teach   him to catch a fish, you do him a good turn”.
The recipe Arthur receives is for a “special health cure”, made using ginseng, yarrow, and 
English mace or milkweed. The recipe claims that variants of it were used by the ancient Greeks, 
called “life medicine” by Indians for fevers,   colds, wounds, and health boost, and used by 
the Chinese for several treatments including bowel disease. To an extent, in regards to the 
individual ingredients, this is mostly true. As far as ancient Greece is concerned, all of the 
plants’ genus names derive from Greek: ginseng’s   Panax from “panacea”, meaning “cure-all”, named 
after the Greek goddess of universal remedy; yarrow and English mace’s Achillea from the Greek 
hero of the Trojan War, Achilles, who was said to   have used yarrow for his own invulnerability 
and to treat the battle wounds of his army; and “milkweed” is used to refer to several plants, 
but the likely candidate here is Asclepias,   named after the Greek god of healing.
As for Native Americans: ginseng and yarrow were both used traditionally—medicinally 
and spiritually—by several nations; the Navajo nation considered yarrow a “life medicine”, 
just as the recipe claims. The raw root of   the butterfly milkweed was eaten by the Omaha 
and Ponca nations for “bronchial and pulmonary troubles”. Interestingly, this medicine is similar 
to the one made by Rains Fall later in the game,   which uses ginseng and English mace.
And regarding the Chinese using it for “disease of the bowel”: yarrow is 
used in traditional Chinese medicine to   treat indigestion (as well as the common cold, 
toothaches, and colic), while ginseng—seemingly first recorded in a Chinese text—was said 
to assist those with chronic illnesses. Just outside of Rhodes, Arthur 
encounters two escaped convicts:   Mr. Black and Mr. White. This concept is 
almost certainly based on The Defiant Ones, a 1958 film about two escaped prisoners—a 
black man and a white man—who are shackled   together and forced to cooperate to survive. 
Even some of the lines in the game seem to pay homage to the film. [Noah Cullen: “You afraid 
of catching my colour?”] [Mr. Black: “I’ll   knock the colour clean off you!”]
[Mr. White: “I’ll tar you, you lily-livered–”] This term is certainly accurate, having first 
been published in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth   in 1623, and performed earlier in this 
play and King Lear in 1606. Interestingly, it was believed that yellow bile regulated 
courage and spirit, and a lack of yellow   bile would leave the liver white, or largely 
colourless. Logically, then, “lily-livered” is synonymous with “white-livered”, which was used 
even earlier than Macbeth, in at least 1546. Black and White’s wanted posters boast a reward 
of $40—the equivalent to over $1,500 today. While retrieving the wanted posters, Arthur 
overhears a conversation about the two   convicts. [Jethro: “But the darkie killed a 
white man.”] [Stranger: “Jimmy Holdacre had a weak heart. He died of a heart attack.”] And, 
upon meeting up with them again, Arthur mentions this. [Arthur: “And you killed a farmer.”] [Mr. 
White: “Firstly, I would have, but he died before I could.”] Interestingly, sudden cardiac arrest 
has actually been used to charge and convict   people with homicide if they were the reason for 
the elevated stress. That being said, the game suggests that Holdacre attacked first, so perhaps 
he was the reason for his own elevated stress. [Stranger: “Sampson Black was set up. Everyone 
knows Judge Amory took a bribe.”] If true, this wouldn’t be surprising, especially around 
this time; there’s a bit of a history with   incompetent judges, including cases of bribery. 
For example, the only impeachment in Wisconsin’s history took place in 1853, when circuit court 
judge Levi Hubbell was impeached for “allegations of bribery and corruption”; he was ultimately 
acquitted but his reputation was ruined. Two   decades later—between 1872 and 1875—four federal 
judges resigned following investigations for irregular conduct. And in New York City, scandal 
and corruption became so prevalent that it led   to the 1870 formation of the New York City Bar 
Association, which continues to operate today. In one of the chapter’s next missions, Arthur 
explains the gang’s alias to Sadie. [Sadie: “And   what’s this? ‘Return to Tacitus Kilgore’.”] 
[Arthur: “Oh, that? Now that’s Dutch’s idea. All mail to be sent to the same alias.”] Aliases 
certainly weren’t uncommon for outlaws in the Old West. Remember Butch Cassidy and the Sundance 
Kid? That’s Robert Parker and Harry Longabaugh. In fact, “Butch Cassidy” wasn’t the only alias used 
by Parker; he also went by George Parker, George   Cassidy, James Maxwell, James Lowe, Lowe Maxwell, 
Santiago Lowe—among many others, most likely. Considering how useful aliases seemed to be for 
Butch Cassidy, perhaps Dutch had the right idea. As for the name itself, Tacitus Kilgore may be 
based on Kilgore Trout, a character created by the American author Kurt Vonnegut, partly 
based on another author, Theodore Sturgeon. On their way back to camp, Arthur and Sadie are 
confronted by a group who call themselves the   Lemoyne Raiders. The group mostly consists of 
Confederate Army veterans and the reactionary young men who they have recruited. Because 
of their allegiance to the Confederacy,   they remain bitterly opposed to the 
northern states, and continue to hold their deeply racist and anti-government views.
There are several neo-Confederate organisations   that the Lemoyne Raiders could be based on, but 
it more than likely takes its history from the White League, a paramilitary group of Confederate 
veterans in Louisiana. The group, founded in 1874, targeted mostly African-Americans—made clear 
through its affiliation with the KKK—though   they also targeted whites who supported the 
Republican Party and northerners who supported the Union. The group itself was essentially 
defunct within two years, though unfortunately   its ideologies did—and does—live on.
A newspaper article about the Lemoyne Raiders mentions that they largely fled to Texas 
after “repeated clashes with the government and   law enforcement”. This is entirely unsurprising; 
Texas was once called “the premier destination” for white supremacists, due in part to 
the president’s decision not to intervene   in its politics—particularly 
President Grant in the 1870s. The next set of missions—“The Course of True 
Love”—properly introduces Beau Gray and Penelope   Braithwaite, two star-crossed lovers from each 
side of the opposing families—a familiar tale for any fans of William Shakespeare.
At the beginning of this mission,   Arthur gets the first proper look at Caliga Hall, 
the home of the Grays. Plantation families were fairly common in the Southern United States 
from the 17th up to the 20th centuries. They   were generally self-sufficient, relying on 
the forced labour of slaves—which, of course, was no longer legal after the abolition of 
slavery in 1865. Many continued to operate after abolition, often with former slaves as 
labourers, and often to less economic success. Caliga Hall itself could be based on any number 
of plantation houses in the southeast—and it   most likely is, with different elements 
taken from different properties. However, it appears to most closely resemble 
the Shirley Plantation in Virginia,   built in the early 18th century. The land was 
originally used for growing tobacco, which is the same operation of the Gray family at Caliga Hall.
The main building at Caliga Hall bears a striking   resemblance to the one at Shirley Plantation, 
but the similarities don’t end there. The front gates—specifically the brick pillars—are quite 
similar, as are the smaller surrounding buildings:   at the Shirley Plantation, there’s 
the ice house, kitchen, smoke house, and farms. The main difference is that the 
secondary buildings at Caliga Hall are mostly   to the side and behind the main one, while at 
Shirley Plantation they’re technically in front. Both plantations back onto a long-flowing 
river, too; Caliga Hall to the Kamassa River,   and Shirley Plantation to the James River.
After speaking with Beau Gray, it’s time to take his letter to Penelope Braithwaite—and, in 
doing so, Arthur gets a look at Braithwaite Manor,   at least while sneaking around the property.
Like Caliga Hall, Braithwaite Manor could be based on several different plantation houses, 
especially those located in Louisiana,   but it seems most likely modelled on Oak Alley 
Plantation, located in Vacherie, Louisiana. The property was founded as the Bon Séjour 
plantation in the 1830s to grow sugarcane—a   slight difference from Braithwaite Manor, 
which primarily grows corn (and, previously, cotton). After the Civil War, Oak Alley Plantation 
was left intact, but the economic disruptions caused by the war and the abolition of slavery 
left it economically unstable; the same can   be said for the Braithwaites, who were impacted 
economically by abolition. The owner of Oak Alley became severely in debt, and the plantation was 
sold for $32,800 in 1866; the Braithwaites were a bit more stubborn, becoming severely in debt but 
refusing to sell. Today, Oak Alley is a historic landmark and remains open for public viewing.
In the last part of this mission, Arthur agrees to drive the wagon of a women’s suffrage march 
through the main street of Rhodes. The demand   for women’s suffrage was a decades-long effort 
to allow women the right to vote. By 1899, this movement was in full swing, with several 
associations organising and attending multiple   conventions to argue for the right to vote. While 
more local, small-scale marches like the one in the game may have occurred, it’s typically thought 
that the first suffrage march in the United States   didn’t take place until August 1908, nine years 
later, with as many as 300 attendees. In any case, the suffrage movement is an integral part of 
American history, so its inclusion is commendable. That this march occurs in a southern state is 
unsurprising; there remained strong opposition   to suffrage there, whereas the West was already 
more open, with four states—Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming—already having granted women 
the right to vote by the turn of the century. Encouragingly, Arthur’s participation in 
the rally, whether he knows it or not,   isn’t entirely historically inaccurate. There 
were several men around this time who were quite vocal in their support of the women’s suffrage 
movement, including Frederick Douglass, George   Francis Train, and William Lloyd Garrison, as well 
as the larger organisation the Men’s League—though their support was much more involved than Arthur’s 
apathy and obliviousness as a shotgun messenger. In one of the next missions, Arthur, Dutch, 
and Bill are temporarily deputised by Sheriff   Gray—which is historically accurate, as deputies 
were typically hired by a superior officer, like the sheriff. The sheriff, meanwhile, was typically 
elected to office by residents of the county. In their first outing as deputies, the boys are 
tasked with shutting down a moonshine distillery.   Historically used to refer to “clear, unaged 
whiskey”, moonshine was made with corn mash in the United States—which might explain why the 
Braithwaites are involved. The term “moonshine”   referring to “illicit or smuggled liquor” 
dates back to 1785 in the United Kingdom, making its way to the Southern United States by 
1829. It apparently derives from the fact that illegal spirits were often made under the cover 
of moonlight to avoid detection from authorities.   The U.S. began taxing liquors and spirits shortly 
after the American Revolution in 1791. During the Whiskey Rebellion in the 1790s, moonshiners 
were often portrayed as heroes defying an   oppressive government; after the Civil War in 
the 1860s, many saw them as violent criminals. On their way out, Dutch makes a snarky 
comment about Sheriff Gray’s alcohol   consumption. [Dutch: “And people waste time 
with the temperance movement. Liquor never dulled a good man’s senses.”] Of course, the 
temperance movement was a social campaign   against the consumption of alcohol. Small 
movements originated in the 18th century, but it grew into a mass movement from around 
the 1860s, and eventually led to the prohibition   movement, which resulted in the ban of alcohol 
production, transportation, and sale in 1920. But still just a movement in 1899—not yet a law.
During the ride, Archibald gives Arthur a brief history of the Braithwaites and their fortune. 
[Archibald: “Old cotton family, had a fortune   at one point until… well, a few changes in the 
labour laws.”] By “changes in the labour laws”, he’s referring to the abolition of slavery. The 
early history of cotton farming in the U.S. is   synonymous with the history of slavery, as the 
massive number of slaves is the primary reason that so much cotton could be farmed. Hot summers 
and rich soils also made the Southern United   States ideal for growing cotton. In fact, the 
cotton industry in the South was so strong that it was used as an attempted political strategy by 
those in support of seceding the southern states;   of the 15 slave states in the U.S., the seven 
whose economies were based on cotton plantations seceded by 1861 and formed the Confederacy; 
the other eight slave states (with little or no cotton production) initially remained in the 
Union when the Civil War broke out—though most of   them also joined the Confederacy by the year’s 
end. Cotton production continued to be strong long after the Civil War, too, increasing 
by more than 62% between 1859 and 1899. On their way to the moonshine distillery, 
the group encounter a broken, abandoned wagon   alongside two dead bodies. Archibald identifies 
one of them. [Archibald: “Fredrick Mitchell, Lemoyne state legislator.”] In the U.S., 
each state has its own legislature, generally consisting of the upper and lower house; 
in Louisiana, that’s the State Senate and House   of Representatives, which in 1899 consisted of 36 
and 98 members, respectively. There were actually quite a few deaths in both houses around this 
time; in fact, in 1902, one newspaper wrote of “great mortality among the ranks of the members 
of the lower house state legislature”. However,   these were mostly the result of fairly 
ordinary illnesses like pneumonia, cholera, and heart disease—not quite like ambush 
and murder in an open field in Lemoyne. When the group arrive at their destination, 
in Lemoyne’s bayou region, one particularly   notable element of the environment is the 
extensive vines. This appears to be kudzu, which is native to some parts of Asia and 
the Pacific islands. Its existence within   the United States is accurate—it was introduced 
to the country in Philadelphia in 1876—but its proliferation and invasive nature as seen in 
the game is perhaps a little premature. After   its introduction, it was generally used 
for ornamental and livestock purposes; it wasn’t until the 1930s and 40s that it 
was introduced to control soil erosion.   More than 85 million seedlings were given to 
landowners in the south, and over a million acres had been planted by 1945. It wasn’t 
long before it was considered a nuisance—an invasive weed—as it is often known today.
On the body of one of the Lemoyne Raiders, Arthur can find a letter written by William Marcus 
Anderson referencing “raids against the jayhawkers   in Lawrence, Kansas”. This is likely a reference 
to William T. Anderson, also known as “Bloody Bill”, who notoriously took part in a raid (or 
massacre) in Lawrence, Kansas, in August 1863, resulting in more than 150 deaths. In this 
context, “jayhawker” refers to anti-slavery guerrillas—sympathisers of the Union—in Kansas 
or Missouri, essentially the counterpart to the Confederate sympathisers. Today, the term 
is generally used for any native of Kansas. Not too far away, Arthur meets Margaret, an 
animal wrangler whose crashed caravan features   the name “Bradley Bros. Circus”. This is, of 
course, a common naming format for travelling circuses—including, perhaps most famously, the 
Ringling Brothers Circus. Interestingly, another similar name is the Bradley & Benson Circus, 
which operated around the 1940s. (Elsewhere in the game world is an abandoned wagon with the 
similarly-named Fitcher Brothers Travelling   Circus and Minstrel Show—a minstrel show being 
a form of theatre enacting racial stereotypes, like blackface.) Fashion-wise, Margaret bears a 
close resemblance to the lion tamers of the time. [Margaret: “A priceless Ranjaniki Tiger from 
the slopes of the Hindu heights.”] This sentence could really be referring to any number of 
things—fictional or real—but one possibility   is that the “slopes of the Hindu heights” is 
the Hindu Kush, an 800-kilometre mountain range in Central and South Asia, stretching across 
Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan. Several tigers are known to exist there, including the 
Bengal tiger—not that it matters, though, since   the in-game “tiger” is actually a painted cougar.
[Margaret: “A fantastic, elusive zebra from the plains of Ongo Bongo by the shores of the 
Limpopo.”] Limpopo is the name of a northern   province in South Africa, but it is landlocked 
without shores and was not established until post-Apartheid in 1994. Margaret is likely 
referring to the Limpopo River, which rises in South Africa and moves through Botswana, 
Zimbabwe, and Mozambique before entering the   Indian Ocean. Most notably, Mozambique does have 
zebras—but it also has donkeys and horses, like the zebra in question here, so even if Margaret is 
lying, the lie has some form of logic, at least. [Margaret: “And a magnificent lion from 
the grasslands of Tanganiki.”] This is likely referring to Tanganyika, which 
is now Tanzania. At this time, though,   the country was a German colony, essentially known 
in English as “German East Africa”. It would later become Tanganyika Territory, a colonial territory 
under British control, sometime later in 1920, named after the lake, which itself was named 
some time earlier. It eventually became the   sovereign state known as Tanganyika in 1961 and 
renamed the United Republic of Tanzania in 1964. If the in-game lion is actually from Tanganyika 
(or German East Africa), then it would likely   be an East-Southern African lion. This would 
make sense, since the Serengeti in northern Tanzania is known for its significant lion 
population—with recent estimates surpassing 3,000. [Margaret: “Look, I’m well aware that we’re not 
Royal Command Performance material…”] Royal Command Performance refers to any performance that 
occurred at the request or direction of the United   Kingdom’s reigning monarch—depending on when 
this mission is played, that would either be Queen Victoria or King Edward VII. This eventually 
became known as the Royal Variety Performance, now a televised variety show in the UK.
[Margaret: “… but a cow barn in Rhodes is hardly Drury bloody Lane!”] And this is 
referring to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane,   a West End theatre in London which became 
known for its large set-pieces in the late 19th century—and even more so around the 1920s, around 
the same time as a major interior renovation. It was also the venue of a Royal Command 
Performance in 1911, attended by King George V. [Margaret: “From the mines of El Dorado.”] 
There are several actual mines called El Dorado, though most didn’t exist at the time. Margaret 
is much more likely referring to the legend of El   Dorado—of a gold city, kingdom, or empire—which, 
like the emerald, and most of the animals, is not real. Or so it’s thought—though, at the 
time at least, this was a little less clear. Not too far away from where he meets Margaret, 
Arthur encounters a couple named Tammy and Bray   Aberdeen. Yes, they have the same surname. No, 
they are not married. They are both lovers and siblings. If Arthur accepts their invitation 
inside and drinks with them, he passes out—and   they rob him, and throw him in a shallow grave 
filled with other bodies. This may be inspired by a real family of murderers, known as the Bloody 
Benders: John Bender, his wife (sometimes named Almira and Elvira), their daughter Kate, and 
a man named John Gebhardt. Gebhardt may have been Kate’s husband or her brother—the confusion 
of this detail may have inspired the incestuous   relationship of the Aberdeens. The Benders built 
a one-room cabin in Kansas, which operated as a waystation for passing travellers; Kate also 
advertised her services as a “spirit medium”. Several people subsequently disappeared. When 
the brother of a politician went missing in 1873, a search party led them to the Benders, who 
shortly fled. When their property was searched,   at least 11 bodies were discovered. Ultimately, it 
seems the family went unpunished for their crimes, escaping justice by apparently living among other 
criminals in areas the law dared not approach. In one of the next missions, everyone’s favourite 
Uncle tells Arthur about a potential job. [Uncle:   “It’s a supply wagon carrying payroll, but very 
briefly unguarded apparently as it passes through a crossroads near here where there’s an old, 
ruined church before it connects with the rest of the wagon train.”] We’ve already seen the Van 
der Linde gang use the wagon train method as they   travel between camps—they’re groups of wagons 
that travel together, often associated with the American West. In some areas, wagons would often 
fan out and travel further apart to minimise the amount of dust blown onto the wagons behind. Wagon 
trains were fairly popular around the 1840s to the 1880s, upon which their popularity waned after the 
completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad. But the Van der Linde gang can’t exactly be 
expected to travel between camps by rail,   so their wagon trail makes sense—just as it 
does for the payroll wagon, for added security. There are a few more things of interest said 
throughout this mission. First thing’s first,   someone needs to insult Uncle, and Bill takes 
that honour without hesitation. [Uncle: “I’ve been getting down to business.”] [Bill: 
“Finding the nearest grog house.”] “Grog” originally referred to rum diluted with 
water—in Australia and New Zealand today,   it refers to any alcoholic drink. A “grog-house”, 
then, is referring to a pub or a bar, first in use as early as 1810 in England and 1834 in Tennessee.
[Uncle: “I’ve been scoping jobs like this since you fellers were knee-high to a grasshopper.”] 
This specific phrase seems to be the most common   today, but it had several alternatives too. 
The earliest recorded version is “Knee-high to a toad” in 1814, though it could also be 
substituted with “mosquito” or “duck”. The earliest verbatim usage of Uncle’s version 
exists in print as early as 1851, when Uncle   was still a young man, so it’s unsurprising 
that this version is what he stuck with. [Bill: “When?”] [Uncle: “Soon, Williamson. 
Chrissakes.”] The timing on this phrase is interesting. In text, “for Christ’s sake” dates 
back to 1893, though it doesn’t clearly appear in text as a ‘vulgar’ term until 1907. The 
abbreviation used in the subtitles wasn’t printed until 1934—but, as with any colloquial 
or vulgar term around this time, its usage likely far predates its publication, so this specific 
phrasing certainly isn’t out of the question. After the mess made in that mission, it’s time 
to help some of the folks around camp—like Sean,   who Arthur helps to rob a homestead 
and a stagecoach. [Sean: “He tells me they’re a stick-up crew.”] The verbal usage of 
“stick-up”—meaning to rob someone at gunpoint—is said to have originated in 1846, a little over 
50 years before it’s used here. Unsurprising, considering the stereotypes of the Old West.
At the beginning of the homestead mission, Sean asks about Arthur’s heritage. [Sean: “Is 
your people err… Jacobites or English lovers, Arthur?”] Jacobitism was an ideology that 
sought for the British throne to be restored to the senior line of the House of Stuart, 
who, as Catholics rather than Protestants,   had been excluded from the line of succession. 
Jacobite supporters claimed that the monarchs chosen to follow King James, II of England and 
VII of Scotland—starting with the co-reign of   his daughter Mary II and her husband William 
III—was illegitimate, as monarchs were appointed by God or divine right and could not be removed or 
selected, therefore making King James’s eldest son (also named James) the rightful heir, followed 
by his son, Charles Edward Stuart, who was also known as Charles III (not to be confused with 
the modern monarch) and Bonnie Prince Charlie. When mentioning “English lovers”, then, Sean 
is referring to those who opposed the Jacobites   and were loyal to the crown—likely Protestants. 
All Jacobite attempts to reclaim the crown were unsuccessful; Mary and William’s successor, 
Mary’s sister Anne, was the last monarch of   the House of Stuart, succeeded by the House of 
Hanover, which ruled for more than 186 years. Arthur answers Sean’s query with his own guess at 
his heritage. [Arthur: “My people were peasants; we had no time for politics.”] In the Middle 
Ages, it’s said that 85% of the population of Europe could be described as peasants, so 
Arthur is probably right in this regard—though,   in a historical sense, anyone who lived in the 
countryside were sometimes considered peasants, so this high percentage makes sense.
[Sean: “My dad would say that no politics was politics.”] A little more information about Sean’s 
father, Darragh MacGuire, can be discovered in an Imperialist of London newspaper article, found 
at camp, which describes him as “a well-known   Fenian”. This word is generally used to describe 
members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and its American counterpart, the Fenian Brotherhood, 
organisations dedicated to the establishment of an   Irish Republic independent from the United 
Kingdom. They’re named after the Fianna, a legendary band of Irish warriors—who, 
interestingly, in one story, visit Connemara,   the same place Darragh MacGuire was found 
by government agents before escaping. The newspaper mentions that Darragh 
was involved in the Fenian Uprising in   Galway around 1860—possibly a reference to the 
failed Fenian Rising of 1867, which took place in February and March in southern counties like 
Cork, Kerry, and Limerick, among others. Galway was one of the locations of the more significant 
(though also failed) Easter Rising in 1916. Darragh fled to Canada, where, according to the 
newspaper, he took part in a Fenian raid near   Niagara Falls that left eight people dead. This is 
unsurprising, as there were several such raids in Canada around this time; the raid in question may 
be a reference to the battles of Ridgeway or Fort   Erie, which, combined, left thirteen people dead.
Darragh returned to Ireland to partake in politics, criticising “the parasitic aristocracy 
of Ireland, whether England or Irish”—not unlike the words of those like James Fintan Lalor, who, 
in 1848, criticised those who “wished to preserve an Aristocracy” and “chose to consider 
[the English landowners] as Irishmen”.  Darragh eventually fled to the United States, 
where, according to the news story, he was shot and killed in Boston, Massachusetts—notably, not 
too far from the death place of known Fenians like John Boyle O’Reilly, who died in Hull in 1890, 
and Denis Cashman, who died in Boston in 1897, though neither, it seems, was murdered.
Interestingly, Sean owns a knife with the   year 1848 engraved in it, suggesting that 
his father was also involved in the Young Ireland Rebellion of July 1848—an event 
that, in part, led to the creation of the   Fenian Brotherhood and Irish Republican 
Brotherhood. A lifelong Fenian, it seems. Arthur goes fishing with Kieran, who talks 
about the fate of his parents. [Kieran:   “I lost my mammy and pappy when I was young, 
to cholera.”] This is interesting. The only cholera outbreak in the United States that is 
close to matching up with Kieran’s childhood or   teenage years was the fourth outbreak, 
in the late 1860s, and even that would be too early. The outbreak hit New York in 
April 1866, and by the middle of the year, it had made its way inland, mostly due to the 
new railway networks. It’s more likely, then,   that Kieran’s parents happened to catch a random 
bout of cholera, unrelated to the mass pandemic. Arthur also goes fishing with 
Javier, who, on the way to the creek,   tells Arthur that he recently went fishing at 
the Lannahechee River. This river is likely based on the real-life Mississippi River, the 
second-longest river in North America. Just as   the Mississippi circles around New Orleans, the 
Lannahechee circles around Saint Denis. Though spelled slightly differently, there is also 
a Lanahassee Creek in the state of Georgia,   thought to have been named after several Muscogee 
words—essentially meaning “old yellow water”. Speaking of which: elsewhere in the world,   Arthur can encounter a group of 
Lemoyne Raiders, one of whom tells   war stories involving the Lannahechee River.
[Raider: “Most of us old-timers fought alongside each other; 3rd Lemoyne Regiment. It was the 
summer of ‘62.”] There was actually a unit known as the 3rd Louisiana Infantry Regiment who 
fought in battles around this time, including the   siege of Corinth just before the summer of 1862.
[Raider: “We was hunkered down by Copperhead Landing for weeks … We knew that sooner or later, 
the enemy would be coming down the Lannahechee if they wanted to take Saint Denis.”] There’s some 
truth to this; the Mississippi River was seen by many as vital to success during the Civil War, and 
part of the Union Army’s Anaconda Plan involved attacks along the river to disrupt Confederate 
communication and transportation routes.  One fairly important battle along the river 
was that of Fort Jackson and St. Philip in Louisiana in April 1862, when Union fleets 
successfully approached from the Gulf of Mexico, ultimately leading to the capture of New 
Orleans on May 1st. A little over a year later,   further up the Mississippi River, the Union 
Army successfully sieged Vicksburg, Mississippi, considered a major turning point of the war.
[Raider: “And I see a swarm of them damn bluebellies.”] The word “bluebelly” commonly 
referred to the Northerners—the Union   soldiers—during the Civil War, in contrast 
to the Confederate Army’s “Greybacks”. Speaking of bluebellies: in the hills 
of Roanoke Ridge, Arthur encounters a   man who thinks he’s still in the Civil War. 
[Hayden Russell: “Captain Hayden Russell. 29th Ambarino Volunteer Infantry.”] This name 
matches that of several infantry regiments who served during the Civil War, like the “29th 
Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry”, and   the “29th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment”.
[Hayden Russell: “We will move on Lemoyne soon and take Saint Denis from the rebels.”] 
[Arthur: “You do know what year it is, right?”] [Hayden Russell: “What kind of question’s 
that? 1862, April 14th.”] This is four days before the start of the Battle of Forts Jackson and 
St. Philip, which led to the capture of New   Orleans—so it seems a similar battle occurred in 
Lemoyne and Saint Denis in the game’s history. [Hayden Russell: “Now move along, civilian. 
And watch yourself; Johnny Rebs’ in the   area.”] “Johnny Rebs” was the personification of 
Confederate soldiers, and the nickname given to Confederate soldiers—sometimes by Union soldiers 
across the picket line. It’s the counterpart to Billy Yank, the personification of the Union 
soldier, derived from the nickname “Yankee”. Back in the main story, in order to hide 
their identities in town, Hosea gives   Arthur a nickname. [Hosea: “There there, Fenton, 
there there.”] Interestingly, by some counts, Fenton briefly entered the Top 1000 baby names 
around the late 19th and early 20th centuries; Arthur might not have even been the only Fenton 
in Rhodes on that day. In more recent years,   the name tends to hover around #10,000. 
Hosea probably wasn’t the only Melvin, either; the name tended to hover around 
the top 150, much higher than Fenton. Of course, Hosea gives Fenton some 
background, too. [Hosea: “You’re a   clown’s… idiot… brother.”] The word “idiot” 
comes from the Greek noun meaning “common man” or “a person lacking professional skill”.
Regarding the clinical definition of the word:   it’s a few years too early, but in 1908, Henry H. 
Goddard proposed a classification for intellectual disability based on an existing concept of mental 
age. In Goddard’s system, an “idiot” is someone with a mental age of around 0–3 years, or an IQ of 
0–25; meanwhile, an “imbecile” has a mental age of 3–7 and an IQ 26–50, and a “moron” has a mental 
age of around 7–10 and an IQ 51–70. The concept of mental age today, however, is outdated, 
and IQ is determined very differently, so “idiot” is now basically just an insult.
At the saloon, Hosea explains their business. [Hosea: “We’re in the new trade 
of advertising which is an American art form about ensuring people buy the correct things.”] 
While advertising certainly wasn’t new in 1899, its status as an “art form” was somewhat recent, 
at least in more rural areas. In some format, advertising has existed for thousands of years; 
Egyptians wrote sales messages and wall posters, and the ruins of Pompeii and Arabia demonstrate 
commercial messages and political campaign   displays. Modern advertising, though, began with 
the advent of magazines and newspapers in the 16th and 17th centuries. In the United States, 
the first advertising agency was established in Philadelphia around 1840, and the act of 
advertising dramatically increased after 1870, as demand for manufactured products increased. By 
1900, there were an estimated 350,000 travelling men doing business in America—like, 
albeit briefly, Melvin and Fenton. In one of the game’s more unique missions, 
Catherine Braithwaite compliments Arthur’s size   and intelligence. [Catherine: “So this one, he 
as big and as dumb as he looks?”] [Hosea: “Well, he’s surely big…”] They’re not entirely wrong, 
it seems. The average height for a man born at   the same time and place as Arthur is around 
170 centimetres, or roughly 5 feet 7 inches. Arthur’s exact height is unclear, but every 
knowledgeable estimate places him much taller   than this—so perhaps he is as big as he looks.
As usual, Sean has some interesting things to say. [Sean: “Just leave it to me. I can talk a dog 
off a meat wagon.”] The meaning of this phrase is along the same lines as “talk the hind leg off 
a donkey”—as in, to have the power to persuade   someone to do something simply using speech. There 
are some alternatives to this, but the earliest printed example is in 1926, more than a quarter 
century after Sean’s usage here. But, again, informal phrases like this are very difficult to 
trace, so its usage here may still be accurate. [Sean: “The horses like a swift one, do they?”] 
This one is even more difficult to trace, but, for those unaware, it’s British and Irish slang, 
referring to having a quick drink of alcohol,   often because of limited time.
Speaking of drinks: before long, Sean makes some fire bottles. The concept of fire 
bottles in some form dates to pre-modern history, but this exact concept doesn’t appear to be 
documented until their invention in the 1930s,   many years after the game is set—though that 
doesn’t strictly mean that they weren’t conceived and used before then. Their first documented use 
in warfare was in the Spanish Civil War between   1936 and 1939, before they were given a name. 
That name, of course, is the “Molotov cocktail”, named as such by the Finnish during the Winter 
War in 1939. The name is a reference to the   Soviet foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, who 
declared on Soviet state radio that they were delivering airborne humanitarian food in Finland; 
in reality, they were actually dropping bombs—the Finns named the fire bottle so Molotov would 
have a “drink to go with his food parcels”. In another mission, Arthur meets Tavish Gray, 
the patriarch of the Gray family who lovingly   describes the warring Braithwaites. [Tavish Gray: 
“Goddamn peasants. I don’t know… mongrels… slave fuckers.”] Such abuse often occurred; owners 
could legally use their slaves as sexual objects and would frequently do so—men, women, boys, 
and girls. Slave owners would often perform or promote promiscuity in order to breed 
children and, about 13-to-15 years later,   those children became an economic asset to 
the slave owner—to sell, put to work, or abuse yet again. And the stories get much darker than 
this—a dark shadow cast over America’s history. In this mission, Tavish Gray sends Arthur, John, 
and Javier out to steal some of the Braithwaite   horses and greatly exaggerates their worth. 
[Travis Gray: “These are prized horses I’m talking about. Them, they’ll get you… five thousand.”] 
[John Marston: “Five thousand? For horses.”] John is right to be hesitant. Old nags around this 
time were sold for around $10, and decent riding horses usually cost between $120 and $185. There 
are stories of more expensive horses, from $200 to as much as $600 for one. And, of course, 
in modern history there are horses that have   sold for millions of dollars—usually well-known 
racehorses, or descendants of some. But $5,000 for some unknown horses in 1899 is practically unheard 
of. And the characters in the game know it. [Clay Davies: “Ain’t no one round here got five 
thousand dollars boys, but nice meeting you.”] Interestingly, the horses stolen in this mission 
all have notable names: [Stable hand: “This here’s   Cerberus.”], also the multi-headed dog in Greek 
mythology who guards the gates of the underworld; [Stable hand: “This one’s, uh, Old Faithful.”], 
the name of a geyser in Yellowstone National   Park; [Stable hand: “And this here is Old Father 
Time.”], the personification of time itself. At the end of the mission, Arthur recounts the 
experience in his journal. [Arthur: “At the end   of it we felt like prize idiots.”] This term 
isn’t as common anymore, but it makes sense for Arthur to use it here, having first appeared in 
print as early as 1863 and throughout the 1870s. Speaking of stolen horses: in a fairly brief but 
annoying encounter, a man approaches Arthur asking for some help—and then promptly steals his horse. 
Horse thievery was not uncommon in the Old West,   but it was certainly frowned upon; it’s said there 
was a saying that “if you stole a man’s horse, you had condemned him to death”. In 1780, Pennsylvania 
passed a law demanding a tiered punishment for horse thieves: first time offenders had to stand 
in the pillory for an hour, had their bare backs   whipped 39 times, and had their ears cut off; 
second time offenders were again whipped and had their forehead branded with the letters “H. 
T.”: “horse thief”. This law was repealed in 1860. Horse thievery became rampant enough in this 
time that several organisations were established   to prevent it, like the Society in Dedham for 
Apprehending Horse Thieves, founded around 1810 in Massachusetts, and the Bentonville Anti-Horse 
Thief Society, founded in 1853 in Ohio. Missouri’s Anti Horse Thief Association, founded in 1854, had 
over 40,000 members in nine states. In Oklahoma between 1899 and 1909, the association caught over 
400 suspected thieves, saw 272 of them convicted, and recovered $83,000 worth of livestock—the 
equivalent of more than $2.8 million today. In one of the next missions, Arthur and Charles 
look for Trelawny at his caravan in Rhodes.   Caravans have been used as a means of 
transporting goods since the 15th century, but these ‘portable homes’ began to appear in 
the UK in the 19th century, drawn by horses and basic in design. Around this time, caravans were 
often associated with the travelling Romanichal in the United Kingdom, especially wagons known 
as vardo, which have several different designs   and are known for their elaborate decorations.
The first ‘luxury caravan’ was developed by Dr. William Stables in 1885. These types were 
typically considered luxurious, and exclusively owned by the wealthy upper class, so it’s no 
wonder that’s how Trelawny wished to live;   however, considering its rundown state and 
surroundings, it appears Trelawny’s caravan has not been on the back of a horse in some time.
Inside Trelawny’s caravan, Arthur can find some hair pomade—though it’s usually just referred 
to as “pomade”, since its main purpose is to be   used on hair. Soap was used as a type of pomade by 
some European tribes during the Roman era. In more modern history, pomades in the 18th century were 
exclusively used by gentry and mostly associated with the upper class. In the 19th century, 
bear fat was the main ingredient for pomade,   and by the early 20th century, beeswax, lard, 
and petroleum jelly were also commonly used. Elsewhere in Trelawny’s caravan is a razor. 
Several forms of razor have been used for   centuries—including some resembling the straight 
razor. The first narrow-bladed folding straight razors were listed in 1680 by a manufacturer 
from Sheffield, England, and they became the   primary method for manual shaving for more 
than 200 years, eventually being surpassed by the safety razor in the mid-20th century.
Not too far from the razor is Trelawny’s wood stove. The early history of these date back 
to at least the 1740s, when Founding Father Benjamin Franklin—prompted by a wood shortage in 
Philadelphia—attempted to improve the open hearth. He created the Franklin stove, a three-sided 
iron box which used far less fuel but raised   the temperature much quicker. While it 
didn’t gain much popularity at the time, subsequent designs drew from it; in the 1790s, 
Sir Benjamin Thompson designed a cooking device to scientifically control heat, initially 
using bricks. Later versions used cast iron for tops and doors, which led to an increase 
in production after the growth of the American   coal and iron mining industries in the 1820s.
Nearby to the wood stove, too, is a water pump. The rope and bucket technique for gathering water 
had been used for centuries. In 1849, however, the Goulds Manufacturing Company in New York 
was said to have cast the first all-iron pump.   By the 1870s, cast iron pumps had become much 
more common, and they had several advantages: namely, they were easy to use, and 
granted the ability to prevent water   contamination by closing the top of the well.
[Charles: “He’s a strange one.”] [Arthur: “Fear not. He’s just a cockroach in fancy britches.”] 
“Britches” is an alternative form of breeches, a type of clothing worn from the 
waist down to just below the knee,   perhaps most commonly associated with nobility 
until around the end of the 19th century. In the latest edition of the newspaper, one 
story talks of the first day’s synod of Virginia, led by Reverend T.M. Spriggs, whose committee was 
tasked “to study the scriptural position of women   in the home and church and their duties”; this 
looks quite similar to a story from October 1899, discussing the second day’s synod in Virginia, 
wherein Reverend G.W. Finley’s committee was   appointed “to study the scriptural position 
of women in the home and in the church” and their “place, rights and duties in the 
home”. There are more similarities too,   like the mention that women’s subordination 
is denied by “the women’s movement”, that the home is the “throne” and 
“the special sphere of a woman”,   that the scripture “forbids a woman to hold office 
or bear rule” but not to “sing in the church”, and that this report was unanimously 
signed by all five clergymen. Charming. Elsewhere in the paper is a story that mentions 
Great Britain entering a “full-scale war against   Dutch settlers in Southern Africa known as 
Boers”. The war in question is known as the Second Boer War, which began in October 1899. 
The story says that “rival European powers accuse[d] Great Britain of threatening legitimate 
claims to territories controlled by others”,   which seems in line with real history too; 
there was sympathy for the Boers among Europe, a few hundred volunteers from some European 
countries fought against the U.S. in the war. In one of the next missions, Lenny tells Arthur 
about a lead. [Lenny: “They said there’s a gang   of fools holed up in the swamps east of here who 
think their war ain’t never ended.”] [Arthur: “The Civil War?”] Interestingly, but unsurprisingly, 
the American Civil War was not always the name attributed to this conflict. As it began, 
northerners referred to it as an insurrection   and civil war, but more formally gave it the name 
“Rebellion”, while southerners proposed names like “Abolition war” and “Slaveholders’ Rebellion”; 
when those didn’t catch on in the north,   they used others like “War between the States” 
and “Civil War”, the latter of which did catch on; by the end of the century, it was the common 
name, and in the early twentieth century,   Congress essentially recognised it as such—so 
Arthur’s usage here is entirely accurate. [Lenny: “These ignorant fools are weapon 
dealers … Yeah, been selling weapons to Cuba and South America for years.”] Interestingly, 
while not a group like the Lemoyne Raiders,   there was one particular politician who would sell 
and smuggle ammunition and manpower to Cuba around this time. Napoleon Bonaparte Broward was the 
Governor of Florida in the early 20th century; about ten years before he took office, Broward 
built a steamboat with his brother and an   associate and partnered with a prominent member 
of the local Cuban community to ship a load of military supplies and Cuban men back to Cuba 
to support their fight for independence from   Spain. Having been eight-years-old at the end 
of the Civil War, Broward wasn’t exactly an ex-Confederate soldier like many of the Lemoyne 
Raiders, but he was a known racist and white   supremacist, so they have that in common.
Speaking of Lemoyne Raiders, Lenny tells Arthur about some of his troubles in the area. 
[Lenny: “We won’t find no shortage of angry   peckerwood idiots in the state of Lemoyne.”] 
The word “peckerwood”—an inversion of the word woodpecker—is intended to be an offensive term 
towards white people, especially those living in   poor, rural areas. In this context, it apparently 
originated around 1859. In the 1920s, in contrast to the blackbird, African-American folklore 
used the woodpecker to represent white people.   Lenny’s usage here, then, is completely accurate. 
[Lenny: “This is peckerwood country alright.”] Lenny tells Arthur about his treatment in the 
south. [Lenny: “Most of it is a… a glance, or a word. And, after that, a visit in the 
night.”] Unfortunately, he’s right. More than 1,300 black people were lynched in the 1890s 
alone, and this period was considered one of the worst for this reason—among many others.
As Lenny and Arthur make their way closer to their destination, they come across a Civil War 
battlefield, full of wrecked old weaponry and   trenches. Trench warfare was actually utilised 
a bit during the Civil War—most notably, during the sieges of Vicksburg in 1863 and Petersburg in 
1864–65. At least in appearance alone, the battle at Petersburg bears a striking resemblance to the 
battlefield in the game, while geographically,   Vicksburg—in the southern state of Mississippi—may 
be a little closer, so an inspiration there would be unsurprising. In real-life, battlefields likely 
would not have been preserved to a level like this   by 1899; but, of course, its existence in the 
game is meant to demonstrate history rather than replicate it—and it’s likely based on 
similar battlefields seen in other popular   media—so it’s an understandable concession.
If Arthur visits this same battlefield during a stormy night, he hears the voices of those 
involved in the battle. [Voice: “General Harris,   sir. Is everything alright, sir?”] Quincy T. 
Harris, the General who led the Confederacy in the fight, forced his men into a losing battle before 
he secretly escaped, claiming it wasn’t a retreat. Despite this apparent cowardice, Harris was 
later glorified as a hero of the Confederacy and   a courageous commander in his battles. This is in 
line with the Lost Cause, an ideology that alters and ignores certain aspects of the Confederacy and 
its leaders to make them appear more heroic. One   method of doing so is to blame their failures on 
their subordinates; for example, some Lost Cause authors believe that Lt. Gen. James Longstreet is 
to blame for the Confederate loss at the Battle of   Gettysburg, but while he launched the disastrous 
Pickett’s Charge on the final day of the battle, it was actually Confederate General Robert 
E. Lee who ordered him to do so—in fact,   Longstreet had opposed the assault and attempted 
to call it off. Considering Lee’s status as an icon of the South and a hero of the Confederacy, 
though, somebody else had to get the blame to   make him appear stronger, especially in 
attempts to deify him after his death. The main destination in this mission is Shady 
Belle, the plantation house located in southern   Lemoyne that the gang will become a little more 
familiar with later on. In appearance alone, Shady Belle bears a striking resemblance to 
the Southern Oaks Plantation in New Orleans.   Interestingly enough, though, Southern Oaks 
was never a real plantation—it was built as a private residence in the mid-1960s, and since 
1987 has been available as a wedding venue. The name Shady Belle could possibly be 
inspired by Belle Reve, the plantation   house featured in Tennessee Williams’s play 
A Streetcar Named Desire, set in New Orleans. In one of the next missions, Trelawny tells Arthur 
about his associates. [Trelawny: “You know me, I like to make friends in low places.”] Some may 
know this term from the popular Garth Brooks song from 1990, but the term itself comes from a 
lot earlier—at least August 1916 in one of its earliest publications, but, of course, informal 
phrases like this usually far predate their first   use in text. The phrase is a parody of the term 
“friends in high places”—referring to one having influential friends; this original phrase began 
as “friends at court” around the 1360s, and the exact quote began really being used in the 1800s.
[Alden: “They reckon they just invented a new horseless carriage will be the end of us.”] 
His prediction may be a little premature,   but he’s right about the invention; the 
“horseless carriage” was an early name for an automobile, which were invented some 
years earlier but began to gain notability   around this time, hence Alden’s concern.
In this mission, Arthur robs a stagecoach with the help of a lock breaker from Trelawny. 
From the invention of safety locks in the 1770s, many felt that their valuables were safe, 
with the locks unable to be properly opened   without the key. The inventor of one of these 
locks—Joseph Bramah—placed one in the window of his shop in 1790 and offered a prize of 200 pounds 
to whoever could pick or open it. For 67 years, the lock remained in place—until American 
locksmith Alfred Charles Hobbs finally opened   it after over 50 hours spread across more than 
two weeks. And, from then on, no locks were safe. While Arthur robs the stagecoach, Trelawny 
distracts its passenger, Mrs. Chester Damsen. She appears to be based on Florence Foster 
Jenkins, a well-known singer and socialite   who was often mocked for her poor singing ability. 
There are some subtle differences between the two, but the similarities are clear. Damsen is 
a wealthy socialite and self-trained opera   singer, while Jenkins was also wealthy but not 
self-trained; she took vocal lessons in New York. At this point in the game, Damsen had recently 
travelled to New York City to sing on Broadway;   Jenkins, meanwhile, only ever performed live once: 
at Carnegie Hall in New York City in October 1944, at the age of 76. Damsen’s performance is 
said to have received very mixed reviews; similarly, Jenkin’s final performance was 
met with strong negativity and sarcasm.   Damsen blamed the reviews on the orchestra and the 
vicious press; Jenkins, meanwhile, was devastated by the reviews. Five days after the concert, she 
suffered a heart attack, and died a month later. One of the mission names in this chapter 
references Sodom and Gomorrah—two Biblical   cities that were destroyed in the Book of Genesis.
On that note, at the end of this mission, Arthur gives his thanks to Mrs. Downes. [Arthur: “Thank 
you for your punctuality. It’s next to godliness, isn’t it?”] [Mrs. Downes: “That’s cleanliness.”] 
[Arthur: “I’ll have to take your word on   that.”] The proverb “Cleanliness is next to 
godliness”—meaning that those who are pure are close to God—was first put forward in 1605 by 
Sir Francis Bacon, but the exact phrasing is best known from preacher John Wesley around the year 
1791: “Cleanliness is, indeed, next to godliness”. As Arthur speaks to the young Downes, he delivers 
one of the game’s best lines. [Arthur: “Maybe   when your mother’s finished mourning 
your father, I’ll keep her in black, on your behalf.”] The concept of wearing black at 
a funeral or in mourning appears to date back at   least to the ancient Romans, who apparently wore 
black garments to mourn the death of loved ones. For a long time after this, white was actually 
preferred for mourning at funerals. However,   after the death of Prince Albert in 1861, his 
widow Queen Victoria only wore black for the rest of her life. The British upper class aspired to be 
like her, and the trend remained. Other countries still sometimes wear other colours—white in 
some Eastern Asian countries; purples for   widows in Thailand and some Catholics in Brazil; 
yellow in Egypt and Myanmar; and red in Ghana and South Africa—though a lot of these countries 
continue to accept and wear black as well. The title of one of the next missions is also 
a reference to a Biblical verse. Earlier in   the game was “Blessed are the meek” from 
Matthew 5:5; now there is “Blessed are the peacemakers” from Matthew 5:9: “Blessed are 
the peacemakers, for they shall be called   the children of God.” Now it’s Micah’s turn: 
[Micah: “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called…] [Arthur: “Hey Molly, where’s 
Dutch?”] [Micah: “Well… however it goes.”] On the ride, Dutch talks about the promises 
of the United States. [Dutch: “The promise of this great nation, men created equal, 
liberty and justice for all…”] The first part—“men created equal”—refers to a line from 
the United States Declaration of Independence,   penned by Thomas Jefferson in 1776, and inspired 
by other authors and philosophers before him: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men 
are created equal, that they are endowed by their   Creator with certain unalienable rights, that 
among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” This line has often been considered 
the “single phrase” of the American Revolutionary   period with the greatest “continuing importance”.
The second part of what Dutch says—“liberty and justice for all”—is also a promise made for and 
by the American people. Some of the earliest   works to make such a promise are those of English 
philosopher John Locke, who wrote in 1689 of the pursuit of “life, liberty, and estate”, and 
of “life, liberty, health, and indolency of   body”. Other works used similar phrases in 
the years that followed, and the preamble of the U.S. Constitution—written and ratified 
in the late 1780s—refers to both “liberty” and “justice”. Perhaps the most well-known modern 
usage is the Pledge of Allegiance, the first   version of which was drafted in 1892 by Reverend 
Francis Bellamy: “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, 
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”. Later in the mission, after he is captured and 
shot, Arthur cauterises his wound. The history of cauterisation dates back centuries, first 
described in ancient Egyptian medical texts   from around the 17th century B.C. The method 
of cauterising gunshot wounds was popularised around the 16th century A.D., though it 
was also around this time that alternative   treatment methods were suggested. Eventually, 
cauterisation was seen as outdated—unnecessarily painful and risky—though that doesn’t mean it 
wasn’t used at all; the Germans used it where   necessary to treat gunshot wounds in the Second 
World War, for instance. So, Arthur’s solution, while certainly painful and not the recommended 
method, is accurate for an emergency—especially   his use of gunpowder to cauterise the wound, 
which is fairly common in popular media but definitely not recommended in real life.
Towards the end of this mission, Arthur escapes from the O’Driscolls and, with the help 
of his horse, makes it back home. Interestingly,   horses typically can remember their way back home, 
apparently using two methods to do so. The first is mind mapping, where, once they’re familiar with 
their surroundings, they use visual landmarks and   scent mapping to get their bearings and find their 
way home. The second method, when unfamiliar with their surroundings, is compass orientation; it’s 
believed that horses are able to tap into the   Earth’s magnetic fields and use them to navigate 
their way home. So, Arthur’s half-conscious ride back to camp actually has some accuracy to 
it—and he has a lot to thank his horse for. In one of the chapter’s last missions, as Arthur 
and Micah fight back against the entire town of   Rhodes, one of their attackers yells something. 
[Gray: “Pour a broadside into those sons of bitches!”] The term “broadside” originally 
referred to the entire side of a ship above   the water, where the guns were placed—it later 
became used to refer to the actual firing of the guns. On land, then, it probably came to be 
used as a synonym for “attack” or “fire upon”. Arthur is a bit too preoccupied to notice, but 
inside the Rhodes gunsmith is a well-known yellow   flag depicting a rattlesnake and the words 
“Dont [sic] Tread On Me”. It’s known as the Gadsden flag, named after its creator Christopher 
Gadsden, who designed it in 1775 to represent the Continental Navy during the American Revolutionary 
War. Interestingly, the grass that is depicted on the flag today—and in the game—did not seem to 
appear on the flag at the time, nor for many   more years to come, as far as publications go.
Once most of the town is dead, Arthur and Micah confront Sheriff Gray, who also says something 
of note. [Sheriff Gray: “Who do you think you   are? A bunch of two-bit thugs from God knows 
where?”] A “bit” in the United States is equal to 12.5 cents, so two bits is a quarter, as 
it was known in the 1790s—the term “two bits” became well-known from the call-and-response 
“Shave and a Haircut”, first recorded in 1899. Its meaning of “cheap” and “tawdry” is 
first recorded in 1929, but, of course,   its usage likely far predates its first recording.
With the town dead and the trio ready to depart, Micah can’t help but use his favourite 
nickname for Arthur. [Micah: “Okay,   cowpoke.”] This term apparently dates 
back to around 20 years before the game, originally used to refer to cowboys who used 
long poles to poke cattle onto railroad cars. The low-honour version of Arthur’s post-mission 
journal entry directly mentions the town’s gold—or lack thereof. [Arthur: “Still no Confederate 
gold.”] The term “Confederate gold” was used to refer to hidden reserves of gold that got 
lost after the Civil War—millions of dollars’   worth of gold went unaccounted for. According to 
the stories, with the Union troops hot on their tails in New Orleans, the Confederates allegedly 
moved millions of dollars of gold to Columbus,   Georgia—a “safer” place. It was temporarily 
stored at the Iron Bank, and General P. G. T. Beauregard was ordered to take it in October 
1862. According to Beauregard’s biography, “What became of that coin is a mystery”.
What is known, at least, is that the   Confederate States Secretary of the 
Treasury for the final years of the war, George Trenholm, was arrested after the war 
ended and accused of stealing millions of   dollars in Confederate assets. He was pardoned 
by President Andrew Johnson a few months later. In one of the game’s best missions, the 
gang launch an assault on Braithwaite Manor,   the scale and context of which is perhaps 
comparable to the 1888 Battle of Grapevine Creek which ended the Hatfield–McCoy feud, in 
which almost 40 people fought on both sides—though it was less damaging than the fight in the game, 
with only two casualties, of whom only one died. Inside the manor are a few things of note, 
like the stove, which is pretty accurate   in appearance to real 19th-century stoves. 
There’s also a clock within a mantlepiece; mantel clocks began being mass-produced by Eli 
Terry in Connecticut in the early 19th century,   and they were popularised by Simon Willard—creator 
of the banjo clock—in Massachusetts. Upstairs in the manor, Catherine Braithwaite 
possesses a perfume bottle with the vintage   atomiser. The earliest known example of a 
product like this is the “perfumer” from 1870, created by Thomas J. Holmes of Boston, 
Massachusetts. He developed three   different versions, priced from 50 cents to 
$1.25—somewhere between $15 and $40 today. It appears the bottles and atomisers 
were also used for medical purposes,   having been cited in medical journals around 
this time, and even as an insect repellent. In the last mission of chapter 3, the gang is 
visited by the Pinkertons, and John tells them his   real name. [Agent Milton: “Who are you?”] [John: 
“Rip Van Winkle.”] This is actually the name of a short story written by Washington Irving and first 
published in 1819. It follows a man named Rip Van Winkle, who falls asleep in the Catskill Mountains 
and awakes 20 years later to a completely   different world, having missed the entirety of the 
American Revolution. The story of a man finding himself in an unfamiliar, modern world that 
has left him behind is perhaps not too far from   reality to some of those in this scene—especially 
considering the men by whom they are visited. Milton updates Dutch and the gang on the state of 
the country. [Agent Milton: “This is a civilised   land now. We didn’t kill all them savages only to 
allow the likes of you to act like human dignity, and basic decency was outmoded or not yet 
invented.”] Of course, by “kill all them savages”, he’s likely eloquently referring to the American 
Indian Wars, a series of several conflicts that ultimately lasted over 300 years, and—with the 
help of diseases brought to the country through   colonisation—decreased the indigenous population 
in the Americas by more than 80 percent by 1900, and by up to 98 percent in some areas.
In this mission, the gang move camp to Shady Belle, the old plantation house that 
Arthur and Lenny visited earlier—and they   wouldn’t be the only gang to do so. In 1879, 
the James gang robbed two stores before finding shelter in abandoned cabins on the property 
of the Kemp Plantation in Louisiana. The Van   der Linde gang are a little more luxurious, 
then, living in the main property itself. While clearing out Shady Belle, Arthur 
and John kill several Lemoyne Raiders, and Arthur encounters an elderly Raider in the 
master bedroom. [Raider: “I knew you’d come, soon enough … the bounty hunters, the freedmen, 
the carpetbaggers; the army of criminals who stole our land and government.”] In this context, 
the word “carpetbagger” was used in a pejorative manner by Southerners to refer to northerners 
who moved south after the Civil War for their   own gain, assuming they could fit all of their 
belongings in one carpet bag—and obtain many more belongings and much more influence in the process.
The elderly Raider’s suicide is reminiscent of the death of Edmund Ruffin. Hope for a surprise 
Confederate victory had kept him going, but by the   end of the Civil War in 1865—having lost his wife, 
several children, his plantation, his slaves, and, increasingly, his hearing—the 71-year-old felt 
“helpless and hopeless”. He wrote in his diary of his “unmitigated hatred to Yankee rule—to all 
political, social, and business connection with Yankees—and to the perfidious, malignant, 
and vile Yankee race”, then shot himself. After the gang arrive, Arthur and Dutch 
go for a ride. [Arthur: “Where are we   going?”] [Dutch: “To take a look at this ‘Eighth 
Wonder of the Civilized World’, Saint Denis, I keep hearing about.”] There are several 
different lists of Wonders of the World,   but the most well-known one is probably 
the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, dating back thousands of years. This so-called 
“Eighth Wonder” is an unofficial title that has   been given to many different locations around the 
world—though Dutch’s usage here is more likely an over-inflation of the importance of Saint Denis 
based on stories he’s heard about the city. As the two get close to Saint Denis, Dutch 
discusses his ideas for the future. [Dutch: “I think we need to move a little further. Put some 
ocean between us and all of this.”] He wouldn’t be the only one to have this idea. Around 1899, 
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid began making plans to leave the United States. They ultimately 
made the move in 1901, using the $30,000 that they had “inherited” from Butch’s “uncle”—his 
“uncle”, of course, being the National Bank   of Winnemucca, Nevada, and “inherited”, 
of course, meaning stolen at gunpoint. The city of Saint Denis, set within the fictional 
state of Lemoyne, is mostly based on the city   of New Orleans, in the state of Louisiana.
New Orleans is said to have been named after Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, who served as Regent 
of the Kingdom of France in the 18th century. Similarly, the city of Saint Denis appears to 
have been named after Saint Denis of Paris,   believed to have been the first bishop of Paris 
in the third century. Denis was martyred and decapitated and is claimed to have picked up 
his head and walked several miles—a familiar   visual for those who have seen the official 
flag and seal for the state of Lemoyne. Beyond this, though, New Orleans is also named 
after Orléans, a city in northcentral France, while Saint Denis may be named after 
Saint-Denis—with a hyphen—a former   city in Paris, now a suburb. In some leaked 
assets for the game, Saint Denis was originally named New Bordeaux—Mafia III fans might be 
familiar—which also fits these criteria; Bordeaux is a port city in Southwestern 
France, and one of the world capitals of   wine. Saint Denis may also be named 
after Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, a French-Canadian explorer who founded 
the city of Natchitoches in Louisiana.  Even the name of the state has some possible 
French connections: Lemoyne is the surname of several notable French people, some of whom 
later inspired the names of places like: Lemoyne,   Pennsylvania; Le Moyne, Alabama; 
and Le Moyne College in New York. It’s also sounds similar to Des Moines, the 
name of several places but most notably the   capital of Iowa, whose name has French origins.
These French connections are not coincidental. New Orleans—or La Nouvelle-Orléans—was founded 
in 1718 by the French Mississippi Company and was once the territorial capital of French 
Louisiana. The heart of the city is the French   Quarter, known for its French and Spanish Creole 
architecture and nightlife. In terms of culture, it remains a very French city—and Saint Denis 
imitates this accurately and lovingly. Its French and Spanish inhabitants are reflective of the 
French and Spanish origins of New Orleans and the   empires who once lay claim to the city, and its 
diversity is not unlike the real New Orleans too, which had notable numbers of German, 
Italian, Irish, French, and English   inhabitants—though the game’s city seems to 
have a particular focus on just a few of these. Geographically, the cities are quite similar; 
Saint Denis backs onto the winding Kamassa River   and is surrounded by the Lannahechee River, 
while New Orleans backs onto the winding Mississippi River and the lakes Pontchartrain 
and Borgne. They’re also architecturally similar,   with many of the buildings based on the French 
Colonial style also adopted in much of Louisiana. Nowhere are the architecture similarities perhaps 
clearer than the balconies of Saint Denis, as well   as the galleries, which in New Orleans are defined 
slightly differently than standard balconies, extending over the sidewalk and with supports 
at the curb. There had been some structures   like this throughout the city for some time, 
due in part to its culture and heritage, but they became much more popular in the 19th 
century alongside the rise of iron production. Even some of the more minor details are 
similar: in Saint Denis, the sidewalks   feature the street names, just as they do in New 
Orleans, where cement tiles were placed on the sidewalks from the 1870s to around 1920. 
The streets themselves are similar too; the downtown streets of New Orleans were mostly 
paved by the late 1800s, while less than 17% of the city streets on the outer boundaries 
were paved—not unlike Saint Denis. The city   also features hitching posts designed with horse 
heads, which were common around the time and still exist today, though many are reproductions of the 
originals damaged or destroyed by motor vehicles. Speaking of which: the lack of motor vehicles in 
Saint Denis in the game is not too unsurprising.   Although the state of Louisiana didn’t require 
motor vehicle registration until 1915—the last state at the time to do so—vehicles were still 
registered before then. But not many: only 60 in 1900, a year after the game. This number 
increased fairly quickly—over 1,000 by 1907, and 12,000 by 1914—though it still didn’t 
have any automobile laws at the time. There   were attempts to implement laws for other 
vehicles, like speed limits, but they were often difficult to apply and perhaps even more 
difficult to enforce—hence the often chaotic   and dangerous nature of the roads of Saint Denis.
One thing that’s notable about Saint Denis is its heavy industrialisation, which is quite fitting 
to New Orleans too. The economic and population peak of New Orleans occurred around the antebellum 
period—so around the early-to-mid-19th century. In 1860, it was the fifth-largest city in the United 
States, and by far the largest in the south. As the century continued, it began to slip—and 
by the mid-20th century, it no longer led the   south in this manner—but the industrialisation was 
clear, and Saint Denis reflects this accurately. Nowhere is this level of industrialisation clearer 
than in the city’s businesses—there are dozens of   them littered throughout the city, plenty of which 
have their own real-life connections. For example, the Ebner Fiebler Pencil Company appears to 
be based on the Eberhard Faber Pencil Company.   There’s also the Wheeler, Rawson and Co. Goods 
Warehouse, whose real-life counterpart—Sears, Roebuck, and Co.—was founded around 
1892 and established its first proper   headquarters the following year, followed 
by a 41-acre complex in Chicago in 1906. Outside of this, there’s the Saint Denis Cemetery, 
which appears to be based on the Saint Louis   Cemetery No. 1 in New Orleans, including the 
above-ground graves due to the city’s regular flooding, and the vandalism that eventually led 
to its closure from the general public. There’s   also the city’s Chinatown district, not unlike the 
one in New Orleans that grew from around the 1880s after Chinese labourers made their way to the city 
decades earlier and lasted until the demolition of   the district in 1937. Interestingly, a Chinese 
restaurant in Saint Denis is named Lushunkou, which is also the name of a province in China 
also formerly known as Port Arthur, named after   the Royal Navy officer William Arthur.
Elsewhere in the game’s city is the Saint Denis Markets, with items for sale 
like fruit and vegetables, not too unlike   the French Market of New Orleans, said to be 
the oldest in the country, founded in 1791. There are several musicians found throughout Saint 
Denis, each performing different songs from the   era, like a trumpet player performing 
different march tunes by William Paris Chambers—the 1891 “Howard Cassard 
March”, 1892 “Chicago Tribune March”, and 1895 “Northwind March”—or other songs 
like Edward Mack’s “Independence Hall March”,   published in 1899, Charles Graham’s “Two 
Little Girls in Blue” and Robert B. Hall’s “Tenth Regiment March”, both published in 1895, 
and Tom Turpin’s “Harlem Rag”, published in 1897. That ragtime music would be played here—as 
in Turpin’s “Harlem Rag”—is unsurprising;   it was in its heyday around the late nineteenth 
and early twentieth centuries, especially with music from artists like Scott Joplin, the “King 
of Ragtime”. It also, in some form, began to   inspire and evolve into early jazz music around 
this time, which is geographically appropriate as jazz largely has its origins in New Orleans in 
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Saint Denis, like other areas in the game, has 
some beggars on the street asking for money. Such contrast between the city’s wealth and 
poverty is not unrealistic; it defined parts   of New Orleans around the turn of the century, 
essentially splitting the city in two, with much of it lacking the necessary infrastructure or 
maintenance for its growing working population.  Several U.S. cities actually established “ugly 
laws” to stop poor and disabled people from street begging around this time. San Francisco, 
California, was the first in 1867, seen as a response to those who remained in California 
after being unsuccessful during the gold rush.   New Orleans passed its ordinance in 
1879, seeking to punish “vagabonds”: those who aimed to “obtain and gather alms” 
“by the exposure of wounds or deformities”.   Enforcement for this crime was ramped up in 
1883, and “lewd women” were added to the list of “vagabonds” in 1887. The last-known arrest for 
an “unsightly beggar” in the U.S. was in 1974. In a brief interaction in Saint Denis, Arthur 
encounters a woman asking for donations. [Woman:   “We’re trying to raise money to build an expansion 
to the Quincy Harris Memorial Hall: a shelter for homeless veterans and their families.”] After 
the Civil War ended in the mid-1860s, the United States underwent several recessions and a general 
deflation lasting until the 1890s. In this time, many people—including hundreds of thousands 
of soldiers and their families—were displaced,   and many were homeless. Several groups 
claimed to assist veterans around this time, like the National Asylum for Disabled 
Volunteer Soldiers, established in 1865. The Quincy Harris Memorial Hall is also 
accurate in its naming: in the game,   Quincy Harris is a Confederate general, and 
there are several memorial sites for and named after Confederate generals in real-life.
The Memorial Hall bears a striking resemblance to the real Confederate Memorial Hall 
Museum in New Orleans, which was built   in 1890 and has the second-largest Confederate 
collection in the world. For one day in 1893, the body of Confederate general Jefferson Davis 
lay in state in the Memorial Hall before moving   to its final resting place in Virginia.
[Woman: “A donation of twenty dollars would put us well on our way!”] That’s equivalent to 
over $760 today, so Arthur’s reaction is logical. [Arthur: “Twenty dollars ain’t no chicken 
feed, but sure, I can help you out.”] On another street in Saint Denis is 
another man yelling—this one about his   book. [Timothy A. Donahue: “Buy my book! Read by 
book! Do exactly what I say, and you’ll be rich!”] As Tore Olsson discusses in his fantastic 
Red Dead’s History, there’s a book with   a curiously similar promise written by James 
Brisbin, a Union Army general in the Civil War, titled The Beef Bonanza; or, How to Get Rich 
on the Plains—published, curiously, in 1881, the year before Brisbin purchased his own ranch.
The schemes like the one presented in the game have existed long throughout 
history and continue to do so.   One early known example is William Miller, 
a Brooklyn bookkeeper who operated the “Franklin Syndicate”, promising 10% interest on 
weekly contributions. He ultimately defrauded investors of $1 million and was sentenced 
to 10 years in jail for grand larceny.  It’s believed that Miller’s work inspired an 
Italian man named Charles Ponzi. In the early 1920s, he promised his clients would receive a 
50% profit within 45 days or 100% within 90 by purchasing discounted coupons internationally 
and redeeming them in the U.S. In reality,   he was actually using new investments to pay 
off the earlier investors. It ran for a year and cost investors $20 million; meanwhile, 
it cost Ponzi almost ten years in prison and a long-lasting reputation, being the namesake for 
the “Ponzi scheme” (despite not being the first). On a different street, Arthur encounters 
Norris Forsythe preaching about   eugenics. [Norris Forsythe: “I’m not a hater; 
I’m a racist. I don’t hate anybody because of what they’re like; that’s not kind or Christian. I 
hate people because of the way they look, entirely without reference to character or personality.”] 
The origins of eugenics are generally attributed to the ideas of Francis Galton in the 1880s. He 
believed that the social positions of Britain’s upper classes were a result of a superior genetic 
makeup—“superior” being Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, and Nordic people—and that it could be passed on to 
the next generations through selective breeding.   There were several organisations established and 
funded to support the eugenics movement, like New York’s Eugenics Record Office in 1911, funded 
by the Carnegie Institution and E. H. Harriman’s railroad fortune, and Michigan’s Race Betterment 
Foundation in 1914, funded by John Harvey Kellogg. Norris Forsythe could be inspired by several 
of the eugenicists who led these groups, like   Charles Davenport, who saw race-mixing as a threat 
to society. There was also Harry H. Laughlin, who served as superintendent of the Eugenics 
Record Office for almost 30 years. His model   legislation led to the forced sterilisation of 
tens of thousands of people in the U.S. and was ultimately used as the basis for the Nazi eugenics 
policies that saw the forced sterilisation of at   least two million people. Relatedly, Laughlin 
lobbied to maintain barriers during the Second World War to keep out Jewish immigrants attempting 
to escape the Third Reich. According to legal   historian Paul A. Lombardo, Laughlin is “generally 
considered among the most racist and anti-Semitic of early twentieth-century eugenicists”. A staunch 
defender of preserving superior genetic traits, he died childless in 1943. He had retired a 
few years earlier, having suffered a series of seizures caused by epilepsy which, 
so the rumour goes, was hereditary. Late at night in Saint Denis, Arthur can encounter 
some Lemoyne Raiders setting alight a government   building. Unsurprisingly, this is not the 
first such act. The Oregon State Capitol, in the state capital Salem, is currently 
in its third iteration; the first two were   destroyed by fire, and arson was suspected for 
the first, in 1855, though no arrests followed. A more notable set of fires occurred in 
August 1814, as part of the War of 1812,   when British troops partially burned the U.S. 
Capitol and White House (along with some other locations), causing damages estimated at around 
£365,000—approximately $46 million today. The Lemoyne Raiders in this encounter 
compare this vandalism to the Charleston   Harbour. [Lemoyne Raider: “Just like they torched 
the Charleston Harbour!”] This is likely referring to the Charleston Harbour in South Carolina, which 
houses Fort Sumter—the place where the first shots   of the Civil War took place in 1861, and where 
the USS Housatonic was sunk almost three years later. Interestingly, Fort Sumter was built 
partially as a response to the British troops   marching on and damaging Washington in 1814.
In addition to torching the government building, the Lemoyne Raiders vandalise it with graffiti. 
One such piece of graffiti features the words “No taxation period”, which is likely a play 
on “No taxation without representation”,   an old term that preceded the United States. It 
became a more popular slogan during the American Revolution, as colonists felt they were not being 
actively represented by the British parliament   and therefore the taxes being imposed on them 
were unconstitutional. The slogan was later used by suffragettes, who felt they should 
not be taxed if they were barred from voting.   Another similar phrase graffitied on the building 
is “Freedom from the tyranny of taxation”, which is also somewhat similar to “Taxation without 
representation is tyranny”, a slogan commonly   associated with lawyer and political activist 
James Otis Jr. around the American Revolution. Outside of Saint Denis, Arthur finds a 
pair of Lemoyne Raiders holding up two men   at gunpoint. [Lemoyne Raider: “I don’t care if 
you’re a tax collector, post collector, or damn census taker.”] Well, whether he cares or not, 
tax—and tax collecting—were certainly real by this point. President Lincoln introduced a personal 
income tax in 1861: a 3% flat rate income tax for those with an annual income at or exceeding 
$800, which applied to only around 3% of the population at the time. This was altered in 1864 
and expired in 1873, intended for the period of wartime towards the end of the Civil War. Income 
tax was restored in 1894 with the Revenue Act, which imposed a 2% tax on income over $4,000.
[Lemoyne Raiders: “You’re an agent of the government in the Free State of Lemoyne!”] 
This is not the first time such a title has   been used. The Free State of Louisiana was 
formed in 1863 to create a new constitution prior to Louisiana being readmitted to the 
Union. Lincoln approved the organisation,   but Congress subsequently 
rejected the plan in 1865. Just outside of Rhodes, Arthur finds 
a police officer who has been abducted   by them. [Police officer: “Let me go, and 
there’s no bad blood.”] This is an older term, seemingly first published in 1664 and based 
on blood being associated with emotion. [Lemoyne Raider: “No bad blood? There’s 
more than 40 years of bad blood between   you and us. Maybe more.”] This checks out. White 
supremacist groups, like the Lemoyne Raiders, conflicted with police quite a bit during this 
time. In 1874, the White League fought the Metropolitan Police in New Orleans and took over 
the state house, where they declared the end of   Reconstruction; the White League lost 21 members, 
and the police lost 11. A week later, President Grant sent 5,000 federal troops to restore order 
in the city, and the White Leaguers dispersed. Elsewhere in Saint Denis, Arthur encounters 
a police officer pursuing and beating an   alleged criminal—and he accuses him 
of brutality. [Arthur: “You just go around beating the tar out of anyone 
you please?”] Police brutality is,   of course, not unusual—for this era and 
many others. According to Dr. Gary Potter, there are two primary characteristics 
shared by early American police departments:   “they were notoriously corrupt and flagrantly 
brutal”. Communities commonly targeted included European immigrants and African-Americans, many 
of whom were fleeing the Jim Crow south. In 1940, sociologist Arthur F. Raper estimated that 
police officers actively participated in   at least half of the lynchings in America, and 
condoned or approved of most of the other half. In the first mission of chapter 4, Arthur 
meets Dutch at the Bastille Saloon—another   French connection, the Bastille being the 
name of the well-known fortress in Paris, whose storming in 1789 became an iconic 
event of the French Revolution and   subsequently a French national holiday.
[Dutch: “So, here we are in a strange land of Papists…”] “Papists” is an intentionally 
derogatory word for Roman Catholics—and offensive intentions aside, Dutch would be pretty accurate 
in this assessment. Even before the founding of   New Orleans in 1718, the Catholic Church has had a 
significant presence in the city. In 1906, almost 53% of the religious Louisiana population (or 
about 30% of the total population) identified as Roman Catholic—one of the highest in the country.
[Dutch: “America’s very own Gomorrah.”] Of course, this is a reference to Sodom and Gomorrah, 
the Biblical cities that were destroyed in   the Book of Genesis. The cities were said 
to have been destroyed for their sins; perhaps Dutch is surprised that 
Saint Denis, seemingly boastful   of its own sins, is still standing.
[Dutch: I’ll meet you back here, anon.”] The term “anon” is a somewhat outdated 
word meaning “soon” or shortly”, first found as early as the 11th century. Shakespeare 
afficionados might recognise it from Romeo and   Juliet, first performed in the late 16th century.
[Patron: “I’m a transplant but I’m never leaving. Not unless we all get washed away.”] This could 
simply be a reference to the consistently wet   weather in the state—which is true of Louisiana 
as well—but it is also likely referring to the actual loss of land in the area, wherein the 
state’s wetlands turn into complete open water.   Louisiana loses an average of a football field’s 
worth of land every hour; from 1932 to 2010, it lost over 1,880 square miles. There are several 
reasons for this, including the rising sea levels and reduced sediment flow from the Mississippi 
River and its tributaries. This wasn’t really   a known problem until around the 1960s, however.
[Bartender: “The rest of the states, they’re lucky to have us. If it wasn’t for us, they’d probably 
run back to Britain with their tail between their legs.”] This is likely a reference to the War 
of 1812, of which the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 was one of the last major conflicts. It 
ended with American victory over the British—a symbolically important victory for Americans 
(like the bartender), even if the overall   results of the war were more inconclusive. It was 
perhaps doubly symbolic considering its timing: the peace treaty to end the war had already been 
signed two weeks earlier, but the news had not   reached the United States yet—so the battle took 
place anyway, and the Americans were victorious. [Bartender: “Dollar, please.”] [Arthur: “For 
a whiskey?”] [Bartender: “Sure. That’s the real stuff, from Scotland.”] At that price, one 
would certainly hope so; it would be worth around $38 today. And the five dollars that Arthur 
gives to the kids for information about Bronte is   equivalent to around $190. Quite an investment.
[Kid: “That’s the Church of the Holy Blessed Virgin, mister. Modelled on a famous church in 
Toulouse, which is in France.”] He’s actually not wrong—the church he’s likely referring to is 
the Basilica of Saint-Sernin in Toulouse, France,   which bears some resemblance to the church 
in Saint Denis, particularly the bell tower. [Cleet: “My momma said they used to burn 
Protestants and all…”] This is also true. Tensions between French Catholics and Protestants (known 
as Huguenots) in 16th-century France eventually   led to a decades-long series of wars, marked most 
severely by the Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre in 1572, during which between 5,000 and 20,000 
Protestants were killed, and many houses burned. The wars finally ended in 1598 when King 
Henry IV granted Huguenots religious freedom, but this was reversed almost 90 years later by 
Louis XIV, who banned Protestant worship in 1685. Huguenots subsequently fled to other countries or 
converted to Catholicism; the King claimed that   the Protestant population had dropped from 800 
or 900 thousand to around 1,200 or 1,500 within three months, though it’s believed that both of 
these numbers are significant underestimates.  Persecution wasn’t limited to France, either. 
During her reign in the mid-16th century, Mary I of England ordered that hundreds 
of Protestants be burned at the stake,   earning her the nickname “Bloody Mary”.
At the end of this mission, Arthur finds Dutch sitting in front of a statue of Quincy T. Harris. 
The existence—and defacing—of Harris’s statue   is likely based on those of real Confederate 
generals P. G. T. Beauregard and Robert E. Lee, both of whom have had plenty of memorials 
removed or destroyed in recent years. In terms of   appearances, the statue seems to be based on that 
of Andrew Jackson in the renamed Jackson Square, after he helped lead the United States to victory 
in the Battle of New Orleans. But this story   sounds closer to that of the in-game JD McKnight, 
who has a statue near the trolley station, erected because of his role in reconstructing 
Saint Denis. McKnight’s statue, however,   looks nothing like Jackson’s—it’s more 
similar to that of the Henry Clay Monument, erected in New Orleans in 1860 to commemorate 
statesman Henry Clay, who often visited the city. McKnight’s character could also be partly based 
on that of banker Jacob Schiff, who warned a   group in New York that the United States could 
see a financial panic within ten years—according to the in-game newspapers, McKnight did the same 
thing, warning the country could see a repeat of   the Panic of 1893. And, of course, they were 
right; the Panic of 1907 caused the largest decline in U.S. stock market history at the 
time, and remains one of the ten worst today. An interesting piece of information about 
equestrian statues that is often shared is that   the horse’s stance indicates how its rider died: 
if the horse is on its hind legs, the rider was killed in battle; if it has one leg in the air, 
the rider died of wounds from the battle; if it   has all four legs touching the ground, the rider 
survived. And while this is undoubtedly true of some statues—all but one of the equestrian statues 
at Gettysburg, for instance, follow this code,   intentionally or not—it’s not a rule of any kind, 
quickly disproven by the many statues across the country that don’t follow it, including Harris’s 
statue in the game, which would indicate that he   was killed in battle, and not, according to his 
crypt, 23 years after the end of the Civil War. Something interesting to note about the 
Confederate statues in the game—Quincy T. Harris’s   in Saint Denis, Hobart H. Crawley’s in Rhodes—is 
that they don’t appear to be very new. This is not inaccurate: there were Confederate monuments 
being established almost immediately after the end   of the Civil War in 1865, and there were dozens 
by the turn of the century, including at least three in Louisiana from the 1880s and 90s. Many 
of them were in cemeteries, and many were general monuments not honouring any specific person, but 
there were some similar to those in the game, too.   While these still existed, though, the significant 
increase in Confederate monuments actually began around the early 1900s, particularly with the 
emergence of the Jim Crow South. Interestingly, Confederate general Robert E. Lee was opposed to 
battlefield memorials himself, preferring “not   to keep open the sores of war, but to follow 
the examples of those nations who endeavoured to obliterate the marks of civil strife and 
commit to oblivion the feelings it engendered”. In the next mission, Arthur finally meets the 
infamous Angelo Bronte. Bronte could be based   on any number of gangsters or criminals 
from around this time, and he’s likely an amalgamation of several, but there’s one piece of 
evidence that suggests a particular influence. An   article in the in-game newspaper reports on 
the murder of police officer Henry Jenkins, who had been leading an investigation against 
Bronte when he was killed. In real life,   New Orleans police chief David Hennessy was 
killed in October 1890, around the same time that he was reportedly planning to introduce 
evidence that would implicate the Matranga   crime family. Of course, in the game, Angelo 
Bronte was never held accountable for the murder and was vouched for by a number of city 
officials. In real life, several men were tried,   and a series of mistrials and acquittals 
led to an angry mob storming the prison and lynching nine Italian men—the largest known 
mass lynching in American history. It’s part   of the reason why President Benjamin Harrison, 
following backlash from the Italian government, declared Columbus Day a one-time holiday in 
1892: to celebrate Italians and their heritage. That Bronte is so influential among the city 
and its elites is certainly a dramatisation,   but the Matranga family being an inspiration for 
Bronte is unsurprising; it’s believed that some of the earliest American Mafia families operated 
in New Orleans, running the Black Hand extortion   racket that focused largely on Italian-Americans 
workers and business owners. They were also known for their operations in New York and associated 
with the murder of another police officer almost   20 years after Hennessy’s death: Joseph Petrosino, 
who was killed in Italy during a mission to gather information about Italian criminals in New 
York, in an attempt to see them deported. Bronte’s proud Italian heritage is fairly 
obvious throughout his house, which is full   of paintings by several well-known Italian 
artists, like Paolo Veronese, Paris Bordone, Baciccio, Caravaggio, Correggio, and Titian, as 
well as French artists like Théodore Géricault, Valentin de Boulogne, and Jean-Baptiste 
Oudry and the Dutch artist Pieter Claesz. On their way to the cemetery, Arthur praises 
John for keeping silent. [Arthur: “You did good,   holding your tongue in there.”] This phrase 
had been around for at least 500 years, but its origin is interesting, having first been 
published in the 1380s in a book by Geoffrey   Chaucer. Preceding this, in the early 1300s, was 
the variant used in traditional wedding services: “Speak now or forever hold your peace”.
As Arthur and John escape the cemetery, they can hear the police approaching with their whistles. 
[Police whistle sounds] The story of these was   fairly recent at the time; in 1870, English farm 
worker Joseph Hudson started selling handmade whistles. About 13 years later, around 1883, one 
of two things happened, depending on who’s telling the story: either he saw an advertisement seeking 
a new noisemaker to replace the wooden rattles of   the Metropolitan Police; or he personally saw 
the police struggling to communicate with their rattles and decided to create a replacement 
himself. Either way, before long, he started   to sell police whistles, and his contract in 1884 
made him the largest whistle manufacturer for the British police forces, military, and railways, 
among others. His business expanded overseas   around 1909 with connections in the United States, 
but there’s evidence that some police whistles existed as early as the 1880s, so perhaps they 
made their way there faster than his business did. Upon Jack’s return to camp, the gang decide to 
throw another party—and, of course, with a party   comes music. The first song—performed by most of 
the gang—is Cielito Lindo. A popular traditional Mexican song, this was written in 1882 by Quirino 
Mendoza y Cortés, a Mexican composer. The original song consists of six verses and a well-known 
chorus—[Gang (singing): “Ay, ay, ay, ay!”]—though in the game, Javier plays the first and third 
verses twice, and, of course, the chorus. After finishing that song, Javier immediately 
starts playing another. [Javier (singing): “Cuando salí de Hermosillo , lágrimas vine 
llorando.”] The song, called El Coyotito,   dates back to at least 1904, in a recording by 
Charles Lummis; Lummis spent some time in New Mexico in the late 1880s, and otherwise travelled 
quite frequently, talking to people of various   cultures, so it’s unquestionable that he learned 
this song some years prior, therefore explaining its inclusion in the game. The melody as heard 
in Lummis’s recording sounds different to the   one in the game, but the lyrics—sourced from 
one of Lummis’s publications—are practically identical, besides Javier skipping the 
fifth verse and altering a single world. If Arthur wanders around during the party, he’ll 
hear Grimshaw and Karen singing The Sailor Boy.   The lyrics here are practically identical to a 
version sung and notated in New York in 1953, but variants far predate this, including the 
version “Bell Bottom Trousers”, the clean version   of which was written in 1944; and “Rosemary 
Lane”, which is printed as early as the 1780s. The transitional chorus—[Grimshaw and Karen: 
“Home, boys, home! It’s home I want to be!”]—dates to around the early 1800s. Its existence 
in the game is certainly accurate—though,   considering the state of Grimshaw and Karen 
by this point in the night, their consistent accuracy of the lyrics of a version that 
wouldn’t be printed for another 50 years   is certainly suspicious. Maybe it’s the alcohol.
A little while later, Arthur can catch another song from Grimshaw and Karen—this time 
joined by Uncle, and Javier on guitar. [Group: “They started as a thieving line; in 
eighteen hundred and forty-nine…”] The original   song is called “California Stage Company”, 
though that won’t make much sense in the context of the game, since the lyrics have been 
altered to change “California Stage” to the more   relevant “Heartland Stage”. There are a few 
other minor changes, such as the skipping of a few verses and repeated choruses. In the game’s 
time period, it’s certainly historically accurate,   having first appeared in print in 1858.
Before the next song, Dutch has a quick speech, in which, seeminly for the first time, he 
specifically mentions Tahiti. [Dutch: “And   we are gonna find our own paradise. Our own 
heaven. Tahiti; Fiji; Australia—the real New World.”] The timing is interesting, considering 
the gang is camped just outside Saint Denis—a former French colony—while Dutch is talking of 
moving to Tahiti—a current French colony. That being said, it is a “geographical marvel” and a 
beautiful location, so it’s hard to blame him. Shortly afterwards, Uncle starts singing a solo 
song. The lyrics were first printed in 1910,   and the first recording was in 1927, but the 
words were adapted from a cowboy poem originally published in 1885, The Cowboy’s Soliloquy, so its 
inclusion here is historically fitting. The lyrics are fairly similar, with a few minor changes, 
but there are some entire line replacements too,   likely to feel more appropriate to the 
gang’s outlaw status and attitudes, rather than talking about books and sermons. 
And, of course, Uncle has to insert himself   into the song at one point. [Uncle: “And 
big ol’ Uncle lying out on the ground.”] The last song of the night is 
a solo by Mr. Pearson—or a duo,   if Arthur decides to join in. [Pearson: “But, 
faithfully, they did their part; as brave men, tried and true.”] The song is called The Old 
Scout’s Lament. The lyrics are pretty much identical to the earliest known printed version, 
from 1910, with some pretty minor changes—and,   of course, it’s very much feasible that 
the song existed eleven years prior to its first publication, so Pearson’s 
performance is certainly not inaccurate. In Hosea’s room at the camp, Arthur can find 
a newspaper clipping reporting on Dutch and   Hosea’s escape from a prison in Kettering, 
Ohio, in 1877. Interestingly, though, the city of Kettering didn’t actually exist 
at the time. The area where it now sits was   known as Van Buren Township, renamed to Kettering 
after a vote in 1952 in honour of inventor Charles F. Kettering. After some population growth, 
it became a city three years later, in 1955. In an optional mission around this time, Arthur 
robs the Bank of Rhodes with Charles and Uncle.   Interestingly, the columns at the front of the 
bank appear to follow the Composite order design, a Roman adaptation combining two Greek orders: 
the Ionic and Corinthian. The other Greek order is Doric, while the other Roman one is 
the Tuscan—both known for their relative   simplicity in comparison. There are many banks 
throughout the United States that use identical or similar designs, in several different states.
The bank also has a sundial on the front, though its vertical placement implies 
this is not its original position,   and its two hands implies that it’s perhaps 
been converted into a traditional clock. Interestingly, like the columns, 
sundials also have ancient origins,   dating as early as around 1300 B.C. in ancient 
Egypt and Mesopotamia, and later in Greece. In one of the next missions, Mary-Beth 
talks to Arthur about her life before   the gang. [Mary-Beth: “Life weren’t very nice, 
Arthur; not after momma got typhoid and… that was a long time ago.”] Typhoid was a pretty 
common and dangerous problem in European and   American cities during the nineteenth century.
Interestingly, there was a woman by the name of Mary—not Mary-Beth—who was said to have 
spread typhoid to at least 53 New Yorkers   during her time as a cook in 1907, earning 
her the nickname “Typhoid Mary”. Thankfully, the typhoid vaccine was being developed around 
this time and was distributed widely before long.   Water chlorination also began to take place 
around this time—in the late 19th century in Europe and early 20th century in the 
U.S.—partly to prevent the spread of   typhoid and other waterborne infectious 
diseases like cholera and dysentery. The name of one of the next missions—“The 
Gilded Cage”—is a pun on the term “Gilded Age”,   an era from around 1870 to 1900 wherein the United 
States saw rapid economic growth, largely through power and corruption, as well as abject poverty 
and inequality, as the wealth concentration   became clear. The term “gilded cage” is used to 
refer to people who live in wealth and luxury but without happiness or freedom—a concept that some 
residents of Saint Denis might be familiar with. Speaking of which, Dutch is invited to a party 
at the mayor’s house. [Dutch: “Old Signor Bronte,   that horrendous snake has invited us to the 
ball, Cinderella.”] A literary man like Dutch being aware of the story of Cinderella is 
entirely unsurprising. The earliest known   variant of this story, called “Rhodopis”, 
dates back to at least late first century B.C. or early first century A.D.—an ancient 
Greek tale about a slave girl who marries the   king of Egypt. The first literary European 
version was published in Italy in 1634, and the version widely known in English 
today was published in French in 1697. At the party, Dutch speaks with Bronte. [Dutch: 
“So, this is Saint Denis high society?”] The term and concept of high society became more common 
around this time, in the late 19th century,   as newly rich people arrived in major 
cities—Boston, Newport, New York City—where they built mansions and sponsored large parties. 
The media quickly began paying close attention,   with entire sections of newspapers dedicated 
to the parties, weddings, funerals, and other events sponsored by them. Essentially, they were 
the early equivalent of modern-day celebrities. Bronte points out some of the men of 
Saint Denis. [Bronte: “Oh, oh, and that,   that is Hobart Crawley. A Confederate 
major in the war. A big hero they say, but that is his… his very young wife.”] In 
Crawley’s case, this relationship appears to be a genuine one—at least on his behalf—but in real 
life, it wasn’t uncommon for Civil War veterans to   marry young women without a genuine relationship, 
often to provide them with a pension. The last known living example was Helen Viola Jackson, 
who married Union soldier James Bolin in 1936, when he was 93 and she was 17. He did so to repay 
her kindness offered to him, as she would become eligible to receive his pension after his death. 
She never applied for it, however, as Bolin’s   daughters threatened to ruin her reputation. 
She died in December 2020 at the age of 101. About halfway through the party, Arthur witnesses 
some fireworks. [Partygoer: “My lord, they’re fantastic.”] Types of natural “firecrackers” 
are commonly believed to have been developed   in ancient China in the second century B.C.: 
when bamboo stalks were thrown into a fire, they exploded with a bang because of the overheating 
of the hollow air pockets. Around 600 to 900 A.D., a Chinese alchemist produced the first “gunpowder” 
by mixing potassium nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal, pouring it into bamboo sticks to make fireworks. 
They made their way to Europe in the 13th century and were widely used for public entertainment and 
religious festivals by the 15th century. When they   were brought to the U.S. by the early settlers, 
they were used as part of the first Independence Day celebration in 1777—a tradition that has 
continued ever since. Discoveries in the 18th century likely made fireworks even brighter and 
more colourful—essentially what is seen today. [Arthur: “I’m looking for 
the mayor.”] Sometime later, if Arthur returns to the house of the 
mayor, Henri Lemieux, he tasks Arthur   with some… unsavoury jobs. Whether intentional 
or not, there are other political figures of Louisiana—the real-life equivalent of the state 
of Lemoyne—with similarly controversial histories.  One such man is Walter C. Flower, who was one of 
the members of the aforementioned large mob that lynched eleven Italian men in 1981. Five years 
later, he was elected mayor of New Orleans. Another controversial real-life politician from 
Louisiana was Huey Long, who was impeached in   1929 of eight charges, but the impeachment 
was later suspended without a trial. Long was governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and 
then senator until his assassination in 1935. Many academics and writers negatively 
view him as a dictator or demagogue,   and few others as a “populist champion”.
[Lemieux: “This even nastier little man from New Haven has come here to verify my paintings 
and he’s saying that they’re all fake.”] Art forgery actually dates back quite some time—to at 
least the fourteenth century. By some accounts,   the great artist, sculptor, and painter 
Michelangelo is said to have started with art forgery: his since-lost statue Sleeping 
Eros, sculpted in 1496, was sold to a collector of Roman antiquities, having been passed off as an 
ancient statue. Michaelangelo’s skills, of course, were so evident in his forgery that it actually 
led to later work, which is not often the case. Interestingly, for a long time, artists and 
“amateur connoisseurs” were responsible for   judging the authenticity of art. It was around the 
late 19th and early 20th centuries when full-time art historians were entrusted with this. They were 
less focused on artistic or even financial value, and more so on the authenticity through 
consultation with several historical sources.   Experts around this time issued 
certificates asserting authenticity, and the legitimacy of these certificates often 
hinged on the specialist’s reputation—hence the   reluctance of Professor Shiftacre here. 
[Shiftacre: “I couldn’t! My reputation!”] [Lemieux: “In fifty years, man will put 
down his guns, and start living a life of relentless purity.”] [Jean-Marc: “Hear, hear!”] 
This term is the shortened version of “hear ye,   hear ye”, or “hear him, hear him”, first 
recorded in the 17th century—though the use of the word “hear” as a command to listen 
dates back much further. Its reduction to “hear,   hear” occurred by the late eighteenth century, so 
much earlier than its usage here. It’s often used in the House of Commons in British Parliament, 
where cheering is frequently discouraged or   forbidden. It’s also often incorrectly written as 
‘h-e-r-e’, such as in the game’s subtitles here. In the second part of this mission, the 
mayor tasks Arthur with threatening Hector   Fellowes. [Lemieux: “He’s a newspaper man, and 
he’s–”] [Jean-Marc: “He’s leaving town on a coach, heading to his country estate because he 
doesn’t like your heavy-handed approach.”]   Fellowes and the Saint Denis Times Tribune 
wouldn’t be the first newspaper to disapprove of a political figure, including in 
Louisiana—like the Democratic Advocate,   established in 1842 to defeat candidates of the 
Whig political party; the Baton Rouge State Times, with whom Huey Long started a feud after its 
publisher did not support him; The Times-Picayune,   with whom Long started a feud after it criticised 
his policies; and the Louisiana Progress, established in 1930 by Huey Long himself to 
attack his opponents and promote his own policies. [Lemieux: “To convince him to make good on 
his promise to help finance the library.”] Interestingly, the New Orleans Public 
Library publicly opened its doors in 1897,   so around this same time. Similarly, the 
Howard Memorial Library was opened in New Orleans in 1889, some years after the 
death of its namesake, Charles T. Howard,   who had sought to provide several charitable 
contributions for public improvements—including, shortly before his death, a library, which 
was completed and named in his honour. [Lemieux: “This is an old field guide. Might be of 
some interest to you, maybe not. But please have it.”] The book that Lemieux gives to Arthur 
is called Farm, Field and Falconry by George   T. Duvall. Probably coincidentally, there was a 
farmer named George T. Duvall who lived from 1784 to the 1870s. He was considered a trusting and 
honourable “man of high standing” and was one of the earliest settlers of Lewis County, Virginia.
[Arthur: “Where do I find him?”] [Lemieux: “Well, he does live over on Rue De Zacharie.”] In French, 
the word “rue” means “street”. Interestingly, there was also a Rue Zacharie in Paris, which 
crossed with the Rue de la Huchette, one of   the oldest streets along the Rive Gauche; 
however, it was renamed Rue Xavier-Privas in 1929, some thirty years after Arthur 
visits the similarly-named street here. Elsewhere in Saint Denis, Arthur catches 
up with another man from the mayor’s party,   Algernon Wasp, who tasks him with 
collecting, among other things, flowers. Based on this information alone, 
there’s a possibility this mission is   inspired by the title of the novel Flowers for 
Algernon—though the comparisons mostly end there. Algernon gives Arthur a cup of tea. [Algernon: 
“Be careful with the china.”] In this context,   “china”, of course, refers to porcelain. 
Unsurprisingly, based on its name, porcelain was invented in China. Its quality 
led to it being known as china or China-ware; the latter ultimately decreased in 
usage but the former clearly did not.  [Algernon: “It is French.”] [Arthur: “Not 
Belgian?”] [Algernon: “No, no, no, no, no, no. They are philistines in that area.”] This 
word was certainly accurate around this time,   having been a common British term for 
almost a century. It essentially refers to someone being “uncultured”—averse 
to intellectualism or aesthetics. When Arthur later returns with the requested 
feathers and flowers, Algernon explains who   they’re for. [Algernon: “You did? The Duchess of 
Sorrento will be most happy with you.”] There’s an Italian town by the name of Sorrento. When 
it was more of an independent state—the Duchy   of Sorrento—it had an elected duke (and therefore 
duchess) around the 7th to 10th centuries. It was, however, annexed by the Normans after 
their conquest in the 12th century,   quite some time before the events of the game.
[Algernon: “I cannot believe the pressure this woman puts me under.”] [Arthur: “Which woman?”] 
[Algernon: “The Baroness, of course. She writes   the most dreadful missives from Baden 
Baden.”] Baden-Baden is a spa town in south-western Germany. There are several other 
places, including in Germany, known as “Baden”;   this one essentially means the town of 
Baden within the territory of Baden, hence its double usage. The town itself apparently 
got its name formally in 1931—several decades after the game—but the name was used for 
the territory generally sometime earlier,   so it’s not inaccurate here.
[Algernon: “She’s asked me to summer with her there next year, but, well, I find 
the whole thing a little gaudy. Italy is just so   overrun with Americans just now, don’t you find?”] 
[Arthur: “Yeah, it’s a real problem.”] Apparently, it was considered cheap to be in Italy in the 
19th century—one author in 1847 estimated that she could live comfortably in Rome for six months 
for a total of $400 (around $15,400 today), and another author in the 1830s said 
he was renting lodgings that made him   feel “like a prince” in Florence for $3 a 
month (a bit more than $100 a month today). Several Italians, meanwhile, went the other 
way—more than a million emigrated to the   United States between 1871 and 1900. It was 
thought that most planned to work for a few years before returning home, and around 46% 
who entered the U.S. between 1899 and 1924 ultimately returned to Italy permanently.
Sometime later, Algernon is quite upset. [Algernon: “I want you to kill me.”] 
[Arthur: “Huh?”] [Algernon: “I have a gun!”] [Arthur: “Quite a gun.”] [Algernon: “These are 
Tahitian pearls.”] [Arthur: “Tahiti?!”] Tahitian   pearls—cultivated, of course, in French Polynesia, 
including Tahiti—are known for their beauty and highly sought-after. Oysters in the region were 
harvested to the point of near-extinction until   around the 1960s, before regulations were 
implemented. In the 1970s, American jeweller Harry Winston was struck but the beauty of the 
pearl and was able to sell a strand—for quite   a price—within a week. The jewels were perhaps 
less sought-after in the United States in 1899, but no less beautiful, really, so Algernon’s 
interest in them is entirely unsurprising. Deeper in the heart of Saint Denis, 
Arthur meets a professor. [Marko   Dragic: “Professor Marko Dragic.”] Dragic is 
almost certainly based on Nikola Tesla, who was around 43-years-old in 1899. Interestingly, 
Tesla’s family name—some centuries before his birth—was Draganić, which is strikingly similar 
to Dragic. Beyond this, the two have similar appearances and are both inventors working with 
electricity. Both are European—Tesla was Serbian, Dragic is from the Balkans (likely also Serbia). 
Both emigrated to the United States—Tesla in 1884. Dragic complains about an American: [Dragic: “The 
one the silver-tongue American betray and not pay the money to.”] Tesla had similar problems with 
Thomas Edison and his company doing the same. Both Dragic and Tesla had problems with investors 
choosing not to invest, or outright abandoning   them. Dragic’s Doverhill also looks—and seemingly 
functions—just like Tesla’s Wardenclyffe Tower, built in 1901. While Dragic is killed by his 
own creation during the events of the game,   though, Tesla died in 1943 at the age of 86.
[Arthur: “Oh, it’s a toy boat!”] [Dragic: “Yes, it is a toy boat that I can power remotely 
using electricity and waves you cannot   see.”] [Arthur: “Good for you.”] This is 
likely a reference to Tesla’s telautomaton, a radio-controlled boat that he demonstrated at 
Madison Square Garden in 1898 and in Chicago in 1899. When he tried to sell the idea as a 
radio-controlled torpedo, the U.S. military showed little interest in it—so not totally 
dissimilar to Dragic’s rejection in the game. [Investor: “Think of those poor boys on the H. 
L. Hunley. Eight of them perished to a mere five on the Housatonic.”] This is a reference to 
the Confederate submarine, the H. L. Hunley,   whose first and only enemy attack was against 
the Navy’s USS Housatonic in February 1864. The Hunley rammed a torpedo into the hull of 
the Housatonic, who sunk within three minutes   with five crewmen. The Hunley and its eight 
crewmen went missing, not to be discovered until 1976, verified in 1995 and raised in 2000.
[Dragic: “The steam train, the telegraph machine, the motorcar. They will all seem pedestrian in 
comparison to this technology!”] These were, of course, all in operation by this time: 
the first commercially successful stream   locomotive in 1812, first 
working telegraph in 1816, and first practical modern automobile in 1885.
[Dragic: “He lives! My son lives!” (laughs)] The line itself is a reference to the 1931 film 
Frankenstein—it didn’t appear in the original 1818 novel by Mary Shelley. Dragic’s “son”, 
meanwhile, is an automaton—a self-operating machine, which have existed for centuries, the 
word itself being first used by Homer around   the 8th century B.C. Perhaps the first to use 
electricity was the Televox, the “electrical man”, whose patent was filed in 1927. The first to move 
similarly to Dragic’s robot seems to be Elektro, who could walk by voice command. He could also 
speak around 700 words using a record player,   blow up balloons, and smoke cigarettes—and he 
was often accompanied by a robot dog, Sparko, who could similarly move around, wag its tail, 
and bark. Despite being ahead of time with his   automaton, it seems Dragic unfortunately did 
not have plans for the companion robot dog. Unfortunately for Dragic, his automaton 
also has other plans: killing him,   then expressing remorse for doing so—far more 
advanced than any known automaton of its era. In Dragic’s workshop, Arthur finds a 
note in which Dragic states his plans   to “take over the world”. This is not too 
surprising, considering the connection to Nikola Tesla—popular culture depictions of 
Tesla often show him as a mad scientist,   and some may have considered him as such during 
his life too, though that he wanted to “take over the world” seems far less likely, besides simply 
wanting his inventions to be more widespread. Also in Saint Denis, Arthur meets another 
professor—this one asking for some   moonshine. [Arthur: “Well, as luck would have it, 
you are in the legal hooch capital of America.”] The word “hooch” is said to have originated from 
a group of indigenous Alaskan people, the Hutsnuwu   (or Hoochinoo), who distilled their own liquor. 
American trappers and traders knew the drink to be called hoochinoo or hooch, first published in 
1897—a few years before the game. By the early 20th century, the word hooch was used for any 
improvised spirits, like Arthur’s usage here. As for being the country’s “legal hooch 
capital”: New Orleans, the real-life   equivalent of Saint Denis, was apparently 
dubbed the “liquor capital of America” during Prohibition some decades later—this wasn’t 
quite “legal hooch” at the time, of course,   but it seems the “capital” nickname being applied 
to Saint Denis is likely accurate as well. After Arthur obtains some moonshine, the 
professor reveals that he intends to use   it for a new invention: [Professor Bell: “The 
electric chair.”] In real life, the electric chair was invented by Alfred P. Southwick, 
a dentist from New York. In the early 1880s, he advocated that electricity was a more humane 
method for executing humans than hangings. His   early designs used a modified version of a 
dental chair. The first person to be executed by electric chair was William Kemmler in New York 
in 1890—a little earlier than the game, but still roughly the same time period. Like the one in 
the game, Kemmler’s execution did not go well:   it apparently took two attempts to kill him, and 
the impacts on his body were unpleasant, to say the least. The electric chair was later adopted in 
other states and became prevalent in the country. The professor’s patent document, which can be 
found on his body, matches the formatting of   real patent documents, with the date, witnesses, 
and model number—though the professor’s model number is very different from the one on the 
real-life patent of the electrocution chair. One of the next missions is called “Horsemen, 
Apocalypses”—almost certainly a reference to the   Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, a concept with 
which fans of Undead Nightmare will be familiar. In this mission, Kieran’s decapitated 
body wanders into camp on horseback,   sent by the O’Driscoll Boys. 
From a narrative perspective, this is almost certainly a reference to 
Denis of Paris, the third-century Christian   saint from whom the city of Saint Denis took 
its name. Remember the story from earlier? Denis was decapitated and is said to have picked 
up his head and walked several miles—a familiar   image for the gang in this moment, unfortunately.
This could even be another reference to the work of “Rip Van Winkle” author Washington 
Irving, whose short story “The Legend of   Sleepy Hollow” features a Headless Horseman 
believed to have lost his head in battle. From the characters’ perspective, though, this may 
be a reference to Dullahan, a legendary creature   in Irish folklore—a headless man riding 
a horse, sometimes carrying his own head, and sometimes riding a headless horse—a logical 
reference considering the O’Driscoll Boys’s Irish   connections. Perhaps even more logical, in 
light of the fight that follows this scene, considering the Dullahan is sometimes 
viewed as a harbinger of death. In this chapter, Arthur can choose to help 
Mary once again. As part of this mission,   he makes his way to the Theodore Eckhart 
Stable, somewhat towards the edge of the city. The existence of stables is unsurprising, of 
course, and it certainly makes sense here:   in New Orleans towards the end of the 
19th century, a collection of stables developed into a major industry district.
Arthur can choose to attend the theatre with Mary. The theatre itself appears to 
be modelled on the French Opera House in   New Orleans, which was opened in 1859 but 
eventually destroyed by a fire in 1919. One of the performers at the theatre, Robin 
Koninsky, is a singer. If Arthur returns for   another one of her performances, he’ll hear 
her sing “Hello! Ma Baby”—perhaps best known from the 1955 animated short film One Froggy 
Evening. It was first published in 1899—so, right in time for the game’s setting—and, as 
Koninsky mentions, it’s lyrics refer to the   telephone, the first well-known song to do so.
The next performer, Antoinette Sanserverino, is a fire breather. This type of performance 
would not have been particularly out of place   in this time and location—in February 
1897, there were newspaper reports of a large Kraken creature spitting balls of 
fire on stage at the French Opera House in   New Orleans. It’s certainly not unexpected 
that other performers also gave it a go. The final performance of the show is by a 
dance group performing the can-can. The song   itself originates from the “Galop infernal” 
number from Jacques Offenbach’s opera Orpheus in the Underworld, first performed in 1858. 
It was in the late nineteenth century—about fifteen years after Offenbach’s death—when it 
began to be associated with the can-can dance,   which itself originated some decades earlier.
The dance was actually considered rather scandalous around this time, perhaps because 
it revealed its performers’ undergarments—often   said to have been pantalettes with an open crotch. 
In 1875, the St. Louis Chief of Police addressed letters to theatre managers demanding that they 
“withdraw or radically modify” the “vulgar dance”. In New Orleans specifically, the Globe Theatre 
came under fire for its highly-promoted can-can   performance; the stage manager and sixteen dancers 
were indicted for keeping a disorderly house, and the major revoked the license permitting 
the theatre to hold the performance (though   it appears that didn’t stop them). In 
1897, a committee made it unlawful to perform the dance—or similar “sensational 
performances”—outside of a specific area. After the show, Arthur walks Mary to the trolley 
car. The first rail service in New Orleans was established in April 1831, pulled by horses as 
the engines did not arrive from England until the next year. In 1866, several railway companies 
introduced streetcars, some powered by an overhead cable car system, since an underground one—like in 
San Francisco—was impossible because of the city’s high water table. Electric-powered streetcars 
were introduced to New Orleans in February 1893, and over the next few years, almost 
all streetcar lines were electrified. The time period of the game marks an interesting 
time for streetcars, as it was one of the last   years that both black and white people could 
ride them together. They’d been desegregated in New Orleans in 1867 after some protests, but 
resegregated in 1902, and would remain so for 56 years until they were finally integrated again in 
1958. Train cars, however, likely would have been segregated at this time, after the Separate Car 
Act was passed in Louisiana in 1890—though this was judged not to apply to interstate travel, 
likely partly why it’s absent in the game. Speaking of streetcars, in one of the next 
missions, Arthur, Dutch, and Lenny rob the city’s   trolley station. In theory more than appearance, 
this is likely based on the New Orleans Union Station, but the one in the game is much smaller.
Before the robbery, Dutch brings up his ideal destination yet again. [Arthur: “Where the hell 
is Tahiti?”] [Dutch: “South Pacific. An untouched paradise.”] [Arthur: “Who lives there?”] [Dutch: 
“Tahitians, I guess.”] The first Tahitians are   said to have arrived around the year 1000 A.D., 
with European visitors arriving in 1767. In 1897, it had a population of almost 11,000—so with 
almost 1,000 years of history and a population in the quintuple digits, “untouched” may 
not be the most appropriate descriptor,   but it would likely feel more untouched than the 
bustle of Saint Denis, so his point is logical. The robbery doesn’t go as planned, and Dutch 
seems to know why. [Dutch: “He set us up. Played me like a yokel.”] The word “yokel” was first 
published in English in the early 19th century, though its origins are unclear. One 
theory is that it originated from the   German name, or “Jacob”. Another is that 
it came from the nickname for the green woodpecker—also “yokel”—named as an imitation 
of its distinctive call. [Green woodpecker call] Back in Saint Denis, Arthur can purchase issues 
of the Saint Denis Times-Tribune—whose contents,   again, are identical to the New Hanover Gazette. 
A new story describes the lynching of the black reverend Benson Floyd in Georgia, whose mutilated 
body was found hanging from a persimmon tree in   a small hamlet in Georgia after being 
implicated in a murder by Otto Luther, the man who confessed to it before being 
hanged. This article is practically identical   to some published in April 1899 reporting on the 
lynching of the black preacher Elijah Strickland, whose mutilated body was found hanging from a 
persimmon tree a little more than a mile outside   of Palmetto, Georgia, after being implicated 
in a murder by Sam Hose, the man who confessed to it before being burned. In both instances, 
it’s believed the implication was a falsehood,   as argued by the preachers’ employer; and in both 
instances, the mob killed an innocent man anyway. There are several other articles spread across 
various issues of the paper discussing other   creations of the time, like the first submarine 
commissioned by the Navy, expected to be completed by 1900 and developed by Jack Yanner, who was 
ten-years-old at the end of the Civil War but   remember stories of the Confederate submarine H.T. 
Abernathy, whose own torpedo explosion sank it after destroying the enemy ship. The Abernathy 
could be a reference to the aforementioned   Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley, who destroyed 
the Union’s Housatonic in 1864 before also sinking shortly thereafter. Yanner’s submarine 
appears to be inspired by the USS Holland, the   first submarine commissioned by the Navy in 1900, 
developed by John Philip Holland, who was actually 24 at the end of the Civil War (and in Ireland).
Another invention is that of the motorised lawn mower, for which the newspaper says that 
Carlile McKinnroy has filed a patent.   It appears that some petrol-driven mowers 
might have been invented some years earlier, but the first commercially available machine was 
produced by the English company Ransomes in 1902,   based on experiments by James Edward Ransome.
Another paper mentions a patent being filed for a “mechanical refrigerator”, with a regulator 
that controls the flow of the refrigerant through   “thermostatic pressure and a compressor”. 
While commercial refrigerators had existed, in some form or another, for quite some 
time, this specific model—adjusting the   flow of refrigeration in response to changes in 
temperature—sounds like a thermal expansion valve, for which Harry E. Thompson filed for a patent 
in 1927, sometime after the events of the game. A later paper talks of the invention of the 
electric washing machine, produced by the   Hathaway Machine Company in Chicago. This is 
likely based on the Thor, believed to be the first electric washing machine, produced by the 
Hurley Machine Company in Chicago—though this   was first marketed around 1906 and 1907, several 
years after its mention in the newspaper here. In another mission, Arthur meets Rains Fall, the 
chief of the Wapiti Indians, and his son Eagle   Flies. [Rains Fall: “We saw you on the wagon 
train crossing the river at Cumberland Falls, and at the party, you were upstairs.”] [Arthur: 
“Well, you have great powers of observation.”] Such skills of observation and wisdom can often be 
a stereotype in popular media depicting indigenous   people—but several Native American peoples were 
actually known for their talents here. The Apache, for instance, have ways of recalling very specific 
events by linking them to specific locations.   Some memories are linked with stories 
and songs, as with the Navajo and their classification of over 700 species of 
insects, and the Nunamiut and Tareumiut   with their knowledge of survival strategies, 
while some memories are physically sketched, as with the Nakota recalling the previous year’s 
events on buffalo hides, and the Ho-Chunk, Ojibwe,   and Tlingit reciting knowledge and stories 
on wooden planks, scrolls, and totem poles. [Rains Fall: “Yes, my people, if we are 
even a people anymore… we’ve made peace treaties, and those treaties were broken.”] 
Unfortunately—but unsurprisingly—this is true; there’s a long history of the United States 
making (and breaking) treaties with Native   American tribes. The first official peace treaty 
was the Treaty of Fort Pitt in 1778 between the United States and the Lenape people—both sides 
agreed to maintain friendship and support each   other against the British, but four years 
later, militiamen killed nearly 100 Lenape (mostly women and children), and before long 
white settlers had forced them off their land. One of the next was the Treaty of Hopewell in the 
mid-1780s, which extended “protection” of the U.S.   to the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Chickasaw people 
and promised that “the hatchet shall be forever buried”—but white settlers were already 
moving onto Cherokee lands at the time,   and by 1791, another treaty forced 
them to forfeit even more land. There are several more examples over the 
next few decades, ending around the time   of the Fort Laramie Treaty in 1868, in which 
the government recognised the Black Hills of Dakota as the Great Sioux Reservation—the 
exclusive territory of the Dakota, Lakota,   and Arapaho people—but after gold was discovered 
there, miners and settlers began moving en masse, leading to a conflict in 1876. Over 100 years 
later in 1980, the Supreme Court ruled that the Black Hills were illegally confiscated 
and awarded the Sioux more than $100 million   in reparations with interest. The Sioux 
have continually refused the payment—worth well over $1 billion today—demanding 
instead that their land be returned. The reason that this treaty was the last 
one broken is because in 1871, Congress   declared that Native tribes would no longer be 
acknowledged or recognised as independent nations, and therefore could no longer be contracted 
by treaty. So instead of just not breaking the   treaties, they stopped signing them altogether.
[Rains Fall: “We’ve been moved and punished and punished and moved.”] This is already known 
to be true from the Black Hills example,   but in this specific instance—[Evelyn 
Miller: “It’s to do with oil.”]—well, that would be accurate, too. It happened around 
the same time in real life as well: in 1895 petroleum developer Henry Foster successfully 
applied for a lease from the Bureau of Indian   Affairs to drill underneath the Osage Reservation 
in Oklahoma for oil, and in exchange had to pay the Osage people a 10% royalty on all sales.
[Rains Fall: “And now I am told we are to be moved again.”] [Evelyn Miller: “Clearly contravening 
the peace treaty signed three years ago.”]   As mentioned, Congress already declared it would 
stop signing treaties almost 30 years earlier, so this one signed three years before 
the events of the game doesn’t have a   real-life equivalent as far as the time 
period goes—though its contravention is certainly based on countless real examples.
As for the oil explosion at the end of the mission: this doesn’t appear to have been super 
common, but there’s at least one example of it   happening in West Virginia in January 1897, 
killing two men and injuring two others. In one of the next missions, as Arthur 
is purchasing a suit for a robbery,   Trelawny tells stories of Arthur’s heritage. 
[Trelawny: “It was the English’s fault his grandfather had to emigrate.”] Trelawny is 
likely just saying this to try to blend in,   but assuming he’s serious—and assuming Arthur’s 
ancestry is Welsh, based on both his names and some comments at camp—the dates don’t quite 
match up, but it could be argued that something   like this happened a little further back 
than his grandfather. In the 17th century, when Charles II was restored to the throne, 
he initiated a wave of religious intolerance,   resulting in significant numbers of people 
leaving Wales, including entire communities. It could be a different Englishman 
that Trelawny is referring to, though;   some Welsh people emigrated based on a promise 
from William Penn that they would be allowed to set up a Welsh colony in the United 
States. However, this promise was not kept;   by the end of the 17th century, the land in 
question was partitioned into different counties, and the Welsh Tract never gained self-government.
After Arthur gets dressed up, Trelawny gives him a back-handed compliment. [Trelawny: “Look at 
you. From toad… to prince.”] This seems to be a reference to “The Frog Prince”, the German 
fairy tale first published by the Brothers   Grimm in 1812—and which partly inspired the 
2009 Disney film The Princess and the Frog, which is notably set in New Orleans. Of course, in 
the original story, the spoiled princess meets and befriends the Frog Prince, whose spell is soon 
broken, and he transforms back into a handsome   prince. In the Grimm version, this transformation 
occurred after the princess threw the frog against the wall; in modern versions, it happens after 
the princess kisses the frog. All Arthur needed,   apparently, was a suit and a haircut.
On their way to the riverboat, Trelawny tells Arthur about the man they’ll be robbing. 
[Trelawny: “It’s a man called Desmond Blythe. Made his fortune in hosiery of all things.”] 
Hosiery started as a putting-out industry, meaning workers would craft their materials 
at home. It was rather slow to industrialise,   though—despite the invention of the sewing 
machine in the 1840s and the introduction of steam-powered machinery factories in the 1850s, 
the industrial production of hosiery didn’t begin   until the 1860s. From around 1865 to 1876, the 
industry was generally in good shape economically but began to slump around the time of the Long 
Depression in the 1870s. It stands to reason   that Desmond Blythe entered the hosiery industry 
around this time, hence his economic success. Before long, Arthur and Trelawny meet Javier and 
Strauss at the riverboat. The first steamboat in   the United States was launched and operated by 
John Fitch in Philadelphia in 1787. By the 1800s, rivers were crowded with steamboats, which were 
often used instead of hotels or halls for events.   In the late 1800s, steamboats played a significant 
role in the development of the Mississippi River—which bypasses New Orleans—and in turn the 
river played a large role in the development and   popularisation of steamboats. Around this time, 
it’s said that the Mississippi River could have held as many as 1,200 steamboats at any one time.
Riverboat casinos were fairly prevalent in the nineteenth century, particularly in the 1880s on 
the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, operating in a   legal grey area away from local law enforcement.
All forms of gambling were eventually banned throughout the country for some time, though 
states started to reverse course towards the   end of the twentieth century; riverboat 
gaming became legal in Louisiana in 1991, and the first casino opened in 1993. Many 
have noted that revitalisation of areas around the southern Mississippi River may 
be due to the return of riverboat casinos. As for the robbing of the steamboat, such a crime 
wasn’t particularly uncommon around this time;   in fact, there were reports of them becoming more 
common, especially around the Mississippi River. Several of these took place while the steamboats 
were docked, but there were at least some where   they were in open water, like in the game.
In his poker game against Blythe, Arthur wins his Swiss pocket watch. [Desmond Blythe: “It’s worth 
more than you.”] He’s right, to an extent. The history of Swiss watches dates back to the 16th 
and 17th centuries, around the same time that the   Swiss city of Geneva underwent a revolution that 
led to technological and cultural advancements. Swiss watches are usually quite expensive due to 
their specific movement and the production time   required to make them. Around the mid-to-late 
19th century, processes were introduced to the United States to increase the quantity of watches 
produced while still maintaining the quality,   and thus the high prices. In the game, the watch 
can be sold for $155, which is roughly equivalent to some Swiss watches around this time, and equal 
to almost $6,000 today. As for “worth more than you”? Looking at regular bounty posters might make 
one realise that perhaps another’s life is worth   less than $155, according to the government—but 
Blythe wasn’t to know that Arthur’s bounty (and thus his life) was worth a lot more than that…
In this mission, Javier and Arthur are forced to endure the clear anti-Mexican stance 
of the pit boss—the pit boss, of course,   being the name used for the person in charge of 
a casino pit, commonly known as the pit manager today. [Pit boss: “I cannot believe someone gave 
a greaser a job.”] The history of discrimination against Mexicans dates back at least as far 
as the Mexican–American War in the 1840s,   which eventually led to Mexico losing almost half 
of its land to the U.S. A lot of the historical discrimination against Mexicans has gone 
overlooked, for a variety of reasons; for example,   lynching records categorised Mexicans as white, 
so no true number is known, but conservative estimates suggest that almost 600 Mexicans were 
lynched between 1848 and 1928—including Josefa Segovia, the only woman ever hanged in California.
Unfortunately, this anti-Mexican sentiment is not at all surprising—especially from a man 
who is blatantly racism and nationalist   anyway. [Pit boss: “Next, we’ll be hiring negroes 
… Foreign-made, but you can’t have everything.”] Before getting back to more pressing matters, 
Arthur can spend some time with the folks around   camp. First up is Mr. Pearson, with whom 
he goes hunting. [Mr. Pearson: “All water under the bridge now.”] Some suspect that 
Heraclitus—the Ancient Greek philosopher   who lived in the 6th and 5th centuries 
B.C.—intended a similar meaning with the phrase “You cannot step twice in the 
same river”. The verbatim usage, though,   seems to originate in the Dictionary of French 
Academy in 1762, and the modern English usage apparently began around the late 1800s, 
so around the time Pearson uses it here. Pearson reminds Arthur why they’re looking 
for crawfish. [Mr. Pearson: “Won’t be much   of a gumbo if we don’t find some more.”] 
It’s completely unsurprising that this is the end goal, considering where the 
gang is located—because, of course,   gumbo is the official state cuisine of Louisiana, 
on which Lemoyne is based. It originated in Louisiana around the early 18th century, though 
its exact origins are difficult to pinpoint. It owes a lot of its popularity to slaves, who would 
often exchange or combine ingredients to make   the dish as a means of community and identity. 
And it remains incredibly popular to this day. After collecting some crawfish, Pearson finds 
a new target. [Mr. Pearson: “Gator eggs… really valuable, even better eating.”] He’s right; 
alligator eggs are considered a delicacy,   loved by those who try them and 
valuable to those who sell them. When Arthur expresses concern over Pearson’s 
plan to steal the eggs, Pearson tries to reassure   him. [Mr. Pearson: “I’ve done it before, in 
Sumatra. It’s easy.”] He’s probably right, but he’s likely referring to crocodiles, who 
are native to Sumatra and also bury their eggs. In another camp mission, Arthur can go 
rustling with Uncle, who mentions where   he sourced his information. [Uncle: “The barkeep 
there gossips like a fishwife.”] This was a fairly common phrase, but perhaps more common was the 
alternative “swears like a fishwife”, since the   idea is that fishwives were loud and foul-mouthed. 
The first variant of this appeared in 1523. [Arthur: “How old are you anyway?”] [Uncle: 
“Let’s just say I was born sometime between the fall of ’49 and the fall of Rome.”] This 
is probably accurate, since Uncle appears to be somewhere between the ages of 50 and 
1,423, but it’s impossible to say for sure. Unfortunately, one of the companion 
side missions is with Micah. [Micah:   “I want this whole damn shitshow…”] 
Both of these individual words were in usage for a while, but the earliest 
known combined version is around 1976,   in an English translation of comments made by 
a member of the Red Army Faction. Of course, colloquial words—especially those with 
profanity—typically originate long before   their first published usage, but for Micah to be 
using this 77 years before then is fascinating. There’s one more companion activity 
back at camp—another stagecoach robbery,   this time with Lenny. Ultimately, it turns 
out to be a set-up—a trap set by the company to catch robbers on the road. There’s not a huge 
amount of anecdotal evidence of this happening,   but there’s one particular story that’s quite 
interesting, despite not being too similar. In 1879, after it was noticed that some Colorado 
stagecoaches were being consistently robbed, the sheriff conceived a plan to catch the bandit 
by leaking information about a fake shipment. When   the bandit appeared, the lawmen shot and killed 
them, only to discover, upon unmasking them, that it was actually the sheriff’s wife. Out 
of shame, they buried the body there and then,   and the grave still exists. There’s no actual 
evidence of that particular sheriff’s existence or of any stagecoach robberies at that time, so the 
story is disputed, but it’s an interesting tale,   nonetheless—and the idea of the trap 
itself is not too farfetched anyway. In another optional mission, Strauss, of course, 
has some debts for Arthur to collect. [Arthur: “So   you’ll be joining us in Tahiti?”] [Strauss: “I 
rather fancied Australia. A similar kind of people to us.”] The accuracy here really depends on what 
he’s trying to say. If he’s banking on the fact   that Australians are still convicts, then he’s 
sorely mistaken. The Constitution of Australia was ratified about a year after the events here and 
came into effect on the 1st of January 1901—along it came the First Prime Minister and the first 
ministry. Not too dissimilar to the United States,   it was already a land of laws, so Strauss 
would likely have been rather disappointed. If he’s specifically speaking ethnically, then 
he’s not entirely wrong. It’s said that almost   60% of the Australian population were Europeans 
in 1850, and when the first national census was taken in 1901, roughly 20% of all people in 
Australia—almost 90% of all foreign-born people in the country—were from Europe, the United States, 
or Canada, though it is important to note that a   lot of these statistics often underestimated or 
ignored the Indigenous Australian population. One of the debtors Arthur seeks to recover 
money from, Winton Holmes, is tracking a   cougar. [Winton Holmes: “It’s rare… lilly white 
coat… the pelt’ll more than cover what I owe.”] He’s probably right, considering how rare white 
cougars actually are. There was one young male   white cougar spotted in photographs in a Brazilian 
national park in 2013, but that’s about it. This cougar has leucism, a genetic mutation that 
turns most of its body white; this same condition exists in several other species of animals too.
[Winton Holmes: “This one’s rare as hen’s teeth.”] This one’s a fairly old phrase and was considered 
as such even in 1890—and a logical one too, considering hen do not have teeth. It was used 
fairly often around this time. One paper around   this time claimed that a comparable phrase in 
Hawaii was “as rare as a plover’s nest”, though that one seemed to have less staying power—which 
seems logical, considering plover’s do have nests. [Winton Holmes: “There’s a cougar in here, 
and I bet she’s white as virgin cotton.”]   The interesting thing about “virgin cotton” 
is that it’s also known as “greige cotton”, meaning “grey cotton”. It actually becomes 
whiter during the bleaching process. During this chapter, back in Valentine, Arthur 
encounters two brothers, Proetus and Acrisius, fighting to gain the love and attention of Helen. 
Interestingly, Proetus and Acrisius are also the   names of twin brothers in Greek mythology, who 
were said to have quarrelled even in the womb. Their quarrel continued into when Acrisius was the 
King of Argos; eventually, they decided to split   and share the kingdom, with Proetus ruling Tiryns.
Based on this, then, it’s logical that Helen is based on Helen of Troy, said to have been the most 
beautiful woman in the world and whose abduction   essentially started the Trojan War. Interestingly, 
her surrogate father, Tyndareus, was actually a descendent of Acrisius—his great-great-grandson.
[Acrisius: “You can tell he’s not human because of his beady red eyes and his vestigial 
tail.”] Interestingly enough, the coccyx or tailbone is considered the “remnant of a 
lost tail”. All mammals have a tail at some   point in development—and, incredibly rarely, a 
short tail-like structure is present at birth in humans. So rare, in fact, that there 
were only 23 recorded cases of humans   born with this between 1884 and 1988.
[Proetus: “I look like that milksop there, but ‘tis no matter.”] The word 
“milksop”—literally referring to a “piece   of bread soaked in milk” and figuratively 
to a man “devoid of manliness”—originates around the 13th to 15th centuries.
[Proetus: “Shoot a bottle off my head, like William Tell.”] William Tell is a folk hero 
of Switzerland—an expert crossbow marksman—first referenced in the White Book of Sarnen in 
the late 15th century. According to legend,   in November 1307, he shot an apple off his son’s 
head, forced to do so as punishment for not paying respect to his superior. Interestingly, 
there’s an opera (based on a play) that   draws on the legend of William Tell, and the 
last section of its very well-known overture is commonly known as the theme song to the 
popular Old West character the Lone Ranger. [Proetus: “He would’ve been better off staying 
at prep school…”] In the U.S., these refer to preparatory schools: basically, high school 
but focused on preparing for university,   essentially as a feeder school for university. 
Some of the earliest include Phillips Academy in Massachusetts and Phillips Exeter Academy 
in New Hampshire, both often considered   feeder schools for Harvard University.
[Proetus: “…or going to the seminary.”] Interestingly, Phillips Academy also 
housed the Andover Theological Seminary,   one of the oldest theological seminaries in the 
United States—a seminary being an educational facility focused on theology and scripture.
[Proetus: “Punch us both, as hard as you can. You’ll break his glass jaw…”] As the name 
suggests, a “glass jaw” refers to a weak jaw, one lacking the ability to absorb much force. One 
of the first written instances was in 1904—but, as it was presented without further 
explanation or clarification,   this likely means it was a familiar term 
around this time, so a logical inclusion here. [Acrisius: “I got a proper chin, not like that toe 
rag.”] Unsurprisingly, this originally referred to rags—strips of cloth—that people (often convicts) 
would wear on their toes, often in lieu of socks; it was first recorded in 1864 in this context. 
It soon became known as a term of abuse,   particularly in the UK, first in 1875. 
Interestingly, it’s often written as “tow rag” with a ‘w’, which is regularly seen 
as incorrect; however, the original printing   of the phrase in 1856 was spelled this way.
[Acrisius: “He’s a troll. That’s why we found him here: he escaped from his bridge.”] Trolls 
are part of Nordic folklore and Norse mythology, dating at least to a Prose Edda book written 
around the 13th century. Trolls being found   under bridges are thought to date to the story 
“Three Billy Goats Gruff”, a Norwegian fairy tale published in the 1840s, wherein a troll attempts 
to outsmart three male goats in order to stop them   from crossing a bridge. Based on the publication 
history, then, it’s a logical reference. Speaking of brothers, back in Saint Denis, Arthur 
meets Brother Dorkins, who has some concerns about   the pawnbroker. [Brother Dorkins: “Saint Denis is 
acting as a staging post for shipping slaves out to some of the islands.”] Unfortunately, it seems 
that the slave trade did continue after the Civil   War, especially where some of the islands are 
concerned. The primary Cuban slave trade continued until 1867 and did not systematically end until 
chattel slavery was abolished in 1886. Meanwhile, Guam—which was captured by the U.S. in 
1898—didn’t abolish slavery until 1900. In the second mission for Brother Dorkins, 
Arthur meets the wonderful Sister Calderón.   Nuns in particular have quite a long history 
in New Orleans, dating back at least 1726, when King Louis XV of France ordered 
that nuns should go to New Orleans,   where they would establish a hospital for 
the poor and sick and provide education for the young and wealthy. The following 
year, a mother superior, eight nuns,   a novice, and two postulants set sail, 
arriving in August 1727. Before long, they established the Ursuline Academy, the oldest 
operating school for girls in the United States. Back at Shady Belle, Dutch tries to convince Hosea 
to take revenge against Angelo Bronte. [Dutch:   “Now, I know his type. He is a vindictive little 
power broker who rules by fear.”] The term “power broker”—meaning one who “exerts influence on the 
distribution of political power”—is an interesting   one in this time period, since it doesn’t actually 
appear in any publication until 1961, in a book by Theodore H. White. The only prior usage is 
of a different meaning—like one from 1887, referring to someone whose job it is to sell 
“power” or electricity. Perhaps that’s what   Dutch thought Bronte was doing all this time.
[Dutch: “Before the year is out, we are gonna be harvesting mangoes in Tahiti.”] 
Yes, mangoes are grown in Tahiti, and the rest of French Polynesia—in relative 
abundance too, alongside other fruits and   vegetables like bananas, pineapples, and taro.
There are a few more quotes of interest in this mission. [Dutch: “Feels like Hosea’s 
lost his spine.”] This one dates to   at least 1904, so it would make sense here.
[Arthur: “We just got a lot of pots on the boil.”] This one doesn’t actually appear in print 
until 1981, but it’s a relatively simple concept, so its usage here isn’t completely unbelievable.
[Arthur: “Just feels like we’re on borrowed time again.”] Interestingly, “borrowed days” was 
originally used to refer to the first eleven   days of May in 17th century England, since, in 
the Old-Style calendar, these days belonged to April. An alternative interpretation—particularly 
in Ireland and Scotland—refers to the last three days of March, said to have been “borrowed” 
from April and particularly chaotic in their   weather. “Borrowed time” refers to time 
borrowed from Death; the term was known in the U.S. by the 1880s and was defined 
in The English Dialect Dictionary in 1898. In this mission, Arthur and Dutch make their 
way to Lagras, a bayou settlement to the north   of Saint Denis. These areas actually exist in the 
Southern United States, and are especially known around Louisiana—in fact, the word “bayou” entered 
the English language through Louisiana French,   though it originated from the Choctaw word 
“bayok”. Bayous, often just called “swamps”, are shallow, stagnant bodies of water. In 
Louisiana, bayous were formed through outlets and   inlets from the Mississippi River over thousands 
of years. Many of them—and the communities that lived on them—disappeared throughout the twentieth 
century, partly due to flooding and partly to the   manual redirection of water washing them away.
Common residents of bayous are Creoles and Cajuns, due in part to the fact that several early bayou 
settlements were established by Louisiana Creoles. The word “Creole” simply meant to be “born in 
the New World”—so, essentially, if one were born   in Louisiana, practiced Catholicism, and spoke 
a Latin-based language like French or Spanish, they were considered Creole, regardless of their 
race. After the Civil War, however, the term’s usage to refer specifically to native-born black 
people was revived, as they wanted to distinguish   themselves from freed African slaves. As a 
result, white Creoles generally abandoned their traditional identity, hence the misconception 
that Creoles are exclusively black or mixed. That the bayous in the game are seemingly 
associated with economic disadvantage is   neither a mistake nor an inaccuracy. The local 
economic collapse and depression that followed the Civil War from the 1860s, especially 
the collapse of agricultural industries,   left many Cajuns poverty-stricken and 
isolated. Some historians noted that Cajuns were so isolated and economically 
disadvantaged that most did not notice the   Great Depression in the 1920s and 30s; such was 
the case with much of rural south Louisiana. When Arthur arrives in Lagras, Dutch introduces 
him to Thomas. [Dutch: “It is good to see you, my   friend.”] [Thomas: “Hello, Mr. Dutch.”] Prefixing 
a white person’s name with titles like “Boss” or “Captain”—or, if they’re a little more well 
known, “Mister” or “Miss”—was largely expected   of black people around this time: essentially a 
replacement of the term “Master” used by slaves. Interestingly, in the south—or, at least, 
in some southern communities—using “Mister”,   “Mrs”, and “Miss” is a sign of respect towards 
elders, especially black elders who came from the Jim Crow South. Unsurprisingly, white people would 
intentionally avoid using these prefixes for black people to reinforce their supposed inferiority. In 
fact, this came up in a legal case in the 1960s; when Mary Hamilton was arrested in 1963, she 
refused to answer the judge’s questions until   he addressed her with the same level of respect 
that he did white people, instead of simply referring to her as “Mary”. This led to a Supreme 
Court case, often referred to as “Miss Mary”,   in which her contempt charges were reversed.
Before long, Arthur, Dutch, and Thomas go to check the crayfish traps. Crayfish—also referred to as 
crawfish, among many other names—are found in high quantities in south-eastern North America, and 
in 1983, Louisiana declared it the official state crustacean. Around this time, it produced 90% of 
the crayfish in the world, and in 2018 contained 93% of all crawfish farms in the United States. 
Within the state, they’re also known to be located in the bayous—so, of course, their existence 
in this mission is completely unsurprising.  As for the crayfish traps themselves: 
lobster traps were invented by Ebenezer Thorndike of Massachusetts in 1808 and 
looked pretty similar to the ones used   in the game, more than 90 years later.
[Thomas: “I love it out here. Peaceful, nobody bothering you none. ‘Cept for the Night 
Folk sometimes.”] The Night Folk essentially appear to be an incredibly fictionalised depiction 
of voodoo folklore, borrowing some voodoo   mythology and practices and, of course, adding a 
lot of violence. Geographically, this makes sense, since Louisiana Voodoo was known to have a 
following in the 19th century. It appears to have   taken several elements from Haitian Vodou too.
In Haitian Vodou culture, there’s a celebration known as Fèt Gede, the “Festival of the Dead”, 
and as part of this event, several celebrants   cover their face in white powder—a familiar 
image for those who know of the Night Folk. After splitting up to look for Thomas’s friend, 
Arthur manages to find him. [Arthur: “I got the skiff!”] The word “skiff”—referring to 
small rowing or sailing boats—was referenced in British media as early as 1670. In America, 
it refers specifically to small fishing boats, used in literature such as Moby-Dick in 1851, and 
the much-later The Old Man and the Sea in 1953. Interestingly, the boat in the game is 
more likely referred to as a pirogue,   a small boat often associated with 
Louisiana and its marshland—though, considering Arthur is not from Lemoyne or 
the marsh, his vocabulary is understandable. Towards the end of this mission, of course, 
the group encounter the legendary bullgator,   a monstrously large alligator. The largest 
alligator ever recorded was claimed to have been found in Louisiana in 1890, measuring 
more than 19 feet (or almost 6 metres) and allegedly weighing around 2,000 pounds (or 
over 900 kilograms)—though the credibility   of this feat has been questioned. More 
recently, the largest verified alligator is known as the Stokes Alligator, killed 
in Alabama in 2014 and measuring almost   16 feet (or close to 5 metres) and weighing 
over 1,000 pounds (or about 450 kilograms). Interestingly, the legendary alligator 
in the game—like most other legendary   animals—is bright white, possibly due to 
the aforementioned genetic mutation leucism. Jules gets bitten by the alligator, but 
thankfully the group are able to get him   back to shore. [Thomas: “Feed him garlic for 
the infection.”] Though some might believe this to be a myth, garlic actually works 
against infections and has been used as   treatment for digestive and respiratory 
issues for at least around 4,000 years. On a similar note, in this area, Arthur can run 
into the wildlife photographer Albert Mason,   helping him capture photographs of alligators. 
[Albert: “Did you know that in the last fifty years, we’ve killed ninety percent?”] While 
it would be difficult to ascertain a precise   statistic, especially around this time, his 
general sentiment is accurate. [Albert: “Last year, they brought 10,000 skins out of the 
swamps of Lemoyne alone.”] Some conservationists estimated that from Louisiana, around 3 to 3.5 
million alligator skins were sold between 1880 and 1933: approximately 60,000 per year. In 1881, 
three people in Assumption Parish, Louisiana, alone, killed 9,000 alligators. They were hunted 
and poached unsustainably around this time, and by 1898, were said to have become scarce. Further 
into the 20th century, fewer alligators were taken: between 1939 and 1960, the yearly average 
had dropped to less than 20,000 skins sold. [Albert: “Seventeen feet… nineteen 
feet… twenty-one feet with a five-foot   head … in the seventies, eighties.”] This matches 
the stories. In 1854, a man claimed to have killed a gator in Pascagoula Bay, Mississippi, measuring 
21 feet long. In 1890, Marsh Island, Louisiana, apparently had a male alligator exceeding 19 
feet, though it was too large to relocate and   thus verify. Albert’s claims certainly have some 
legitimacy, at least as far as the stories go. Not too far away, in the wetlands of Bluewater 
Marsh, Arthur meets a man who complains about   the Night Folk. [Old Cajun: “Them Night Folk 
would put me on a pike they got their paws on me. Hang me up on a hardwood hammock!”] A hardwood 
hammock is a canopy habitat wherein the trees form shade due to their close proximity. They’re found 
in Southern Florida and its flooded grasslands,   the Everglades, whereas the bayous of Red Dead 
Redemption 2 are mostly inspired by the wetlands of Louisiana—but it’s not unquestionable that 
they’re partly inspired by other southern   regions as well, including the Everglades.
The game refers to this man as “Old Cajun”. Cajun usually refers to descendants of Acadian 
exiles who moved to Louisiana in the eighteenth   century—“Cajuns” being the Anglo corruption of 
“Acadians”—but it’s also sometimes used more broadly as a cultural term, not strictly referring 
to Acadian descent. By the early 19th century, many Acadian planters considered 
“Cajun” or “Acadian” degrading,   and, to avoid the social stigma associated with 
poor Cajuns, instead identified as “Creoles”. By the 1870s, some people associated 
the word “Cajun” with “white trash”,   referring to poor Creoles living in the bayou or 
prairie. According to historian Carl Brasseaux, the term “Cajun … became a socioeconomic 
classification for the multicultural amalgam   of several culturally and linguistically 
distinct groups”. So, based on at least one of the definitions of the word, this man 
almost certainly does fall under the word “Cajun”. His clothing appears accurate, too, at 
least based on the Cajuns’ dependence on   manufactured clothing at the time; they’re often 
depicted with a shirt underneath their overalls, but the climate and context of this mission 
make this seem like a pretty logical alteration. Interestingly, around this area—and a little 
further south—Arthur can find birds known   as the Carolina parakeet, one of only a few 
parrot species native to the United States. Their distribution was quite wide, ranging 
from the mid-Atlantic coast to as far inland   as Nebraska and as far south as Florida, though 
their population began to decline in the 1800s, receding further west and further south, in 
tandem with European expansion. By the turn   of the 20th century—around the time the game is 
set—it was only found in Florida, South Carolina, and a few regions west of the Mississippi River. 
The last known wild Carolina parakeet was killed   in 1904, and the last in captivity died in 1918. 
It was declared extinct in 1939. Horrifically, Arthur can cause this extinction many 
years earlier—killing 25 parakeets   will cause them to stop spawning and 
declare them extinct. Nice one, Arthur. Further north in Bluewater Marsh, Arthur can 
encounter the ghost of Agnes Dowd. Based on   her dialogue from several encounters, it appears 
she had a son with a man her parents disapproved of. Her father later killed the man, and it’s 
implied that she then murdered her father,   and possibly also her mother and her 
son, before taking her own life. This may be partly inspired by the tale 
of La Llorona, the “crying woman”,   who is said to have drowned her three children 
who reminded her of her unfaithful husband. Legend says that she remains near water looking 
for her children, and those who hear her wail are   doomed to death. This is often used as a way 
to scare children away from bodies of water. Speaking of ghosts, outside of Rhodes at a very 
specific time, Arthur can encounter a ghost train. There’s an old U.S. folk tale of the ghost of 
Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train in New York; the   train itself had passed there in 1865. There have 
been plenty of other stories of ghost trains in the United States, too. In a similar tale dating 
to the late 19th century in Japan, it’s said that the occupants of trains late at night would hear a 
steam whistle blowing, prompting the conductor to   stop in fear of a crash—but no train ever came. At 
the break of dawn, those checking the tracks would find a big, dead tanuki lying on them. This tale 
spread in the country just as the railways did. Another creepy encounter back 
in Lemoyne is the vampire,   who Arthur can find after discovering five 
pieces of writing in Saint Denis. Tales of vampiric creatures have been documented in 
ancient civilisations and medieval folklore,   but the modern vampire seems to originate around 
the early 18th century in Europe. During the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century, most 
folklore beliefs turned to legend, but,   interestingly enough, belief in vampires actually 
increased, and led to a mass hysteria in Europe, possibly as a result of alleged vampire attacks in 
East Prussia in the 1720s. This also occurred in the Americas from the late 18th century, like in 
New England; several families believed their dead   relatives—especially those who had died from 
tuberculosis, or “consumption”—were vampires who were responsible for further sickness and 
death, so they removed their hearts. Physically, the vampire bears a striking resemblance to 
Count Orlok from the 1922 film Nosferatu. Back in the main story, with the preparation 
done, it’s time to hunt down Angelo Bronte. First, though, Dutch gives his opinion about men 
like Bronte and Cornwall. [Dutch: “In Tahiti,   to my understanding, folks feed ‘em to sharks…”] 
There are plenty of sharks around Tahiti and French Polynesia, so this may be true—though 
sharks generally don’t perceive humans as food,   nor is it believed that they actively target 
them, so to say that folks are “fed” to sharks is perhaps an exaggeration. There’s a story from 
1892 where two brothers snuck on board a ship and killed the captain and his crew before throwing 
their bodies overboard, where they were devoured   by sharks. It would appear that this happened 
around Honolulu, but, interestingly, there’s one newspaper that claims it was in Tahiti. That 
being said, it seems unlikely that the captain and   his crew were anything like Bronte or Cornwall, 
so probably not what Dutch was referring to. [Dutch: “Folks feed ‘em to sharks, rather 
than make them kings.”] He’s technically   correct—Tahitians didn’t make people kings or 
queens; they were born into it. The last king was Pōmare V, who was forced to abdicate 
after the annexation of Tahiti in 1890. On their way to Bronte’s mansion, Bill and Dutch 
have a tense conversation about Bill’s military   history. [Bill: “Them Indians were savages … 
Dutch, I saw things out there.”] [Dutch: “I don’t doubt you saw things, Bill, but your 
tiny little mind was too small to comprehend what you say. What you saw, was people who 
lost everything to savagery.”] In a way, they’re both right. It’s hard to blame Bill for 
having this opinion, since Americans and Europeans   were consistently fed stories to fear the Native 
Americans—most of them untrue or exaggerated—and he likely did witness lots of violence during his 
time in the military, as Native Americans tried   to fight back against the changes and violence 
forced upon them: events like the Meeker Massacre, in which a group of Utes, facing forced 
social reforms and encroachment on their land,   killed a government agent and his ten employees 
and took five women and children hostage. Their punishment was being branded criminals without 
trial, having their twelve-million-acre homeland   stolen from them, and being forced to relocate 
to a different state—and this applied, too, to the more than a thousand people who were 
not involved in the massacre in any way,   many of whom from a different band entirely.
In this way, then, Dutch is right: Bill seems unable to comprehend or acknowledge 
the savagery suffered by the Indigenous   populations—the massacres, the battles, the 
removals, the broken treaties. By some accounts, between 1492 and 1900 in the U.S., as many 
as around 12 million Indigenous people died. It doesn’t take long for the gang to capture 
Bronte, nor does it take long for Dutch to brag   about it. [Dutch: “All your men, all your money… 
it weren’t no match for a bunch of bumpkins.”] “Bumpkin” is basically a synonym for “yokel”, 
which was mentioned earlier. It’s originally   the word that the English used to describe 
the Dutch—that’s the Dutch people, not this Dutch—referring to them as “small, comic, and 
tubby”. In English, it appears to have originated   around the 16th century, and downgraded to 
“country bumpkins” by Lord Chesterfield in 1774. In a final effort to set himself free, Bronte 
offers the gang a substantial amount of money. [Bronte: “A thousand dollars to the man who 
kills him and sets me free.”] That’s equivalent   to over $38,000 today. Perhaps he should have 
thought about offering it earlier instead. In chapter four’s final adventure, the gang… well, 
Hosea can set it up. [Hosea: “We rob ourselves a bank, and within six weeks, we’re living life anew 
in a tropical idyll spending the last of our days as banana farmers?”] Regarding the time frame, 
assuming he’s referring to Australia or Tahiti, he’s not too far off. In 1854, there was a ship 
that travelled from New York to Australia in about eight weeks, and from Australia to Tahiti 
in less than two. It’s not unreasonable to expect   a slightly shorter travel period almost 50 years 
later—especially if it departs from the Western United States rather than the east.
As for becoming banana farmers,   he’s not far off here either. Tahiti is said 
to be the best place for Fe’i bananas to grow, and Australia has banana plantations in at least 
four of its eight states and territories, so if   they manage to pull this off, they’re in luck.
The bank that they rob—the Lemoyne National Bank—appears to pretty closely resemble the 
Louisiana State Bank, incorporated in 1818 and built within four years. It was Louisiana’s 
first state bank after being admitted to the   Union in 1812 and ran for almost 50 years 
before going out of business around 1870. The interiors of the buildings appear to match 
pretty closely, at least as far as the first-level   positioning goes, especially the circular 
banking room and the placement of the vault. This isn’t the only former bank in Louisiana 
that inspired a building in Saint Denis:   the Lemoyne Supreme Court appears to be inspired 
by the Bank of Louisiana, the construction of which was completed in 1826. After a fire in 1863, 
it required serious repair, and five years later, in 1868, it went bankrupt and ceased operation.
[Dutch: “This is America. You can always cut a deal.”] The oldest written reference 
of this phrase is around 1979,   though its oral usage is likely much older. In 
fact, an article by Bruce William Jones argues that it may have a history of nearly 4,000 
years, originally written in Biblical Hebrew,   specifically referring to the ancient act of 
cutting up an animal when entering an agreement with someone, as referenced in old texts.
At the end of the mission, after the bank robbery goes wrong, some of the gang members 
jump aboard a ship called the Antenor. Curiously, Antenor was the name of a counsellor to King 
Priam of Troy during the Trojan War, who,   according to some sources, was a traitor, 
allowing the enemy inside the gates. On the ship, the group are told that they’ll 
be heading to Cuba in a few days. [Bill: “So   you reckon they’ll follow us to Cuba?”] [Dutch: 
“Like Colonel Waxman on a jolly?”] By “jolly”, he’s presumably referring to the jolly boat, 
a small boat used to transport the crew to and   from the ship. And by “Colonel Waxman”, he’s 
referring to Colonel Thaddeus Waxman. Waxman is pretty clearly based on Theodore Roosevelt—some 
consider his name a reference to Robin Williams’s   character in Night at the Museum: a wax mannequin 
of Roosevelt come to life. The background of Waxman’s cigarette card features a stuffed 
moose, a likely reference to the official mascot   of Roosevelt’s progressive Bull Moose Party.
Both Waxman and Roosevelt led the Rough Riders in the Battle of San Juan Hill; in the game, this 
was Guarmans rebelling against Cuba, whereas in   real life it was Cubans rebelling against Spain. 
Sometime after the events of the game, Waxman becomes president following the assassination 
of sitting president Alfred MacAlister—clearly   a stand-in for William McKinley, who, 
after himself being assassinated in 1901, was replaced by Theodore Roosevelt.
Going back to the jolly: Roosevelt didn’t   actually travel to Cuba on a jolly. After 
he departed the main ship, he travelled on Vixen—an ex-yacht—to the Cuban shore. Perhaps 
Waxman preferred a more low-key entrance. After Arthur miraculously manages 
to meet up with some of the gang,   Dutch explains where they are. [Dutch: “We are 
on the island of Guarma.”] Guarma seems to be an amalgamation of several Caribbean islands 
and perhaps some Central American countries.   One of these islands is likely Cuba, despite 
the fact that Cuba also exists in the game. Interestingly, Guamá—spelled slightly 
differently, as it was perhaps earlier   in the game’s development—is also the name 
of a municipality in Cuba. It’s also the name of a Taíno chief who led a rebellion against 
Spanish colonisers in Cuba in the 1520s and 1530s. [Dutch: “It’s a… old sugar plantation island.”] 
Sugar plantations were a significant part of the Caribbean economy from the 18th to 20th centuries; 
in fact, by the late 1700s, the world centre of sugar was considered to be Saint-Domingue, now 
known as Haiti. By 1789, it was the wealthiest and most prosperous colony in the Caribbean, producing 
around 40% of the total sugar imported by Britain and France. There were so many sugar plantations 
at the time that the slaves were managed by other   slaves called commanders. Interestingly, it was 
around this time that the commanders of the rich sugar plantations gathered and swore an oath to 
rise up against their white owners—ultimately   leading to the Haitian Revolution. Considering 
the fact that a similar uprising takes place on Guarma in the game—partly assisted by Haitian 
pirates—a connection here would be unsurprising. Cuba also became more well known for its sugar 
production around this time, especially as some   sought a replacement to Haiti following the 
revolution. Annual sugar production in the country rose from 14,000 tonnes in 1790 to more 
than 34,000 in 1805, 55,000 in 1820, almost one million in 1895, and over five million tonnes by 
1925—a significant percentage of world production. It isn’t long before the group are caught 
and forced to walk as a chain gang. The   best-known early usage of chain gangs was in 
the convict era of Australia—around 80 years onwards from the 1780s. They were introduced 
to the U.S. after the Civil War as a way   for free work to be performed by prisoners 
and abolished in every state by the 1950s. Speaking of Australia: while on Guarma, Arthur can 
hear a particularly unique bird call. [Bird call] This is the sound of an eastern whipbird. [Bird 
call] They’re generally found in temperate forests like rainforests and often near water, so Guarma 
seems like a good candidate for them… except that they’re native to Australia—specifically the 
eastern states of Queensland, New South Wales,   and Victoria—so maybe not entirely accurate, 
even if their calls are quite beautiful and unique. Perhaps a reference from the developers 
to another country Dutch considers escaping to… In one of the next missions on Guarma, 
Arthur and Dutch seek to free Javier from   the compound at Aguasdulces—Spanish 
for freshwater or “sweet water”, and also the name of several real places in 
Mexico, Panama, Spain, Uruguay, and the U.S., as well as the name of a Timucua people 
of Spanish Florida until around the 17th   century. Interestingly, the compound bears a 
striking resemblance to the Cafetal La Isabelica, a two-story mansion located in Southeast Cuba. 
The building was constructed in the early 19th century as a coffee plantation. It 
became a museum in the 1960s, and,   alongside some other remaining coffee plantations, 
was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000. To distract the attention of the 
guards, Dutch causes an explosion   in the warehouse using sugar and dust. 
This has actually happened several times; one somewhat recent example—possibly one that 
Dutch was aware of—was in Chicago in March 1890, where a sugar refinery explosion killed nine 
and injured at least 17. In more modern times, a sugar refinery explosion in February 2008 killed 
14 and injured 36 in Port Wentworth, Georgia. The uniforms worn by the guards in this 
mission appear to mostly resemble Rayadillo,   the military uniforms worn by Spanish soldiers 
in the 19th century. They were most notably worn in the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico in the 
1880s and 1890s; the most significant difference in the game is the use of red around the collar 
and cuffs, but they’re otherwise fairly similar.  On that note, it appears that Alberto Fussar, 
the governor of Guarma, is or was also a proud member of the Spanish military. How exactly 
this is meant to work is unclear, considering   the Spanish–American War ended with Spanish 
defeat in 1898 (before the events of the game), but it’s not entirely impossible that slightly 
alternative events occurred in Guarma. His uniform   and medals—like the Cross of Military Merit, 
Commander of the Order of Charles III, Order of Alcántara, among others—indicate his membership or 
allegiance to the Spanish government and military. Considering his reputation for cruelty and greed, 
this is unsurprising; the Spanish–American War was largely prompted by views of the Spanish rule 
of Cuba, such as the reconcentration policy,   which saw several hundreds of thousands of people 
(perhaps up to a third of the Cuban population) moved into concentration camps, of whom at least 
around 170,000—one-tenth of the population—died. In another mission, as Arthur is seeking to help 
the Guarman rebels, he is shot with a tranquiliser   dart. The origin of these may well be related to 
that of the poison arrow, which is thought to have existed for thousands of years, but the history 
of hypnotic drugs—those typically intended to   initiate or sustain sleep—is much more recent. The 
first to be used specifically as a hypnotic was actually introduced in the 1800s. However, these 
typically don’t take effect immediately—at the   very least, they usually take a few minutes—though 
time technically moves faster in the game anyway, and waiting several minutes likely wouldn’t 
make for the most interesting gameplay. What is used to shoot the dart at Arthur in 
unseen, but it was almost certainly a blowgun,   which had existed for at least hundreds of 
years. It certainly wasn’t a tranquiliser gun, since these wouldn’t exist for another 60 years. 
In the 1950s, New Zealander Colin Murdoch wanted a better way to capture and restrain animals, 
and thus the modern tranquiliser gun was born. There are a few minor things said in this 
mission that are of some interest. One of   the guards describes Guarma as the “island 
God forgot”; interestingly, this is a term used by Charles B. Stilson in his 1922 book 
of the same name, but in it he’s referring   to islands in the Pacific, not the Caribbean.
A little later, one of the guards speaks of his dislike of socialists and his enjoyment of their 
suffering. Historically speaking, such an opinion   would not be uncommon, especially if he is a 
soldier from Spain. An anarchist movement was rising in the country throughout the 19th century, 
generally as a way to combat state terrorism;   as part of this, there were several events that 
may have prompted hatred from opposers, like the bombing of the Liceu theatre in 1893 which killed 
around two dozen people, and the assassination of prime minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo in 
1897. Importantly, these events were carried out by anarchists—not necessarily self-proclaimed 
socialists—but there was often little distinction made between the two by those opposed to it.
Another guard suggests that they go check “if the American has squealed yet”. The 
word “squeal” has existed for some time,   with the meaning “to cry out” originating as early 
as around 1300—but as a reference to “inform on another” person, this was first recorded in 1865, 
so fairly recent compared to its usage here. The next mission is called “Hell Hath No Fury”. 
This is a bit of an old phrase, originating in 1697 in the play The Mourning Bride by English 
playwright William Congreve. Interestingly, it was said a little differently on its first usage: 
“Heav’n has no rage, like love to hatred turn’d, Nor hell a fury, like a woman scorn’d”.
In this mission, Arthur and the gang meet Hercule at Cinco Torres (Spanish for “Five 
Towers”), a former military fort. Based on its appearance and location, it might be fair to 
assume that the fort is based on Morro Castle,   a fortress that guards the entrance to the 
harbour in Havana, Cuba. Morro Castle was built in the late 1500s and early 1600s as a 
response to raids on the city, and the capture   of the fortress in 1762 led to temporary British 
occupation of the city. While it wasn’t used for anything this significant afterwards, it wasn’t 
completely abandoned, like Cinco Torres on Guarma; a lighthouse was added in the 1840s, and 
the castle can still be visited today. Another possible inspiration is the 
similarly-named El Morro in Old San Juan,   Puerto Rico, ordered by King Charles I of Spain, 
in 1539; it would continue to be built for the next 350 years. It was similarly not abandoned, 
though; it came under American occupation in 1898 and, after World War II, became part a historic 
site administered by the National Park Service. Hercule tells the gang that they’ll be 
forced to wait a little while longer before   leaving. [Hercule: “Fussar has called in the navy 
from Cuba.”] Interestingly, the game actually takes place in the brief period in which Cuba 
was under the rule of the United States: in 1898, President McKinley signed a resolution 
asserting the U.S.’s control over Cuba,   and a military government was installed on the 1st 
of January 1899; the constitution of the Republic of Cuba wasn’t adopted until 1901 and took effect 
in 1902. So, when Colonel Fussar calls in the navy from Cuba, he’s likely corresponding with the 
military government of the U.S. in Cuba—which   makes sense, considering his connections to 
the mayor and Angelo Bronte in Saint Denis. It soon becomes clear exactly what Fussar called 
in from Cuba. [Bill: “That’s a goddamn warship.”] It appears to be an ironclad warship—which makes 
sense around this time. It’s said that “the age   of the ironclad” begun with the Crimean War in 
the 1850s, and they were used during the American Civil War from 1861. The first battle between 
ironclads took place the following year at the Battle of Hampton Roads in Virginia. This had 
an immediate effect on navies around the world,   leading to the increased development of 
ironclads—and the use of some of them in Cuba and South America—so the fact that one appears in 
Guarma 37 years later is entirely unsurprising. The model of the ironclad in the game appears 
to be somewhat of an amalgamation between   the CSS Virginia and the USS Monitor, 
the two participants of the Battle of Hampton Roads—specifically, the triangular 
shape, funnel, and guns of the Virginia,   and the armoured turret of the Monitor. 
Both ships were out-of-service in 1862—the Virginia was destroyed in May and the 
Monitor capsized and sank in December—so   perhaps a little outdated for 1899 but an 
interesting historical reference, nonetheless. The cannon that Arthur uses to destroy the warship 
appears to be a Hotchkiss revolving cannon,   invented by Benjamin B. Hotchkiss in the 1870s and 
used by several nations before too long—including the U.S. Army. It is often compared to the Gatling 
gun but has several differences—most notably the size of its rounds. It was often used as a naval 
gun and could fire about 15 shots per minute. In the last mission on Guarma, there’s one 
minor comment worth noting. [Micah: “They   got him trussed up like a hog.”] There 
are several alternatives to this phrase; one of the earliest and most common 
is “trussed up like a turkey”,   which appears at least as early as 1893. “Trussed 
up like a hog” appears as early as 1905, and an alternative with “chicken” as early as 1912, 
though their first usages likely predate this. Back in the United States, Arthur finds the 
gang held up in Lakay, a small area southeast of   Lagras. Its close proximity to Lagras makes sense, 
too; in Haitian Creole, the word “lakay” means “home”. In this area, Arthur can find a shrunken 
head, an artefact that is typically used for ritual or trophy purposes—and commonly associated 
with voodoo, which makes sense in this area. With most of the gang back together, some choice 
words are said. [Micah: “Cheerful nymph of the   prairie, wasn’t you, Abigail?”] A nymph is a 
minor female deity in ancient Greek folklore, generally regarded as a personification of 
nature—and sometimes known for their promiscuity.   The prairie, meanwhile, is an area of grassland 
commonly associated with the American West—simple and perhaps unrefined. A cruel and misogynistic 
way to insult Abigail, her perceived intelligence, and her former occupation. Interestingly—but 
almost certainly unrelated—the prairie nymph is the name of a flower native to South 
America and the southern United States. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long for the 
Pinkertons to find the gang’s hideout. Notice   how Agent Milton describes the state of West 
Elizabeth. [Agent Milton: “On behalf of Cornwall Kerosene and Tar, and the Commonwealth 
of West Elizabeth…”] This is interesting, since it seems to be the only time it’s referenced 
as such in the game. Only four of the 50 states in   the U.S. use the name “Commonwealth”: Kentucky, 
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. These titles are maintained from when they were granted 
statehood, but they’re mostly used symbolically,   as a way to demonstrate that the states have 
a government based on the “common consent of the people”. According to Agent Milton, it 
seems West Elizabeth is one such state. The Commonwealth of West Elizabeth may even be based 
on the Commonwealth of Virginia, itself believed   to be named after the “Virgin Queen”, Elizabeth I. 
“Commonwealth” is also used by two unincorporated territories of the United States—the Northern 
Mariana Islands and Puerto Rico—though it was only   the latter at the time the game is set, and it 
was used for the Commonwealth of the Philippines when it was a U.S. territory from 1935 to 1942.
This mission really allows the first look at how brutal the Pinkertons are, and how desperate 
Milton is becoming. [Agent Milton: “Give them   to a count of five, then give ‘em everything … 
Actually, let ‘em have it.”] This likely isn’t based off of nothing. In real-life, Allan 
Pinkerton took on the case of outlaw Jesse   James as a personal vendetta. In January 1875, 
the Pinkertons, led by Mr. Pinkerton himself, threw an incendiary device into James’s 
homestead, but he wasn’t home. Instead,   the explosion killed his younger half-brother 
Archie, and blew off the right arm of his mother Zerelda. Pinkerton continued to deny that it 
was intentional arson, but several years later, biographer Ted Yeatman found a letter written 
by Pinkerton declaring his intention to “burn   the house down”. Sounds like a familiar 
character. [Agent Milton: “I shall hunt you to the ends of the earth, and the end of time!”]
In this mission, the Pinkertons bring—and Arthur later commandeers—a Maxim gun. While the 
mission objectives refer to this correctly,   the game’s Gold Medal Objectives refer to this as 
a Gatling gun—as does Sadie: [Sadie: “Get on that gatling gun, Arthur!”]—and it’s understandable, 
especially from Sadie: they’re similar looking   guns capable of firing continuously. However, 
a Gatling gun is hand-cranked, whereas a Maxim gun—as seen in the game—is fully automatic. 
It was designed by Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim, patented in 1883, demonstrated in 1884, and 
first used in warfare in the 1880s and 1890s, so its usage here is perfectly appropriate, 
despite the mix-up of the name. A Gatling gun   would also be appropriate, predating the Maxim 
gun by about two decades. It was designed by Richard Jordan Gatling in the early 1860s, in the 
hopes that it would “supersede the necessity of   large armies, and consequently, exposure to 
battle and disease be greatly diminished”. At the start of chapter 5’s final mission, Arthur 
finds Dutch reciting a famous chess move. [Dutch: “White to D4, black to F5…”] Fittingly, this 
is actually known as the Dutch Defence; this specific move is the Semi-Leningrad Variation. It 
was first recommended in 1789, in a book by Elias Stein, and has been described as “one of the 
spiciest, most aggressive openings” in chess—a suitable description for the man of the same name.
Dutch’s phrasing of the moves is also interesting. He’s using algebraic notation, which was 
used in the 19th century, having existed   in some form since at least the 1730s, though 
it was generally limited to continental Europe, not really becoming the standard in the U.S. 
until around the 1970s. The more common notation   in English-speaking languages at the time was 
descriptive notation, using abbreviated language rather than numbers and letters—so, instead of 
“white to D4, black to F5”, he probably would have said something like “white to Q4, black 
to KB4” (or, when abbreviated, “P-Q4 P-KB4”). In this mission, Dutch tasks Arthur and Charles 
with finding a suitable location for a camp at   Roanoke Ridge. Like most locations in the game, 
Roanoke Ridge is likely an amalgamation of different real-life areas. Geographically, it’s 
likely based on the U.S. Interior Highlands—the Ouachita Mountains and Ozark Plateaus, one of the 
few mountainous regions between the western Rocky   Mountains and the eastern Appalachian Mountains, 
located north of New Orleans in Louisiana, just as Roanoke Ridge is north of Saint Denis in Lemoyne.
In terms of its name, history, and demography, though, Roanoke Ridge is a little closer 
to the cultural region known as Appalachia,   in the Eastern United States. First and foremost, 
the name “Roanoke” is closely associated with several areas in Appalachia: it’s the name of 
an independent city in the state of Virginia;   Roanoke Colony was an attempted English 
settlement in what is now North Carolina; and the Roanoke were a group of indigenous 
people, also located in North Carolina.  To outsiders, Appalachia is frequently 
associated with the coal mining industry. After the Civil War, industrialisation and 
railroad expansion brought more demand for coal,   and, despite the industry being vulnerable 
to labour strife and economic downturns, as well as injuries and deaths, it largely 
prevailed until innovations in mechanisation   after World War II forced a decline in mining in 
the region. Today, the mining industry employs around two percent of the Appalachian workforce.
In the game, one location frequently associated   with the coal mining industry is, unsurprisingly, 
Roanoke Ridge, especially the town of Annesburg, seen towards the end of this mission. Similar to 
the mining town of Colter seen at the beginning of   the game, Annesburg is a coal town; as the name 
suggests, it’s a type of town whose population consists mostly of miners and related workers. 
This is generally known as a company town,   one in which the employer owns the majority or 
entirety of the business and buildings—generally for industries like coal, lumber, and steel. 
It’s estimated that there were more than 2,500   company towns in the United States, and in 
1916, around a thousand companies housed 600,000 employees and their families; around 35% 
of employees were accommodated in company houses. Annesburg itself could be inspired by any number 
of the many coal towns on or near the Mississippi   River—just as Annesburg itself sits along the 
Lannahechee River. One notable example of one such town, though not quite as close to the 
Mississippi, is that of Buxton, Iowa, founded   in 1895 by Ben Buxton, president of Consolidation 
Coal Company. By the early 20th century, it was the largest coal town west of the Mississippi, 
with houses, schools, parks, a department store,   a post office, a baseball team, and more. 
After the peak of coal production in 1914, though, residents started to leave. By 1919, 
only 400 people remained; by 1932, the final mine was closed; and by 1936, the tracks and most 
buildings were removed. Perhaps Annesburg will see a similar fate after the events of the game.
Another interesting town in this area—now a city—is Montgomery, West Virginia. The town 
was called Coal Valley Post Office until 1890, and at one point in the early 20th century, it 
was a shipping centre for more than two dozen coal   operations, due in part to the construction of the 
nearby railroad. It’s also known for its placement along the Kanawha River—just as Annesburg is for 
its placement along the Lannahechee. On that note, there is also Homestead, Pennsylvania, located 
along the Monongahela River with a population   who mostly worked in the local steel mill owned 
by Andrew Carnegie, just as Leviticus Cornwall has a stake in the Annesburg mine. Homestead 
is perhaps best known for the strike in 1892,   during which workers sought to halt a 
wage decrease; about nine workers died, as did three of the 300 Pinkerton agents, and 
after some time and the arrival of 8,000-strong   state militia, the strike finally ended—a 
success for the owners, not for the workers. The name ‘Annesburg’ seems to match several 
other American towns and cities, like Gettysburg,   named after Samuel Gettys; Pittsburgh, named 
after William Pitt the Elder; and Harrisburg, named after John Harris, Sr. A lot of these places 
kept the ‘burg’ after becoming cities, despite it generally referring to boroughs. It’s also 
commonly used in German—‘burg’ being the German   word for ‘castle’—which makes sense considering 
Annesburg was established by German settlers, perhaps named after someone with the name ‘Anne’. 
Notably, it’s within the state of New Hanover,   which also has German connections, being 
the name of a large city in Germany, and the name of a royal house of German origins.
Also in this mission, Arthur and Charles encounter the Murfree Brood, a savage group known for 
being incredibly vicious and territorial.   These could be based on any number of murderous 
clans—fictional or otherwise. One such possibly fictional example is Sawney Bean, who was the 
head of a 45-member clan in 16th century Scotland said to have murdered (and cannibalised) 
more than 1,000 people over 25 years. At the end of the mission, Grimshaw demands that 
the gang get back to work. [Grimshaw: “Quit your   lollygagging…”] The first known usage of the 
word “lollygag” was in 1862, so well before the events here, but it was actually once 
used to refer specifically to displays of   affection or lovemaking—probably not how Grimshaw 
intended it here. [Grimshaw: “Get back to work!”] A bit further south, Arthur encounters a man 
who seemingly wants to return home. [Lemuel:   “Butchers Creek. Butchers Creek.”] [Arthur: 
“Is that where you’re from?”] [Lemuel: “Butchers Creek.”] Interestingly, there are 
several real-life locations with this name. One   such stream in South Dakota got its name from a 
fight that occurred there between Canadian Indians and Sioux. Another such stream in South Dakota 
was named after either a butcher and early settler   or a local cook, both of whom were nicknamed 
“Butch”. There’s also a stream in Missouri which was named after an early settler whose surname, 
Buecher, became “Butcher” when Americanised. And in Queensland, Australia, Butchers Creek is 
a suburb named as such after a massacre of   the local Ngajanji people—though the whitefellas 
tried to claim it went the other way, of course. After Arthur returns this man to Butcher Creek, 
he learns that his name is Lemuel. He’s told   this by a man named Obediah—and, later in the 
mission, he helps a man named Kain. Interestingly, these names are all related to religious 
texts in some way. Lemuel, a Hebrew name   meaning “belonging to God”, is the name of a 
biblical king mentioned in the Book of Proverbs, and the name of a man mentioned in the Book of 
Mormon. Obadiah, meaning “servant of God”, is the name of a prophet in the Hebrew Bible—considered 
the author of the Book of Obadiah. And Cain—though spelled slightly differently—is the name of 
a biblical figure in the Book of Genesis,   a son of Adam and Eve. Perhaps it’s no surprise 
that they believe the town is cursed, then. Speaking of which: when Arthur saves the 
townspeople from dogs, he’s shocked to   hear that they still believe they are cursed. 
[Arthur: “What are you talking about? It’s just sick dogs. Hydrophobia, or some other poison.”] 
“Hydrophobia” often refers historically to rabies, in which case Arthur’s theory is likely correct 
based on the dogs’ symptoms—though there’s modern   objection to using “hydrophobia” to refer to 
rabies as it only focuses on the aversion to water and not the disease’s other symptoms.
This mission features a man pretending to be a shaman who informs the town about their alleged 
curse. A shaman is someone who interacts with the   spirit world, typically for the purposes of 
healing or divination. By this definition, then, the man’s imitation of a 
shaman is not entirely inaccurate.  Notably, though, Obediah refers to this 
shaman as a “medicine man” at the end of the mission. [Obediah: “Now, the medicine man left 
some money there…”] In several Native American   tribes and communities, a medicine man is a 
spiritual leader, often for healing purposes. However, the term “shaman” often became synonymous 
with this position by non-natives, and by people   attempting to imitate their traditions for profit. 
It may be considered accurate in few cases, as traditions have evolved and some tribes 
and nations do have people who fit the shaman   description—but it doesn’t justify using the 
term as a generalisation, and some Native Americans consider it offensive or reductive.
[Shaman: “Dark charms possess the woods, I told you … I found one.”] These dark charms bear 
a striking resemblance to a God’s eye, a spiritual object in which yarn is woven onto a wooden cross, 
typically in multiple colours. These originated from the Huichol (and later the neighbouring 
Cora) people of Northwestern Mexico before   spreading to the United States—there is some 
evidence of the Navajo using them. Traditional ones are sold in the Southwest, especially 
around Arizona and New Mexico, where they are   most popular. These are meant to protect those 
who pray. Some Native American tribes believed they were symbolic of things unseen, and “the 
power to see those hidden from the naked eye”. [Arthur: “I think something’s going 
on in this holler.”] Unsurprisingly, this is an alternative form of “hollow”—meaning 
a “small valley between mountains”—that is used   colloquially in the United States, especially in 
Appalachia. Its first recorded usage was in 1845. [Obediah: “There is a dig on the other side of 
the hill there. There was a dig anyway; it’s closed now.”] In this context, of course, “dig” is 
referring to a mine. The first printed example in this context appears to be in The Daily News in 
1890—not too long before the game—referring to a strike by iron ore men in Cardiff, Wales. It’s 
also similar to the term “digs” or “diggings”, a common term for one’s lodgings or living 
quarters—possibly of the same origin. [Obediah: “I hereby release, absolve, 
and indemnify the aforementioned Roanoke Fuel Company.”] Interestingly, there was a 
company called Roanoke Ice & Fuel Company,   which started operation in Roanoke Rapids, North 
Carolina, around 1915. As its name suggests, it was focused on creating ice—unlike the company in 
the game. In its first advertisement, it reassured its ice would not contain ammonia—which, of 
course, is very different to the poison referred   to in the game, but an interesting disclosure 
from a company with this name, nonetheless. [Shaman: “The dig… all they found was 
arsenic and lead.”] In the United States, there are around 40,000 federal Superfund sites 
established to clean up areas contaminated with   hazardous substances; approximately 1,300 of 
these are on the priority list. At these sites, some of the most common contaminants include 
mercury, arsenic, and lead—often spread through,   among other methods, soil and groundwater. 
So, the contamination of this small mine, creek, and settlement at the turn of the 20th 
century is neither surprising nor historically   inaccurate. Nor is the location itself, as 
regions like Appalachia are known for their abundance of natural resources, the dependence 
on which often deepened the level of poverty. North of Butcher Creek, Arthur stumbles 
across a tent containing a man crying out   for help. [Murfree Brood: “Help me! The pox!”] 
This could refer to several diseases with the suffix “pox”; there are dozens. Perhaps the most 
well-known is smallpox, which would also be the   most likely in this time and place. The last 
major smallpox epidemic in the United States was in Boston from 1901 to 1903, which saw 
300 people die out of almost 1,600 cases. Also in this area, Arthur encounters a wild man 
who is naked and howling, like his wolf friends. While this man was a little bit older when he 
chose this lifestyle, there are several examples   of so-called “feral children” who were raised by 
animals, including wolves: like Dina Sanichar, who was found in a cave with wolves in India 
in 1867 at the age of six, and Marcos Rodríguez Pantoja, who was abandoned as a seven-year-old 
in 1953 and discovered at nineteen in 1965. In a slightly different but equally fascinating story, 
a Vietnamese man took his youngest son into the   jungle to flee the Vietnam War in 1973. They lived 
there in isolation in a treehouse; the son only knew a few words of the local Cor dialect. They 
were ultimately discovered four decades later,   in 2013. The father died in 2017 at the age of 
86, and the son of liver cancer in 2021 at 52. In several locations in the game, Arthur 
can encounter a man who is dubbed the “Mad   Preacher”. There are likely several real-life 
figures who may fit this description, but one interesting man is Lorenzo Dow, an American 
preacher who was given the nickname “Crazy   Dow”. He valued his nickname and felt it helped in 
bringing in larger congregations. His methods were apparently unconventional, but he was said to have 
“preached to more people, travelled more miles,   and consistently attracted larger audiences to 
camp meetings than any preacher of his day”. He and his wife would often not wash for some 
time and would wear clothes until they fell apart,   embracing poverty for the sake of gospel. He 
was said to have cursed the town of Jacksonboro, Georgia, for attacking him in opposition of his 
sermon—except for Seaborn Goodall, who had rescued   him. The town subsequently fell apart with winds, 
fires, and floods—except for Goodall’s house. In the streets of Saint Denis, Arthur begins 
coughing uncontrollably and passes out. A   kind stranger wakes him and directs him to 
the doctor’s office—Dr. Joseph R. Barnes, the city’s physician and surgeon. This name 
could, of course, be a simple coincidence,   but it would be unsurprising if it was inspired 
by Joseph K. Barnes, a physician who served as the 12th Surgeon General of the U.S. Army in the 
19th century, attended the deathbed of President   Abraham Lincoln and oversaw his autopsy, 
and later served in the chamber of the dying President James A. Garfield for several weeks.
Inside Barnes’s office are a few things of note: for example, the eye chart—known as the Snellen 
chart—which was developed by Dutch ophthalmologist   Herman Snellen and published in 1862. There’s also 
the radiator, the history of which is a little contentious but dates back to around the 1840s or 
50s; the design closest to the model seen today—as well as the one in the game—is known as the ‘Bundy 
Loop’, introduced by Nelson H. Bundy in 1872. Once inside, the doctor uses some tools to 
diagnose Arthur. First is his stethoscope, a tool first invented by René Laennec in 
Paris, France, in 1816, because he was not comfortable placing his ear directly onto a 
woman’s chest. The binaural stethoscope was   invented by Irish physician Arthur Leared in 
1851 and perfected by George Philip Cammann in 1852 for commercial production, so its 
inclusion here is entirely unsurprising. [Dr. Barnes: “Say ahh.”] When doctors do this, 
they’re often looking for discolouration or   swelling in the mouth or throat, which 
is likely the case here. Early versions of tongue depressors were made from redwood, 
balsa, pine woods; and around the Civil War,   some were also made of metal.
Interestingly, after checking Arthur, the doctor washes his hands. That someone would 
wash their hands in general is not especially   notable—physical cleansing had been performed 
for centuries—but the concept of specifically doing so in a doctor’s office (i.e., to combat 
germs) was a much more recent phenomenon. Perhaps the first to recognise the need to wash one’s 
hands was Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis,   whose experiments saw the mortality rate 
for new mothers in his ward drop from more than 18% to about 1%—but few believed him. He 
lost his job and was committed to an asylum, where he was beaten and died shortly thereafter 
in 1865 at the age of 47. Over the coming decades, his observations proved correct, and, by the turn 
of the century, handwashing became commonplace, not just for doctors but something 
that was recommended to everyone. Unfortunately, the news from the doctor 
is not good. [Dr. Barnes: “You got   tuberculosis. I’m really sorry for you, son, 
it’s a hell of a thing.”] Sadly, he’s right. In the 19th century, tuberculosis killed about 
a quarter of the adult population of Europe.   By the late 19th century, around 70–90% of 
urban populations in Europe and North American were infected with the bacteria that causes 
tuberculosis; and 80% of those who developed   active TB died of it. Latent tuberculosis—when 
a person is infected but asymptomatic and non-contagious—can last a lifetime, though it’s 
not surprising that recent events in Arthur’s   life may have prompted the disease’s reactivation.
Interestingly, one physician who was dedicated to studying tuberculosis was René Laennec, the 
aforementioned inventor of the stethoscope,   who died at the age of 45 after contracting 
the disease while studying infected bodies and contagious patients. The disease was first 
discovered to be contagious in 1869. Sadly, the first vaccines were only developed in the early 
20th century and first used on humans in 1921, over two decades after the events of the game.
The disease was most commonly known in the nineteenth century as “consumption”, based on the 
Latin ‘con’ (meaning “completely”) and ‘sumere’   (meaning “to take”). The word “tuberculosis” was 
still widely used at the time, including since 1882 for this disease in particular—when 
Robert Koch identified the bacillus that   causes tuberculosis—so the doctor’s usage here is 
historically accurate. It was also often known, more metaphorically, as “the romantic disease”; 
several artistic figures wrote of romance or   envy in relation to the disease—Edgar Allan 
Poe famously wrote “I would wish all I love to perish of that gentle disease”, despite his 
own mother having died from it (and later his   wife)—and many died of the disease themselves: 
John Keats, Emily Brontë, Franz Kafka. It’s said that the manner in which it adjusts how a person 
observes their surroundings made it somewhat   artistic—and while Arthur likely won’t attest 
to the disease’s artistry, the manner in which it adjusts his perspective is difficult to deny.
[Dr. Barnes: “Well the best thing is rest and… getting somewhere warm and dry, and taking it 
easy.”] In the latter half of the 1800s, there was a movement for sanitoriums to be founded to aid 
and potentially even cure tuberculosis patients. One such sanitorium was founded in Falkenstein 
in 1877 by Peter Dettweiler; nine years later, he published findings claiming that 132 of 1,022 
patients—almost 13%—had been completely cured. One of the most famous (or infamous) examples 
was the Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville,   Kentucky, opened in the early 19th century after 
an outbreak of tuberculosis. It closed in the 1960s and has since been dramatically called 
“one of the most haunted places on earth”;   some claimed that 65,000 deaths occurred there, 
though primary accounts put the number at around 5,500. In the U.S. in 1900, it’s said there were 
around 34 sanatoriums with fewer than 5,000 beds;   within 25 years, that had increased to 
536 sanatoriums with over 70,000 beds.  [Arthur: “Sure, I can just take my winters in 
my country club in California.”] Country clubs originated in Scotland and first appeared in 
the United States from upper-class elites in   the early 1880s, so fairly recent to the game. By 
1907, they were considered “the very essence of American upper-class”—so, basically everything 
Arthur and the gang despise, hence his tone. Arthur’s mention of California, meanwhile, is 
especially appropriate: in the 19th and 20th centuries, California—especially southern 
California—became somewhat of a capital   for sanitoriums, including for tuberculosis 
sufferers—a movement that has been described as rivalling even the gold rush of the 1840s and 50s.
One thing in this mission that isn’t particularly surprising but would be very out-of-place 
today is that the doctor starts smoking—this   is certainly inappropriate in a doctor’s 
office, and not just in front of any patient but especially a tuberculosis patient 
considering the established connection   between tobacco smoking and tuberculosis. 
But, at the time, it wasn’t seen that way. Of course, some physicians in the United States 
once pitched cigarettes as being able to improve   one’s health; it wasn’t until 1912 when a link 
between cigarette smoking and lung cancer was established, and this was mostly anecdotal—it 
would take until the 1930s, 40s, and 50s for the first major studies to be completed, leading 
to clear evidence that smoking, of course,   causes serious health damage, not improvements.
Before Arthur leaves, the doctor gives him a quick boost. [Dr. Barnes: “Let me get 
you a little bit more… energy today.”] The first successful injection using a hypodermic 
needle is generally credited to Irish physician   Francis Rynd, in Dublin in 1844, so its 
inclusion here certainly makes sense. As for what’s actually inside the needle: at the 
end of the day, it could be any number of things,   but the most common theories appear to be morphine 
or cocaine. Historically speaking, morphine makes sense—it can be used to help with breathlessness 
or coughing and can give an energy boost—but   cocaine also a likely suspect here for the latter.
The leaves of Erythroxylum coca—a plant that contains alkaloids including cocaine—have been 
chewed by the Indigenous peoples of South America   for over a thousand years, but cocaine itself 
was first isolated in 1855. Soon afterwards, Western medicine began using coca and cocaine, 
and in 1885, U.S. manufacturer Parke-Davis sold cocaine in several forms, including a mixture that 
could be injected using the complimentary needle. Interestingly, a common effect of injecting 
cocaine that isn’t shared with other methods   of ingestion is a ringing in the ear that lasts 
around two to five minutes, including tinnitus and audio distortion—so perhaps Arthur’s brief 
hallucinations once he leaves the doctor’s office   are actually somewhat scientifically accurate too.
Perhaps the most unrealistic part of Arthur’s diagnosis is his treatment by others; there has 
been a stigma surrounding tuberculosis since the   nineteenth century, when its transmission 
method was discovered, as those without it sought to avoid it. It was often linked to social 
positioning or poverty, and often it was victims   of social exploitation—racism, colonialism—who 
were most affected by it and its stigma. This stigma often leads to delays in diagnosis and 
treatment, even today, and can cause the disease   to unknowingly impact others by not addressing it. 
Considering Arthur’s reputation within the gang, perhaps their response to his apparent 
illness isn’t entirely unrealistic,   but such general empathy and understanding 
is certainly not a universal experience for those who suffer from tuberculosis and may 
certainly come across as idealistic to many. In the next mission, Arthur meets Sadie at 
Doyle’s Tavern. Behind the bar is a beer tap, better known as a beer engine. This was actually 
invented by Dutch merchant John Lofting in around   1688, but it was Joseph Bramah who further 
developed, refined, and patented the design in the 1780s and 90s, derived from his much 
more well-known invention: the hydraulic press. On the way to their destination, Sadie 
updates Arthur on some of the members of the   gang. [Sadie: “Strauss is a bag of nerves.”] 
This phrase originates around this time, in the late 1800s. The word “nerves” has been 
used as a metaphor for distress or nervousness since the 1800s too, possibly due to the 
medical theory that anxiety and agitation   was caused by “weak or sensitive nerves”.
Sadie and Arthur’s destination, of course, is a hot air balloon. The hot air balloon was 
developed by French brothers Joseph-Michel   and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier and was first 
demonstrated publicly in an unmanned 10-minute flight in September 1783. After experiments 
with animals, the first tethered human flight took place the following month. The first 
flight in the Americas took place almost   ten years later in January 1793, starting 
from the Walnut Street Jail in Philadelphia. The balloon’s pilot, Arturo Bullard, 
reassures Arthur that the weather is   satisfactory. [Arturo Bullard: “Well, it’s a nice 
fresh day for flying, sir. A day like today… and Icarus would have made it across the sea.”] Of 
course, he’s referring to the Greek mythological   tale of Icarus and his father Daedalus, 
who attempted to escape Crete using wings that Daedalus had constructed from feathers and 
wax. However, despite his father’s instructions, Icarus flew too close to the sun, causing 
the wax in his wings to melt; he fell out of   the sky and into the sea, where he drowned.
[Arthur: “Ain’t she coming?”] [Arturo: “Oh, women can’t fly, sir. Are you insane?”] 
[Arthur: “They can’t?”] [Arturo: “Oh no,   sir, does terrible damage to them… to their… 
vapours.”] Unsurprisingly, Arturo isn’t alone in his thinking. “Vapours” was a mental and physical 
condition commonly attributed to women in the   18th and 19th centuries, with symptoms including 
fainting, dizziness, and mood instability. They were named as such because they were thought 
to have been caused by vapours radiating from   the uterus. It was taken so seriously that 
it was clinically studied as a disease and treated with innovative therapies—some of which 
included herbs, sex, and sexual abstinence. Even as recently as 1892, “vapours” was described as a 
“popular term for hypochondriasis, or hysteria”, so Arturo’s usage is unsurprising.
[Arturo: “A very nice woman. And no shrinking violent.”] An early example of 
this phrase in print is in the Pennsylvania   newspaper The Titusville Herald in November 
1870, so almost thirty years prior to this. [Arturo: “Variety is the very spice of life, 
as they say. Or is it though? Did you know they locked up the man who wrote that in a 
mental asylum?”] Surprisingly, he’s not wrong,   though the man in question was locked up before 
writing it. After three suicide attempts and suffering a period of insanity and depression, 
English poet William Cowper was sent to Nathaniel   Cotton’s asylum around 1763. Over twenty years 
later in 1785, his poem The Task was published, containing the phrase “Variety’s the spice 
of life, That gives it all its flavour”. In this mission—and especially in the 
following one—Arthur gets a good look at   Sisika Penitentiary, the prison in which John is 
being held. This could really be inspired by any number of prisons—and, in reality, it probably 
is, taking elements from several different ones. One possible inspiration is the Louisiana State 
Penitentiary, the largest maximum-security   prison in the United States, which moved 
to its current location around 1901, only a couple of years after the events of the 
game. This inspiration particularly makes sense   due to the Louisiana State Penitentiary’s relative 
proximity to New Orleans—especially considering Sisika’s close proximity to Saint Denis.
Regarding Sisika’s presence as a prison island, there are a few notable real-life examples 
from which the game likely takes inspiration,   like the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in 
California, open from the 1930s to 1960s; or, more likely, McNeil Island 
in the northwest United States,   which opened in 1875 and was later known 
as the McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary, considered the first federal prison in the 
country. It was also the last remaining   island prison in the U.S. to be accessible only 
by sea and air and was officially closed in 2011. One curious observation to make in these 
missions is the race of the prisoners:   they are predominantly white. This was 
often not the case in southern states: in Florida in 1869, more than 90% of convicts 
were black; in Alabama coal mines in 1889, it was about 98%; and in Mississippi in 
1904 and Georgia in 1908, it was around 91%—a disproportionately high amount compared to 
the general population. As Tore Olsson observed: “This was not an accident. The southern regime 
of convict labour was meant as a partial   replacement for slavery in the wake of formal 
emancipation.” Slavery and involuntary servitude were no longer legal… except as a punishment 
for crime—so punish for ‘crime’, they did. In one of the next missions, Dutch tells Arthur of 
Micah’s concerns. [Dutch: “Micah reckons there’s a rat.”] The meaning of “rat” as someone “who 
abandons their associates for personal advantage” apparently originated around the 1620s, based on 
the belief that rats typically leave a ship that   is about to sink, or a house about to fall. In 
1870, a Slang Dictionary defined rat as “a sneak, an informer, a turn-coat, one who 
changes his party for interest”—so,   much closer to the meaning intended here.
In this mission, Dutch, Arthur, and Micah witness Leviticus Cornwall’s boat dock in Annesburg. 
Called Malvina, this is almost certainly based on the Turbinia; a newspaper article mentions that 
Cornwall had ordered delivery of one, called the   country’s “first turbine-powered steamship”. It 
was first launched as an experiment vessel in England in 1894, developed by Charles Algernon 
Parsons. The vessel caught the eye of Americans other than Cornwall, too; George Westinghouse’s 
company signed an agreement in 1895 for the rights to Parsons’s steam turbines in North 
America and successfully installed one in 1899. Dutch and Arthur overhear a conversation between 
Leviticus Cornwall and Mr. Didsbury about the   mines. [Leviticus Cornwall: “What’s all this about 
strikes?”] A strike in this area around this time is completely unsurprising; the 19th and 20th 
centuries saw several successful and unsuccessful miners’ strikes. One of the most successful was 
in Colorado in 1894—the only time in U.S. history when a state militia was called out in support 
of striking workers—which led to a major victory   and the formation of 54 local unions. Another 
successful one was in Pennsylvania in 1902, involving over 100,000 people and leading to 
eight deaths in total; this strike—the first labour dispute in which the federal government 
(and President Roosevelt) intervened as an   arbitrator—led to a nine-hour workday (reduced 
from ten) and a 10% wage increase. So, this one in Annesburg is entirely fitting at this time.
[Didsbury: “It’s the wages. Folk feel–”] [Cornwall: “Folk feel? Business doesn’t give two 
figs about feelings, sir. Not two figs.”] This is an interesting phrase; the word “fig” used 
to mean something unimportant dates all the way   back to 1450. “Not worth a fig” dates to 1600, 
while “care a fig” was first printed in 1632, and “give a fig” in 1634—so it was already 
in use for quite some time by this point. [Cornwall: “It’s a nonsense that will bring a 
plague on both our houses.”] Unsurprisingly, another Romeo and Juliet reference—this time 
to Mercutio’s death in Act III, Scene 1. Dutch, apparently not a fan of Shakespeare, 
shoots and kills Cornwall. Of course,   Cornwall’s character appears to be inspired by 
several different rich businessmen of his era, and while they all died at various different 
ages for several different reasons—intestinal   disorder at 61, heart failure at 69, exhaustion 
at 82, pneumonia at 83, and arteriosclerosis at 97—none died to a bullet to the chest.
At the end of this mission, Micah’s insults to Arthur only increase. [Micah: “Meet 
me there when you can, Black Lung.”]   Interestingly, black lung disease—or CWP, coal 
workers’ pneumoconiosis—is a real disease that’s caused by long-term exposure to coal dust. Micah 
likely doesn’t know this, but tuberculosis is more common in victims of black lung disease, though 
it’s a rarer complication now than it once was. In Annesburg, Arthur encounters a couple arguing. 
[Wife: “I don’t want you to work in that mine no more.”] Her concerns about the safety of the mine 
are, unfortunately, not unfounded; there were several mining accidents before this, and many 
in the years to come: like in May 1902, when at least 216 miners died in Fraterville, Tennessee; 
January 1904, when 179 miners and two aid workers died in Cheswick, Pennsylvania; December 1907, 
when 362 miners died in Monongah, West Virginia, and 239 men and boys in Westmoreland County, 
Pennsylvania; November 1908, 154 men in Marianna, Pennsylvania; and November 1909, 259 men and 
boys in Cherry, Illinois—among several others. Across the tracks in Annesburg, Arthur meets a 
scientist named Dr. Malcolm MacIntosh, trying to   spread his message on the state of the world. 
[Dr. Malcolm MacIntosh: “The land will boil, the sea will dry up, the world will heat, 
crops shall wither.”] He’s not wrong. Since the Industrial Revolution, the average surface 
air temperature of the Earth has increased by   almost 1.5 °C (around 2.5 °F). This has an impact 
on the global sea levels, which have risen almost 10 inches since 1880—though importantly, as 
Dr. MacIntosh suggests, increased carbon levels could see the ocean eventually evaporate, 
as evidenced by the receding shoreline of   the Dead Sea. As for withering crops, some crops 
will be negatively impacted by climate change, like corn, whose crop yields are projected to 
decline by around 24% by 2030, though others are expected to perform a little better as a 
result: wheat yield could grow by around 17%. The recognition that the climate changes 
over time dates back thousands of years,   to writers and philosophers in Ancient Greece 
and Rome. The first to recognise the human impact on climate change was Alexander von Humboldt in 
1800, identifying that deforestation led to a loss of soil moisture and impacted the water cycle. 
More discoveries were made throughout the 19th   century by others, like Eunice Newton Foote, who 
in 1856 discovered that increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere led to a higher global 
temperature (Guy Stewart Callendar was the first   to discover that it had, over 80 years later). 
In the 1960s, John H. Mercer first warned that higher temperatures could see a rise in global 
sea levels. So, while Dr. MacIntosh appears to   be ahead of his time in some of his predictions, 
others are based on already-existing research—and, ultimately, they’re fairly accurate overall.
When Arthur revisits Dr. MacIntosh, he shares one of his ideas for his next books. 
[MacIntosh: “I’ve got a great bit about how this   new craze for dental hygiene will make our pets 
homosexual.”] [Arthur: “Huh.”] Bizarrely, this may not be a creation of the game’s writers. There’s a 
chemical compound that can be found in some dental   fillings called Bisphenol A. Bisphenol A is a 
xenoestrogen, a type of xenohormone that imitates estrogen. Such endocrine-disrupting chemical 
pollutants were, according to a conspiracy   theory that started in the 2010s, causing frogs 
in the U.S. to become homosexual—though this was primarily in relation to atrazine, a herbicide 
used to control weeds, not a dental product. In one of the next missions, Arthur and 
Bill rob a stagecoach of dynamite in Van   Horn. Van Horn appears to be based on Natchez, 
Mississippi—specifically the “Under-the-Hill” area, which, in 1810, was described as a 
place that “for the size of it, there is not,   perhaps in the world, a more dissipated spot”. 
In 1825, it was called a “city in perfect health and at the same time … so universally 
abandoned”. Besides the visual similarities too, this area was frequently visited by highwaymen, 
river pirates, and gamblers; it had limited law   enforcement, and it was once said that the money 
was “plentiful” and the murders “innumerable”—so it appears to have a decent amount in 
common with the area of Van Horn as well. After they steal the stagecoach of dynamite, Bill 
shares some wise words to Arthur. [Bill: “They get   one good shot and they’ll blow us both to kingdom 
come!”] Historically speaking, he is correct, dynamite does explode, and the words he uses are 
derived from the Lord’s Prayer, which exists in   several different versions; one such reads: “Our 
Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done”.
Similarly, Micah says something of note towards the end of the mission. [Micah: “I know we 
ain’t always seen eye to eye…”] This phrase likely derives from the Book of Isaiah: “The watchmen 
shall lift up the voice; with the voice together   shall they sing; for they shall see eye to eye”.
[Micah: “There’s a big picture here, Arthur.”] The term “big picture” is a lot less archaic. One of 
the earliest known publications of the term was in   1862, though this was only semi-metaphorical; 
in its more modern and well-known usage, the earliest publication was, funnily enough, 
in 1899, the same year Micah uses it here. At a different time in Van Horn, Arthur 
encounters a drunk man singing a beautiful tune. [Drunk man: “Yankee ship came down the river, 
blow, boys, blow.”] This song is also performed by Sean and Pearson at the gang’s camp. It’s 
sometimes called Blow Boys Blow or A Yankee   Ship. Earlier versions seem to originate 
around 1813, referring to the slave trade, though the lyrics of later adaptations 
seem to refer to the American Civil War. Also in Van Horn is a stranger mission called 
“The Smell of the Grease Paint”, which is quite   similar to The Roar of the Greasepaint – The 
Smell of the Crowd, a 1964 musical about the upper and lower classes of British society, 
itself based on the theatre phrase “The smell   of the greasepaint, the roar of the crowd”.
In this mission, Arthur meets Miss Marjorie, the leader of a performance group consisting of 
Bertram and Magnifico. Physically, it appears that   Bertram is likely modelled after Schlitzie, an 
American sideshow performer from the 20th century. While Bertram is quite tall, however, Schlitzie 
was the opposite, at around four feet. He was born with microcephaly, a neurodevelopmental disorder 
resulting in a smaller-than-normal head. Schlitzie became well-known for his role in the 1932 film 
Freaks, which was banned in the UK for over 30 years. He, and other people with microcephaly, 
were often sold to freak shows and referred to   as “pinheads”—just as Bertram is in the game.
Closer to Schlitzie’s size is Magnifico, a performer with Dwarfism. Several Americans 
with Dwarfism were often relegated to sideshow   performers at circuses around this time, 
perhaps most notably those working for P. T. Barnum, such as “General Tom Thumb”, 
Lavinia Warren, and “Commodore Nutt”. [Magnifico: “I ain’t back. I’m gone, on the next 
train to the Great White Way.”] The “Great White Way” is a nickname for Broadway—that is, the 
live theatre performances in Midtown Manhattan,   New York City. The nickname is attributed 
to the bright lights that were implemented in the area in the late 19th century, and it 
came to prominence in the early 20th century,   seemingly first published in a newspaper 
article in 1902—so, maybe a few years off, but not a totally illogical usage here.
[Miss Marjorie: “You got enough for a ticket? Because the way Big Fanny tells it, you spent 
all of our takings on a case of the French pox!”]   “French pox” or “French disease” was an earlier 
name for syphilis, a sexually transmitted infection, named by the English, Germans, and 
Italians based on the belief that it travelled   through France before reaching England. Meanwhile, 
the French called it the “Neapolitan disease”, the Russians “Polish disease”, the Polish 
“German disease”, some Europeans and   Northern Africans “Spanish disease”, and the 
Japanese “Chinese ulcer”. It really shows the significant stigma and xenophobia surrounding 
the disease, anchored by the fact that it was   thought to have been spread by foreign soldiers 
during frequent contact with local sex workers. Back at camp, Strauss sends Arthur to 
collect a debt from J. John Weathers,   a deserter of the U.S. Army. During the Civil 
War, both sides had problems with desertion; the Union Army saw about 200,000 desertions from 
around 2.1 million men, and the Confederate Army saw at least 100,000 desertions from its 1 million 
men. The Confederate policies were particularly severe; for example, in August 1862, to maintain 
discipline in the troops, General Stonewall Jackson approved three executions for desertion, 
rejecting the pleas from the men’s commander that   they be spared. On both sides of the war, around 
one-third of deserters later returned, either voluntarily or after being arrested and sent back.
In regards to being killed for desertion,   as is clearly being attempted with J. John 
Weathers here, only one person was ever officially court-martialled and executed for desertion after 
the Civil War—Eddie Slovik in 1945, the only one of the 49 death sentences given during the Second 
World War to be carried out. That being said, in the game, the attempted execution of Weathers 
may not have been an official command—nor was it   successful—so it’s not necessarily inaccurate.
Of course, the reason for Weathers’s debt—and likely his ‘desertion’—is his relationship with a 
pregnant Native American woman. Such relationships were actually forbidden in several states; at 
least four explicitly forbade marriages between   Native Americans and white people, and three 
between Native Americans and African Americans. They were still permitted in several states, 
though, and some notable such marriages occurred:   like Donehogawa, also known as Ely S. Parker, a 
Seneca man and lieutenant colonel during the Civil War who married a white woman in 1867; and Ohíye 
S’a, also known as Charles Alexander Eastman, a Santee Dakota man who married poet 
Elaine Goodale in 1891. All laws banning anti-miscegenation were ruled unconstitutional 
in a unanimous Supreme Court ruling in 1967. At some point during this chapter, 
Arthur receives a letter from Penelope   Braithwaite. [Penelope Braithwaite: “I will, of 
course, pay you handsomely for your troubles.”] Interestingly, when the word “handsome” 
was first recorded in the mid-15th century,   it had the now-obsolete meaning “easy to handle”. 
About 100 years later in the mid-16th century, it began to mean “convenient, handy, suitable” 
(which is also obsolete) before “generous, noble, magnanimous”; by the end of the 16th century, 
it began to mean the more modern “having an   attractive appearance”, as well as “fairly 
large” and “considerable”, as can be used in reference to money, as Penelope uses it here.
[Penelope: “They killed her, they killed Ms. Calhoon. All she wanted was a better lot for women 
and they killed her…”] She’s referring to the   woman Arthur met at the suffrage parade in Rhodes 
in chapter 3. There were a few suffragettes who died for the cause in the decades after the game, 
though generally in different ways to Ms. Calhoon:   like Mary Clarke, Henria Williams, and Cecilia 
Haig, who were all assaulted by police during a demonstration in London in November 1910 and 
died within the next year as a result of their   injuries; and Emily Davison, who was struck by 
King George V’s horse at the 1913 Epsom Derby when she ran out on the track and died four days later.
[Penelope: “they killed her, those pigs.”] Interestingly, “pig” had been used as an insult 
for almost four hundred years at this point,   seemingly originating around the 1540s. Perhaps 
more interesting—though far less related—is that the term had been used to refer to police 
officers for close to a hundred years, since 1811. In Annesburg, Arthur may encounter Edith Downes, 
the widow of Thomas Downes, who Arthur beat in chapter 2, and from whom he likely contracted his 
tuberculosis. As seen when Arthur last encountered   Mrs. Downes in Saint Denis in chapter 4, she is 
now trying to earn money doing sex work. Such a life wasn’t too uncommon around this time, 
though especially prior to the Civil War,   particularly for women seeking financial 
stability. New Orleans was especially known for its thriving sex trade, operating seven days 
a week. In 1859, Dr. William Sanger performed a study of 2,000 prostitutes in Blackwell’s 
Island in New York—so not particularly close to any real-life equivalent of Saint Denis or 
Annesburg, but an interesting study, nonetheless.   He discovered that almost 15% of the women, like 
Mrs. Downes, were widows—and, more significantly, almost 85% depended solely on the work as their 
primary income. Around 25% of the women were destitute prior to starting the trade, and their 
decision in doing so was often shaped by financial   considerations—the profession was not particularly 
lucrative and was notably risky, but sex workers were said to have been able to earn as much in an 
hour as a seamstress could in a day. However, the   risk was almost certainly not worth the reward: 
even beyond the prevalent danger of disease, sex workers were frequently the victims of violence, 
and simply their profession alone was enough for   them to be outcasted by society and for their 
legitimate accusations to not taken seriously. In this mission, Arthur finds Edith’s son Archie 
at the mines—where he also encounters the miners   with interesting-looking hats. Prior to 1850, 
light in mines mostly came from candles or small lamps hung from crevices or hammered 
into the timber. Around 1850 in Scotland, the oil-wick cap lamp was invented: shaped 
like a kettle and exceedingly smoky,   it was worn on soft caps for the convenience 
of the light, but the light only really went a little further than one’s face. The light 
seen on the hats in the game is a carbide lamp,   which burned clearer, brighter, and at a wider 
range; however, the first carbide mining lamp was patented by Frederick Baldwin in August 1900, 
and commercial production began after this—so either these miners are about a year ahead of 
their time, or they created their own carbide   lamps before Frederick Baldwin got around 
to applying for a patent the following year. Archie’s age is unclear, but while he’s 
young—Arthur calls him a “boy” and “kid”,   for instance— it would be fair to assume that he’s 
old enough to work in the coal mines. That being said, seeing a younger child working in the mines 
would not have been entirely uncommon; according   to the 1900 U.S. census, more than 1.7 million 
children aged ten to fifteen—almost one-fifth—were employed. This included in coal mines; there were 
no specific statistics to verify how many, but one historian estimates that around 24,000 children 
worked in the anthracite coal mines. A common role was a breaker boy, whose job was to break apart 
coal and separate impurities. It was an arduous   job—many worked twelve hours or more per day, 
six days a week—and often incredibly dangerous, resulting in countless injuries and several 
deaths. Public condemnation eventually followed,   and some laws were put into place—like 
banning employment of children under 12 to work in breakers in Pennsylvania—though 
they were still poorly enforced until the   20th century, when further advocacy led 
to more laws (and their enforcement). One of the missions that Arthur can 
complete in this chapter is for the   very-lovable Sister Calderón. The mission is 
called “Of Men and Angels”, derived from the first book of Corinthians: “If I speak in the 
tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging 
cymbal”. [Sister Calderón rings her bell.] Back at the camp, Arthur, Dutch, and Charles speak 
with Eagle Flies. [Eagle Flies: “We’ve suffered   too much, been lied to too much. Now they’ve taken 
our horses.”] Unfortunately—but, as is clear at this point, unsurprisingly—this also happened in 
real life. In the 1880s, the U.S. Army confiscated the Lakota’s herd of around 350 horses, putting 
them up for sale at a local trading post. The wild horses found in the Badlands of the 
Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North   Dakota today are believed to be their descendants.
[Eagle Flies: “All the young have been taken from our reservation, shipped off to reform schools.”] 
Again, of course, this is accurate. There were optional mission schools for Native American 
children as early as the 1630s and 40s, but the   Civilization Fund Act in 1819 encouraged societies 
to provide education to Native Americans to “stimulate the ‘civilization process’”, prompting 
them to become even less ‘optional’. At least   $10,000 of federal funds were allocated to educate 
Native Americans in the ways of Anglo-Americans, including teaching them to read and write 
English in an attempt to “civilise” them;   this eventually evolved into forcing them to give 
up their native culture, languages, and religions. Notable examples of such schools include the 
Puyallup Indian School, founded in 1860, to which some children were forced to attend against 
their will, either through physical coercion   like kidnapping or the withholding of parental 
payments. The Carlisle Indian School was founded in 1879 by Colonel Richard Henry Pratt, whose 
motto was to “kill the Indian, save the man”. Children often weren’t allowed to speak their 
own languages, even to each other, and were given   English names; they were forced to wear uniforms 
and into having short haircuts—bringing shame to many; they were required to attend church services 
and often baptised as Christians. Children were sent at such a young age, leading to increased 
substance abuse, high suicide rates, and disorders   such as PTSD and depression. As the Yankton 
Dakota writer Zitkala-Ša once wrote: “In my anguish I moaned for my mother, but no one came to 
comfort me. Not a soul reasoned quietly with me, as my own mother used to do; for now I was only 
one of many little animals driven by a herder.” In 1891, the government issued a law that 
enabled federal officers to forcibly take   Native American children from their homes and 
reservations—which, of course, was already being done at this point. It wasn’t until the 
Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978 that Native American parents finally gained the legal right 
to deny the forced placement of their children. Similar systems were established for 
the Indigenous peoples of Canada too,   becoming compulsory in the nineteenth 
century. More than 150,000 children attended the residential schools, at which 
the treatment—forced removal, malnutrition,   neglect, physical and sexual abuse—has been 
labelled a cultural genocide. An estimated 4,200 students—though possibly many thousands 
or tens of thousands more—died at the schools, and many were buried in unmarked gravesites 
on the properties. The last federally-funded   residential school was closed in 1997.
[Eagle Flies: “… shipped off to reform schools. Many women too.”] By the 1840s, the federal 
government hoped that training Native American women to be domestic housewives would help their 
male partners assimilate. Around the 1870s, boarding schools wanted to add more girls, though 
they typically spent less than half a day in the   classroom, the rest focused on domestic work. 
Some of the girls—aged anywhere from around 8 to 24—were sent to white homes to “learn by 
association”. Many would find the reservations intolerable upon their return and return to the 
cities—where they would often become maids or were forced to become sex workers or dancing girls.
[Eagle Flies: “The old are weak and sick, but they deliberately withhold medicine 
and supplies from us.”] When they didn’t   use physical coercion, the government would 
often intentionally withhold clothing and rations of the families who refused 
to send their children to the reform   schools—an action authorised by Congress 
to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Back in Saint Denis, one of the saloons is forced 
to temporarily close due to an infestation of   rats—though one man accuses the owner of denying 
him entry for a very different reason. [Man: “You just don’t like Chinese people.”] Though the 
owner vehemently denies it, and verifiably so, such a mindset would not have been unusual for 
the time period. Anti-Chinese sentiment grew from   economic crises in the mid-19th century. 
California state legislature passed laws determining that Chinese people could not testify 
in court against white people. In Los Angeles in   1871, after the death of a rancher, nineteen 
Chinese immigrants were killed by a mob of around 500 men—by some definitions the largest 
mass lynching in American history. In Tacoma, Washington Territory, in 1885, a mob marched the 
city’s Chinese population to the train station and forced them to board, then spent the following 
days burning down their business and homes;   this rapid and organised expansion 
became known as the “Tacoma method”. The Page Act of 1875 prohibited Chinese 
women from entering the United States,   and, as discussed earlier, the Chinese Exclusion 
Act in 1882 prohibited immigration of all Chinese labourers (except for some teachers, 
students, merchants, and diplomats).   This legislation was renewed in 1892 and made 
permanent in 1902. It wasn’t until 1943 that the law was repealed, and it wasn’t until 1965 
that immigration became less restrictive overall. In the same saloon, Arthur meets Dutch and 
Sadie to prepare to watch Colm O’Driscoll’s   execution—and, to do so, Arthur and Dutch 
dress up as police officers. In the UK, police officers had uniforms as early as 1828, 
but U.S. police objected at the time as they were afraid of public ridicule. The first department 
to issue uniforms was the New York City Police   Department in 1854, followed by Boston and 
Chicago in 1858. The Navy blue outfits were surplus U.S. Army uniforms from the Civil War.
[Sadie: “I’d dress up like the Queen of Sheba if it meant seeing that son of a bitch swing.”] 
The Queen of Sheba is a religious figure,   first mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, in which 
she gifts valuables to Solomon, the King of Israel. By the 1800s, invoking the name “Queen 
of Sheba” was often intended sarcastically, meant to either demonstrate disbelief or reinforce 
one’s truth, as in an early example from 1833: “You are my lord’s brother or I am the Queen 
of Sheba”. Though she doesn’t say it exactly   in this manner, Sadie is likely attempting a 
similar feeling in her invocation of the name. [Arthur: “Practice what you preach, brother.”] 
This term originates from Matthew 23:3: “So you must obey them and do everything 
they tell you; but do not do what they do,   for they do not practice what they preach”.
[Dutch: “Find a way up there, onto one of these verandahs.”] Verandahs have their modern roots in 
Australia, first appearing in colonial buildings   in the 1850s. Spanish colonial architecture 
around the turn of the century often incorporated external verandahs—including in New Orleans, where 
they’re prominently featured in Creole townhouses, as well as the French Quarter and Bourbon Street.
[Law official: “You are to be hanged by the neck until you are dead.”] There’s a somewhat popular 
story that, in India, the words “until you are dead” were not really used until the early 20th 
century, when a lawyer sent men to hold onto the   legs of the accused so he could survive; however, 
this has been proven false: such words have been part of the Code of Criminal Procedure in India 
since at least 1861, the same year the lawyer in the story was born. Interestingly, there is 
actually a story of a man surviving hanging:   Joseph Samuel, a German convict in the Colony of 
New South Wales (now Australia) survived after the rope snapped multiple times. The Governor, 
deciding it was divine intervention, let him   live. It’s believed Samuel and some others drowned 
while trying to escape by boat three years later. [Law official: “May God, in his infinite 
wisdom, have mercy upon your soul.”] This phrase is thought to have originated in the 
Kingdom of Israel, based on the Hebrew Bible,   and was frequently used thereafter. After the 
United States gained independence from Great Britain—moving away from the Christian-based 
legal judgements and towards the principle   of reasonable doubt—the term became less 
frequent but was one of the very few from the British colonial system that remained in the 
American court system. Today, though infrequent, it is still sometimes used as a closing statement 
when a judge passes a sentence of death. Just outside of Saint Denis, Arthur encounters 
a man with an infected arm and takes him to the   doctor to get it amputated. Amputations like this 
were not uncommon, especially during the Civil War. Contrary to some belief, though, anaesthetic 
was used; during the Civil War, only around 254 of more than 80,000 surgeries were performed without 
general anaesthesia—approximately 0.3%. Chloroform was the most popular, being used in more than 
70% of all surgeries in the North during the war. As shown in the game, too, bone saws were 
used, leading to the nickname “Sawbones”   for surgeons during the war. It wasn’t 
quite as basic as depicted in the game, though; there was a lot more work done with 
the blood vessels, arteries, nerves, and bones,   rather than simply cutting straight through 
and wrapping in a bandage as done in the game. Also in Saint Denis, Arthur meets an artist in a 
mission titled “The Artist’s Way”. Interestingly, this is also the name of a self-help book about 
artistic inspiration and creative recovery,   written by Julia Cameron and published in 
1992. Whether or not the mission’s name was based on the book title is difficult to say, 
but it’s an interesting comparison, nonetheless. The artist Arthur meets, Charles Châtenay, is 
likely inspired by French artist Paul Gauguin, who was 51-years-old in 1899 and died four 
years later at the age of 54. Like Châtenay, Gauguin painted nude women, likely deemed 
scandalous at the time—though he and his   work are considered more controversial now, 
considering his sexual relations with young girls and the fact that his work reflects his 
“patriarchal, colonialist” position. Châtenay   says that he left Paris for Saint Denis—and, at 
the end of this mission, he leaves Saint Denis for the South Pacific. Gauguin’s travels were 
similar, leaving France for several places   but eventually Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands 
in French Polynesia, where he died. A lot of Châtenay’s work bears a striking resemblance 
to Gauguin’s as well, in subject and art style. [Châtenay: “Buy me a drink, mon 
ami.”] [Arthur: “Two brandies,   bud.”] [Bartender: “It’s two dollars a glass.”] 
About a hundred years before this, in Natchez and New Orleans, peach brandy cost around $1 to $1.15 
per gallon. By the late 1890s, some brandies cost $2 per gallon in Louisiana and $3 per gallon 
in Virginia. So, at $2 per glass, this brandy is either very overpriced or—as the bartender 
claims—very good. [Bartender: “It’s the best.”] [Arthur: “You paint?”] [Châtenay: “Not according 
to the salons of Paris.”] Today, “salon” generally refers to beauty salons, which actually began to 
pop up around the United States around this time.   Châtenay, though, is more likely referring to a 
type of gathering known as a “salon”, which became regular around the 1730s in France. There was also 
an art exhibition known as the Salon in Paris, which started in 1667 and became prominent 
in the 18th and 19th centuries, featuring dozens of painters, sculptors, and engravers, 
among other professions. As Châtenay suggests, its jury often rejected paintings—in 1863, there 
was a failure rate of almost sixty percent—so Châtenay was not alone in this, at least.
[Châtenay: “Here.”] [Arthur: “What is it?”] [Châtenay: “It’s just a little doodle.”] 
Interestingly, the word “doodle” has meant several different things over the years: in the 17th 
century, “a fool or simpleton”; in the 18th,   “to ridicule or make a fool of”; in the 
19th, to “do nothing”. The meaning of an “aimless scrawl” apparently originates in 
1937, quite some time after Châtenay’s usage here—but he’s nothing if not ahead of his time.
Later in the mission, Arthur visits Châtenay’s art exhibition. In addition to Châtenay’s work, 
the gallery houses at least five art pieces from Charles Willson Peale, and one each from his sons 
Rembrandt and Rubens Peale, all painted between the 1770s and 1860s. Charles Peale is well-known 
for his portraits, especially of “leading American figures”. His 1779 portrait of President George 
Washington sold in 2006 for $21.3 million, thought to have been “the highest price ever 
paid for an American portrait at the time”. [Châtenay: “Like Buddha said, you know, we 
are all just here to fuck.”] [Woman: “Well,   that explains the decadence of those Hottentots.”] 
This is historically a racial term used, typically by Europeans, in reference to the Khoekhoe, an 
indigenous people of South Africa. It’s generally considered offensive in this context and was 
later used as a more generally abusive term,   not necessarily related to any particular 
race or ethnicity. It actually re-entered the cultural conversation recently due to its 
usage in the 1964 film Mary Poppins, which had its age rating lifted in the UK as a result.
[Châtenay: “Up here. She is my ship.”] The tradition of using “she” and “her” pronouns for 
a ship dates to at least 1375, apparently based in the idea that a ship is a goddess or mother 
figure who will help to protect her inhabitants. [Arthur: “If they don’t like you in the islands, 
keep on going to the South Pole.”] Nobody had   actually verifiably made it to the South Pole by 
this point. The first successful expedition was led by Roald Amundsen in a ship, who, alongside 
a crew, arrived in December 1911. Amundsen was also among the first to verifiably reach the 
North Pole, this time by aircraft, in May 1926. In one of the next missions, Arthur 
meets Dutch with Eagle Flies and a   small group. [Dutch: “Rebellion. The smell of 
cordite and integrity.”] Cordite was developed and patented in 1889 as a way to replace gunpowder as 
a propellant, particularly by the military. It was developed in—and used by—the United Kingdom and 
seems to have made its way to the United States   the following year and Canada the year after that 
for testing, so Dutch’s reference seems logical. [Arthur: “What are you all doing?”] [Dutch: “An 
eye for an eye.”] This phrasing likely originates from the Book of Exodus, composed around the 
6th to 5th centuries B.C.: “And if any mischief   follow, then thou shalt give life for life; Eye 
for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” The idea behind the phrase originates 
much earlier, though, in the Code of Hammurabi,   discussing the principle of reciprocal justice—one 
who kills another should themselves be killed. [Dutch: “We’re just gonna trap a few 
of them in the valley, disarm them,   tar and feather them…”] The earliest example of 
this punishment is in the orders of Richard I of England to his navy in 1189. In the Americas, 
it gained popularity in the mid-18th century, and there are several examples of it in the late 
18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries—including,   in some slaveholding areas, against black 
criminals and advocates against slavery. [Arthur: “It’s a dead end!”] This term definitely 
existed in the common vernacular by this point,   but what’s particularly interesting 
is its development over time: regarding its literal usage referring to 
the closed-off ending of a passage, it was   first used in 1851 in reference to drainpipes, 
1874 for railway lines, and 1886 for streets; for its more figurative usage—as in, a “course 
of action that leads nowhere”—it dates to 1914, as a figurative adjective by 1917, and as a verb 
by 1921—70 years after its apparent first usage. If Arthur agrees to it when talking with Charles 
beforehand, he has a mission with Rains Fall,   who tells him about the consequences 
of his previous mission with Eagle Flies. [Rains Fall: “Colonel Favours… he has 
already exacted some measure of revenge for the raid… two women were assaulted by his men.”] 
Unfortunately, this happened in real-life, too. In fact, it began with the first Europeans 
who came to the Americas, who attacked Indigenous   women seemingly with impunity, feeling as though 
it was within their right as colonisers to do so. A little more recently to the events of the game, 
there is apparently “credible evidence” that,   after the 1868 Battle of Washita River—also 
known as the Washita Massacre—Lt. Col. George A. Custer and his men took “sexual liberties” 
with their female captives; Custer, specifically, picked out one woman and “had her in his 
tent every night”. Among the soldiers of   this area at the time, there was apparently 
a saying—one that Custer and his men “could heartily endorse”: “Indian women rape easy”.
On their ride, Arthur and Rains Fall are briefly accompanied by Captain Monroe, who tells them that 
an oil company has received approval to drill on   the reservation’s land. [Captain Monroe: “I didn’t 
get the impression anything would be happening for a few months.”] This several-month delay actually 
happened, though likely for different reasons,   with Henry Foster, who was discussed 
in chapter 4 regarding his drilling on the Osage Reservation in Oklahoma. Foster 
acquired a blanket lease for drilling in 1895, but died shortly thereafter, upon which his 
brother Edwin took charge but was unable to   drill for some time “due to financial woes”.
[Rains Fall: “I need to find the Chanupa.”] As Rains Fall partly explains, Chanupa is the Lakota 
language name for the ceremonial pipe, as well as the ceremony for which it is used. Tradition 
says that White Buffalo Calf Woman brought it   to the people to “serve as a sacred bridge between 
this world and Wakan Tanka”—the divine or sacred. Arthur sets out to retrieve the sacred items from 
the army camp, where he overhears some soldiers   talking. [Soldier 2: “Monroe went to West Point; 
Favours never made it.”] He’s referring to the United States Military Academy, located at West 
Point in New York. It was formally established by President Thomas Jefferson in 1802 and focuses 
on engineering and academics. West Point has had many notable alumni—U.S. presidents 
Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower,   Confederate president Jefferson Davis and general 
Robert E. Lee, Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, and many, many more.
[Soldier 1: “Canada? They got Indians in Canada?”] Yes, Canada has Indigenous 
peoples, also known as Aboriginals:   around 128,000 at the time, according to the 
1901 census, comprising the First Nations, Inuit, and Métis. The First Nations are 
the most likely to be called “Indians”;   it was once used and remains the legal term 
in the Canadian Constitution but can otherwise be considered offensive.
[Soldier 1: “Where are you   from?”] [Soldier 2: “Me? I’m Polish, from 
Milwaukee.] This isn’t surprising at all. More than 200,000 Milwaukeeans can trace their 
family roots back to Poland, making it one of   the capital cities of Polish America. Today, 
Wisconsin has around 500,000 Polish Americans, making it the fifth-most-populous Polish American 
state in the U.S., and the first per capita. Arthur has the choice of helping Monroe to 
retrieve some vaccines for the Natives. In   the Indian Vaccination Act of 1832, Congress 
appropriated $12,000 for vaccinating Native Americans against smallpox. By February 1833, over 
17,000 were vaccinated. Due to a lack of funds, some U.S. Army surgeons refused to participate, 
leaving army agents and those without medical   training to produce and administer the vaccines—as 
appears to be the case with Monroe here. Unfortunately, some were excluded from the 
vaccine: including the Mandan, 90% of whom   were killed by smallpox; as well as the Hidatsa 
and Arikara. The combined population of the three groups plummeted from 10,000 to just 160 in one 
year. Those who remained combined to stay alive, forming what is now known as the Three 
Affiliated Tribes in central North Dakota. The game never specifies which 
vaccines Arthur actually retrieves,   but there are several possibilities: by 
1899, there were vaccines for smallpox, cholera, rabies, tetanus, typhoid 
fever, and the bubonic plague. [Arthur: “It ain’t my business, brother.”] 
[Charles: “No, I know. But it is mine.”] With some persuasion from Charles, Arthur agrees 
to help facilitate a meeting between Rains Fall   and Colonel Favours. [Colonel Favours: “Yes, uh, 
Mr… I can’t… say that silly name.] [Rains Fall: “In English, they call me Rains Fall.”] Of course, 
Native American names vary greatly depending on the group, of which there are many. Some are often 
derived from nature, sometimes represented by an   animal said to symbolise a desirable trait or 
characteristic. They are often related to the temperament of the person, or their place. Some 
receive more than one name, particularly as they   grow older. It’s been said that “legal names are 
given, but Native American names are earned”. Some famous Native American names that bear 
resemblance to Rains Fall and Eagle Flies are   from the Lakota people—which is unsurprising, 
considering the connections so far, as well as the fact that Rains Fall and other Wapiti 
people speak the Lakota language earlier in this   mission. [Rains Fall (in Lakota): “These men are 
our friends.”] Of particular note are Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, Lakota leaders of the 1800s. As 
referenced by Rains Fall, these are their English names, translated from their names in Lakota.
Interestingly, the word “wapiti” in some Algonquian languages—specifically, Cree 
and Shawnee—translates to “white rump”;   it’s also a name for the American elk, and 
for an unincorporated community in Wyoming. An interesting difference that some have 
noticed about Rains Fall is his thick eyebrows,   something that is often missing in photographs of 
Native Americans like Sitting Bull. There’s a bit of a stereotype that Native Americans can’t grow 
facial hair, which isn’t necessarily true—it’s   entirely dependent on genetics, varying 
in different tribes and nations. It’s true that some grew little or no facial hair, 
though, as observed and questioned by several   white writers of the era, and several 
chose not to—including by plucking out their beards or eyebrows, particularly 
before having their photographs taken. When Arthur is taken to the side to recover 
from his cough, he overhears a conversation   between some of the soldiers. [Soldier: “He 
thinks Monroe is a patsy, or a spy.”] The word “patsy” is thought perhaps to trace to 
Patsy Bolivar, a character created by Billy   B. Van in a vaudeville skit in the 1890s, who 
was often blamed whenever something went wrong. The soldiers soon start talking specifically 
about Colonel Favours. [Soldier: “You know what   they say about him. High-tail Favours. The man who 
missed a battle.”] In this context, Favours bears a resemblance to John Chivington, a colonel of the 
United States Army whose inaction of returning to   the main Battle of Glorieta Pass was attributed 
as part of the reason for the Union defeat. A more important part of Chivington’s career, 
however, was the Sand Creek massacre in 1864, described as one of the “most heinous war crimes 
in American military history”. 70 to 150 or more peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho were murdered 
and mutilated by Chivington and his troops,   who took scalps, body parts, unborn foetuses, 
and both male and female genitalia as trophies. And while Favours may not have committed an 
event as horrific as this, he cultivated an   atmosphere not unlike Chivington’s, in which 
the assault of women, withholding of vaccines, and destruction of shrines was not only accepted 
but likely officially ordered by Favours himself. Captain Monroe’s disgust at the treatment 
of the Wapiti is not exclusive to him. Many   were remorseful for the government’s actions; 
Brigadier General George Crook—so respected an officer that future President Hayes named his 
fourth son after him and the Apache gave him   a nickname—once said that one of the hardest 
things was “to be forced to kill the Indians when they are clearly in the right”, declaring 
“Our treatment of the Indian is an outrage”. The story of Captain Monroe is reminiscent of the 
real tale of Valentine McGillycuddy. As assistant surgeon at Fort Robinson, he had cared for the 
Oglala Lakota woman Black Shawl when she was   ill with tuberculosis, and later stayed with 
her husband, Lakota war leader Crazy Horse, in his final hours after being mortally wounded. 
McGillycuddy became known as a friend to the   Lakota. He travelled to Washington, D.C., to 
speak of the poor conditions of Fort Robinson, and was assigned as the Indian Agent at Pine 
Ridge, the largest reservation in the U.S. The Oglala Lakota leader, Red Cloud—who shares many 
similarities with Rains Fall—was not initially fond of McGillycuddy, but years later described 
him as “a young man with an old man’s head on   his shoulders”. He was essentially forced 
out of Pine Ridge by the new administration, refusing to fire his own clerk on their orders, 
and falsely accused of defrauding the government   of thousands of dollars. He was sent back years 
later to prevent trouble, but the government ignored his recommendations, and the Wounded 
Knee Massacre later followed. When word of the   massacre reached home, McGillycuddy immediately 
set off to tend to the wounded. Rains Fall earlier called Captain Monroe “a good man” who “wants to 
help”; perhaps nothing else, according to many, better described Valentine McGillycuddy.
At the end of this mission, if Arthur has high honour and has met with her beforehand, 
he finds Sister Calderón at the train   station. [Arthur: “What are you doing here?”] 
[Sister Calderón: “Well, I’m on my way down to Mexico… they’re finally sending me on a mission.”] 
They’re a few years off, but in the early 1900s, several religious figures moved from the 
United States to Mexico; one such example   was in 1903. Over the course of seven years, 
the Texas Holiness Association established missions in several Mexican cities—perhaps not 
unlike what Sister Calderón intends to do here. In one of the next missions, Arthur and Charles 
break Eagle Flies out of Fort Wallace—which,   at least physically, appears to be based on Fort 
Wayne, in Indiana, which was most recently sieged in 1812 before being abandoned in 1819. Fort 
Wallace’s relative proximity to Valentine—itself likely based on towns and cities around Wyoming 
and Nebraska—could make it conceptually similar   to Fort Robinson in Nebraska, where Lakota 
war leader Crazy Horse (Tȟašúŋke Witkó) and his band surrendered in May 1877, and where he 
was killed four months later. It’s also where Northern Cheyenne chief Morning Star—also known 
as Dull Knife (Tȟamílapȟéšni)—and his band escaped in January 1879, having been locked away without 
food or wood for heat; the Army pursued, and about 64 Cheyenne were killed, many of them women and 
children. The Supreme Court described it as “one of the most melancholy of Indian tragedies”.
[Charles: “So Rains Fall told me there was some retaliation after the meeting with 
Colonel Favours. Some women were taken,   elders beaten.”] A similar sentiment is echoed 
by Eagle Flies after being found by Arthur and Charles. [Arthur: “You okay?”] [Eagle Flies: 
“Sure… I enjoy being tortured. Clears the mind.”] Of course, despite some orders that Native 
Americans be treated with respect, this was   often not the case. There are accounts of them 
being dragged from their homes, and driven away at bayonet point, often to concentration 
camps. Of particular note was Fort Sixes,   the first concentration camp to house the 
Cherokees. Little summarises it better than the words of one member of the Guard: “During 
the Civil War, I watched as hundreds of men died, including my own brother, but none of that 
compares to what we did to the Cherokee Indians”.  It may be worth noting that some Native 
Americans tortured their captives, too, though this has been noted several times to 
be an “exceptional ritual”—an exaggeration   of European lore. More often than not, Native 
American raiding parties killed their enemies on the battlefield—or, when they did 
capture them, it was with the intent   of adoption or slavery, not torture.
[Charles: “You okay, Arthur?”] [Arthur: “Yeah, I’m right as rain.”] This idiom 
is said to have originated in Britain,   first recorded in 1894 but apparently in use as 
far back as the 1870s. More interesting is some of the earlier variants of the term: “right 
as an adamant” from the 1400s, “right as my   leg” and “right as a gun” in the 1600s, and “right 
as a trivet” in the 1870s, among several others. In one of the next missions, Arthur can 
choose to help Sadie get her revenge on the   O’Driscolls. [Sadie: “There’s a sharpshooter!”] 
The word “sharpshooter” is commonly believed to have originated from the Sharps rifle, designed 
and patented by Christian Sharps in 1848 and used in service from 1850 to 1881. However, 
the term originated much earlier, first as a translation from German in the 1770s, and later 
directly in English in the 1790s and early 1800s. In another mission, Arthur meets John at Bacchus 
Station—so they can blow up Bacchus Bridge. Interestingly, “Bacchus” is the name of a Greek 
god: the god of wine, also known as Dionysus. In this mission, Arthur and John use a handcar 
to transport dynamite to the bridge. Handcars   came onto the scene around the 1860s, built 
in the shops of individual railroads. By 1887, most of them were out of service, but kept around 
by some railroads since they were still operable;   their decline began in the very early 1900s, 
so not long after the events of the game. Thankfully, Arthur and John narrowly avoid a 
collision with an oncoming train. Unfortunately,   several people in real-life have not been 
so lucky. There was a rule at the time that one person should always be positioned to 
watch for an approaching train from the rear;   regrettably, these men did not follow this rule. A little further west of Bacchus Station, 
at O’Creagh’s Run, Arthur meets a man named   Hamish. [Hamish: “He took my damn leg … 
Second time a prick named Buell cost me a leg.”] [Arthur: “Huh?”] [Hamish: “Buell was my 
general when I lost it.”] Interestingly, this   is likely referring to a real general: Don Carlos 
Buell, a U.S. Army officer who fought in the Civil War. In a later part of this mission, Hamish 
describes a battle he was involved in—[Hamish:   “The bodies lay so thick, you coulda walked 
across the whole field without your boots touching mud.”]—which is almost identical to 
how Major General Ulysses S. Grant (later the Commanding General, then acting Secretary of 
War, then President) described in his memoirs   the Battle of Shiloh: a battle he commanded 
alongside Major General Don Carlos Buell. [Arthur: “Hey, how’d you lose the leg?”] 
[Hamish: “Oh, in the war… cannon ball.”]   This isn’t surprising. It’s thought that around 
three quarters of the medical operations performed during the Civil War—about 60,000 surgeries—were 
amputations. It’s estimated that around 75% of amputation patients survived. According to one 
Confederate soldier after the first major battle   of the war: “Many limbs were lost that should have 
been saved, and many lives were lost in trying to save limbs which should have been amputated”.
The number of amputees from the war apparently   caused the number of prosthetics patents to almost 
quadruple. One of the first amputees of the war, James Hanger, began distributing a “Hanger Limb” 
to other soldiers during and after the war,   starting a business called the J. E. Hanger 
Company—now Hanger, Inc., a leading provider of prosthetics and similar products and services.
Interestingly, one of the earliest known prosthetics limbs is an artificial leg found 
in a grave in Italy, dating from around 30 B.C. Predating this is an artificial big toe 
from around 950 to 710 B.C., buried in the Egyptian necropolis near ancient Thebes.
[Hamish: “Pretty clean though. I don’t have much pain and I didn’t get 
any gangrene.”] Unsurprisingly,   gangrene was very common in the Civil War, the 
spread and severity assisted by the unsanitary living conditions and lack of space in hospitals.
There are several notable animals that Arthur encounters in his meetings with Hamish. 
[Hamish: “Only one thing worth catching   in this lake. The great tyrant. Mean as hell 
northern pike.”] The great tyrant is estimated to be around 50 inches long, weighing 40 pounds. 
According to some records, this isn’t impossible: one of the largest ever encountered was 
around 59 inches, weighing 63 pounds. [Hamish: “There’s this huge she wolf been 
stalking me the last few nights I’ve been out.”] The term “she-wolf” is typically just used 
to describe a female wolf. One particularly   interesting she-wolf, though, was the one who, in 
Roman foundation myth, sheltered and nursed the twins Romulus and Remus after they were abandoned 
in the wild, caring for them in her den until they   were discovered by a shepherd. According to 
the stories, of course, Romulus later became the founder and first king of Rome.
[Hamish: “Look at the size of that boar.”] [Arthur: “Holy hell.”] The biggest 
pig ever recorded was named Big Bill, a Poland China in Tennessee who, in 1933, weighed 
over 2,500 pounds and measured around 9 feet. [Hamish: “Whoa.”] [Arthur: “You alright?”] 
[Hamish: “I was ready to offer my complete and unconditional…”] Interestingly, one of the 
earliest uses of a similar phrase was during the   American Civil War by Ulysses S. Grant, who, in 
response to a request for terms from his enemies, said that he would accept none “except an 
unconditional and immediate surrender”. He wasn’t   the first to use the phrase either: his enemies 
did the same only days earlier, but it’s not known if this was the reason for Grant’s exact phrasing. 
His well-known use of the phrase prompted many to   call U.S. Grant “Unconditional Surrender Grant”.
[Hamish: “That’s quite an ambush she led us into.”] [Arthur: “A bushwhacking, I’d call 
it.”] “Bushwhacking” is a type of guerrilla   warfare known for being used in early American 
wars, namely the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. In this context, it refers to an ambush: “a 
surprise attack … from a hidden place”. It came into wider use during the Civil War and afterwards 
became associated with pro-Confederate groups. North of Annesburg, Arthur meets a 
woman named Charlotte. [Charlotte:   “The end of labour is to gain leisure. Is that 
not what Aristotle said?”] Aristotle, of course, was an Ancient Greek philosopher who lived in 
the fourth century B.C. And Charlotte is right:   this quote is often attributed to Aristotle; 
however, in this exact form, it may not have actually been said by him. The closest quote 
is from the tenth book of Nicomachean Ethics,   Aristotle’s best-known work on ethics, which 
states “Happiness is thought to depend on leisure; for we are busy that we may have leisure, 
and make war that we may live in peace”. [Charlotte: “We were both born with the 
silver spoon.”] This phrase, of course, refers to one being born in affluence—being 
born into wealth. It’s thought to allude to the   tradition of gifting a spoon to a child at its 
christening, as Shakespeare and Fletcher wrote about in the 1600s, and perhaps to the fact 
that it was fashionable for people to carry   their own spoons with them—though, on its simplest 
level, it may just refer to wealthy people eating from silver, while others do not. The earliest 
instance of the idiom in literature is in 1762: “one man is born with a silver spoon in his 
mouth, and another with a wooden ladle”. If Arthur explores Charlotte’s house, 
he can find several different products,   like the Lily of the Valley face wash 
and skin whitener. There are several examples of face washes and skin whiteners 
around this time—and, interestingly enough,   “Lily of the Valley” (in addition to being the 
name of a pretty but poisonous flower) was the name of a perfume bottle popular around this 
time. There’s also a bottle of Florida water,   which is essentially American cologne. Regarded 
a unisex cologne, it was apparently created by Robert Murray in New York City in 1808, named 
after the Fountain of Youth which, according to   legend, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León 
was looking for when he arrived in Florida. Near these bottles—though a little obscured—is 
a jar of kettle-rendered lard. While not as significant as butter or tallow, lard and 
vegetable oils were somewhat important edible   fats in the 19th century. One popular method 
of rendering lard—generally for a “higher grade product”—was on a steam-jacketed kettle, 
as is the case with this product in the game. In one of the main game’s final missions, Rains 
Fall tries to convince his son not to battle.   [Rains Fall: “My son, my last son. When I was 
your age, I fought… I saw death. I have killed.”] Obviously, the game could simply be referring 
to its own fictional conflicts, but even when   compared to real-life, there are several battles 
to which he could be referring—particularly those involving the Lakota. Most notably were the 
Sioux Wars, a series of conflicts from the   1850s to 1890s between the United States and the 
Sioux people, led by the Dakota and Lakota. The Great Sioux War, which took place over 1876 
and 1877 between the U.S. and an alliance of the Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne, 
eventually led to the permanent establishment   of Indian reservations in the country.
[Rains Fall: “The wars are over… we have lost.”] He’s pretty much correct; there 
were only a few (mostly minor) conflicts   with Native Americans after 1899, none of which 
resulted in more than two deaths on either side. Rains Fall’s opinion for the Wapiti to settle 
without further conflict is reminiscent of   the Oglala Lakota leader Red Cloud, mentioned 
earlier in reference to Valentine McGillycuddy. Red Cloud led the Lakota in several battles, most 
notably in the Sioux Wars conflict known as Red Cloud’s War in the 1860s, resulting in more 
than 150 deaths. In the years that followed, Red Cloud pushed more for peace, seeking 
treaties and negotiations instead of warfare   and bloodshed—much to the disagreement of 
others like Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. Towards the end of this mission, Arthur and 
Charles discuss the situation with Dutch and   the gang. [Arthur: “There used to be some… 
some reason to it. Lines that couldn’t be crossed. We even helped some folk… Those 
lines have been gone for some time now.”] Dutch and his gang aren’t the only ones who 
seem to have fallen victim to such a downfall.  Jesse James—an outlaw who lived in the mid-to-late 
1800s and leader of the James–Younger Gang—was seen as a Robin Hood figure during his time; his 
gang’s heists were exaggerated and romanticised by journalists eager to entertain the more civilised 
world with tales of the Wild West, assisted by the   “public relations campaign” of James’s mother 
in an attempt to remove the accusations from her sons’ names. However, after his death, 
historians began to analyse the truthfulness   behind Jesse James’s Robin Hood status. It’s true 
that part of his gang’s focus was on rich railroad executives who were making life difficult 
for the poor, but it was for personal gain;   Robin Hood-like humanitarian efforts were 
often more fiction than fact. In fact, the gang was often ruthless; James himself shot 
a bank teller in the back of the head in 1869, and a lawyer was shot while running to the door.
It seems that Jesse James, like Dutch van   der Linde, may not have been 
such a Robin Hood after all. In the chapter’s penultimate mission, the gang 
pull off one final score—and Dutch shares his   plans for afterwards. [Dutch: “I’ve got us 
a river boat. We’ll head up to New York or Chicago…”] Interestingly, one such route—from 
New Orleans to New York—was advertised in 1869, though it wasn’t entirely by riverboat; passengers 
took a riverboat from New Orleans to Alabama,   a train from Alabama to Georgia, and 
steamships from Georgia to New York. Perhaps Dutch had similar ideas for the gang.
On their journey, Micah throws some insults towards John. [Micah: “Oh, Abigail must 
be real excited … I can just see her in a little grass skirt…”] Grass skirts are often 
associated with Hawaii, which makes sense,   but they were actually introduced to Hawaiians by 
immigrants from the Gilbert Islands in the 1870s and 80s, with its origins also attributed 
to Samoa. By the end of the 19th century, Hawaii dancers wore skirts in vaudeville; 
traditional skirts were made with fresh ti leaves,   but these were unavailable in the U.S., 
so they were made with grasses instead. Grass skirts were also a popular symbol 
of the South Seas and Polynesian cultures   from the late 19th century through to World 
War II, so it makes sense that Micah would attribute it to the tropics here—whether he’s 
specifically referring to Tahiti or otherwise. Of course, in this mission, the gang rob a 
train carrying army payroll. Unsurprisingly,   they weren’t the only ones to do so around this 
time. In 1881, while delivering cash for labourers on the Tennessee River, Alexander G. Smith was 
robbed by Jesse James, William “Whiskey Head” Ryan, and a man believed to be Wood Hite; they 
stole over $5,200. In a different incident at the end of the decade, in 1889, mayor Joseph 
W. Wham was transporting payroll in Arizona Territory with eleven Buffalo Soldiers when 
they were ambushed by a group of bandits,   wounding eight soldiers and stealing the payroll; 
eleven men were arrested and eight were tried, but all were found not guilty, and the stolen 
money—over $28,000—was never recovered. In the final mission of the main story, Arthur 
and the gang—or what’s left of it—find out that   the Pinkertons have kidnapped Abigail. This 
wouldn’t be the first time the Pinkertons were involved in tales of kidnapping. Allan 
Pinkerton claimed that he and some associates   kidnapped outlaw John Reno from a train 
depot in Seymour, Indiana, in November 1867, hauling him via train to Missouri, where he was 
convicted. In reality, Reno was arrested by police   in a hotel in Indianapolis, and legally extradited 
to Missouri, where he spent 10 years in prison. To save Abigail, Sadie fights through 
the Pinkertons in Van Horn, while Arthur   provides sniper support from the lighthouse. 
The town that likely inspired Van Horn—Natchez, Mississippi—had its own lighthouse called the 
Natchez Light, built in 1825, but it was destroyed by a tornado in 1840. Interestingly, the Van Horn 
lighthouse bears some resemblance to the Round Island Light in Mississippi, which stood on Round 
Island from 1859 to 1998, when it was toppled by a hurricane. It moved to Pascagoula, Mississippi, 
for restoration in 2010, where it stands today. Sadie is also captured by the Pinkertons and 
held captive inside the Van Horn Fence. There   are a couple of things of interest around the 
Fence, particularly its instruments. In the back is an accordion, which, in its basic form, is 
believed to have been invented in Berlin in 1822. It was introduced to Britain around 1828, and to 
Russia around 1830, where its production became widespread: by the late 1840s, 10,000 accordions 
were being produced in the country per year; by 1874, that number was apparently over 700,000. 
In the United States—particularly New York—it became popular as early as the mid-1840s.
Hung up on the wall behind the shopkeeper’s counter in the Fence is a four-string banjo. 
The banjo was first recorded in use in North   America and the Caribbean in the 17th century 
by enslaved people taken from Central and West Africa. Slaves in the antebellum South played 
the banjo and spread it with the rest of the   population—including many white men, leading 
to its commerciality and popularity in the 19th century. The four-string model 
became especially well-known around   the ragtime era, during the game’s setting.
When Arthur makes it to Abigail and Sadie, he is held up by Agent Milton, who tells him 
that he should have taken their deal when he   had the chance. Not that it matters, since someone 
else took it anyway. [Agent Milton: “Micah Bell… we picked him up when you boys came back from 
the Caribbean… and he’s been a good boy ever   since.”] There have, of course, been several 
government informants throughout history, but likely the closest in proximity to the 
Van der Linde gang would be Robert Ford,   who intended to collect the $10,000 bounty on 
Jesse James’s head and receive a full pardon by the Governor of Missouri. Ford shot James in the 
back of the head at his house in April 1882—and was himself killed ten years later, in June 1892.
Abigail saves Arthur by shooting Agent Milton in the head—his months of viciously hunting for the 
Van der Linde gang ended in a moment. Milton’s dedication to his search is reminiscent of 
Charlie Siringo, a detective who worked for   the Pinkerton National Detective Agency at the 
turn of the century, known for his work hunting down Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch. Much of the 
historical information about the Wild Bunch comes   specifically from Siringo’s files; his work was 
incredibly thorough. But so was Cassidy’s, and his gang responded to the search by essentially 
mocking the Pinkertons and performing more   robberies—a familiar tale for the Van der Linde 
gang. Siringo even infiltrated the gang himself, whereas Milton only got an informant to get the 
information for him. And while Siringo didn’t   catch Butch—nor did Milton catch Dutch—their 
gangs did both ultimately meet their end. As did Agent Milton, thanks to Abigail—but the 
same did not happen to Siringo. In fact,   he resigned from the organisation in 1907, and 
years later wrote a book strongly criticising it, calling it a “corrupt institution” that ought 
to be “put … out of commission”. Perhaps not   so much like Milton, after all.
Towards the end of the mission, Arthur can choose to help John get to safety or 
go back for the money. If he chooses the latter,   he finds almost $43,000 under a wagon in 
the cave behind camp—equivalent to more than $1.6 million today. Perhaps they 
had enough money for Tahiti, after all. John Henry Holliday—better known as Doc 
Holliday—was a dentist and a gambler who   was temporarily deputised in the 
early 1880s. Sometime afterwards, he was technically considered a criminal, with a 
warrant issued for his arrest. In 1887, Holliday rested near the hot springs of Glenwood Springs, 
Colorado, where—15 years after being diagnosed   with tuberculosis—he died at the age of 36.
Unfortunately, although he was around the same age as Doc Holliday, Arthur Morgan does not 
outlive his diagnosis for quite so long. He does not retire near any hot springs. He saves his 
friends, fights his enemies, and finally—honour permitting—dies watching the sunrise.
And thus, his journey is done. But the story is not. Thanks to Arthur’s efforts, eight 
years later—in 1907—John Marston   is trying to build a life for his family.
[Jack Marston: “Sorry, sir.”] The formal names that Jack uses to refer to his father 
are not totally uncommon—even today in many   American families. He also uses “Ma” and “Pa” 
several times, which was also preferred in many families—as was “daddy” for some (especially 
English families) though that’s typically reserved   for other characters in the game. It’s said that, 
for elite families, “mum” and “dad” were totally disavowed, and it appears Jack follows a similar 
rule, only using the latter about two times—once when excited, and once when distressed.
[Jack: “Sorry, sir. What was that?”] [John Marston: “I said you’re a bad influence… on your 
mother… with your books.”] [Jack: “Which books was that?”] [Abigail Roberts: “You know, that dime 
novel. Boy Calloway and the Men from the Moon, or whatever it was.”] This would certainly be 
accurate. Tales of the frontier existed while the frontier was expanding—as early as the early-1800s 
with novels like the Leatherstocking Tales series. The Western genre really kicked off with penny 
dreadfuls and dime novels, which were discussed   back in chapter 2; the first dime novel was 
published in June 1860. From around 1880, the genre became successful in continental Europe with 
the publication of full novels by non-American   authors like Karl May, and by 1900, cheap 
pulp magazines in the U.S. allowed easterners to relate to the tales of Western adventures.
[John: “Do you enjoy tales of the Wild West?”] [Jack: “Not so much… anymore. I been reading 
about Knights… you know, of the Round Table.”] There are several books that discuss Arthurian 
legends, dating back to the 9th century—though   they became much more popular around the 12th 
century. By the late 1800s, there were dozens of English-language books about this topic.
[Jack: “There’s King Arthur, and there’s Sir Lancelot, and the Lady Guinevere, and a whole lot 
of others.”] Anyone familiar with the legend of King Arthur knows how true this is. According 
to legend, Arthur led the Celtic Britons in battle against the Saxon invaders in the late 
5th and early 6th centuries. He was married to   Lady Guinevere, who—as some stories say—began an 
affair with Sir Lancelot, Arthur’s close companion and one of the greatest Knights of the Round 
Table. There are any number of Knights depending   on the story, with some claiming as few as 
13 and some up to as many as 1,600—though, most commonly, there were between 100 and 300.
The name of the mission—“The Wheel”—may also have some relevance to the story of King Arthur. 
The Rota Fortuna (or Wheel of Fortune) serves as a symbol of the nature of fate, and Thomas Malory’s 
famous story The Death of Arthur uses it in this   manner, with the Wheel symbolising the concept 
that even the best humans have flaws; that even those with poor morals retain the capacity 
for redemption, and to become a good person. In this mission, John and Abigail look for work 
in the town of Strawberry. [John: “I’m gonna go   see what kind of good, honest work I can find. 
Grave digging or… polishing some rich feller’s boots or some such.”] Shoe-shining as a 
profession is thought to have existed at   least as long as branded shoe polish itself—so 
around the early 19th century. Interestingly, the earliest known photograph of a human—taken 
in 1838 or 1839—features a man having his shoe shined. There also appears to be a shoe 
shine station in the game, in Saint Denis. [Shopkeeper: “Times hard, Mr…”] [John: “Milton. 
Jim Milton.”] John’s use of this name may be a reference to John Milton, the English poet and 
intellectual who famously wrote Paradise Lost,   an epic poem concerning the biblical story of 
the Fall of Man. Most notably, Milton originally envisioned this story to be based on a legendary 
king, such as the legend of King Arthur. From John’s perspective, it’s probably a reference 
to Andrew Milton, the long-dead Pinkerton. In towns like Strawberry, John—like Arthur—can 
purchase and read issues of the newspaper,   which continue to have fascinating stories 
with real-life historical connections. One article talks of President Thaddeus 
Waxman telling a New York crowd that 1907   would see “the largest number of immigrants 
ever recorded passing through Ellis Island”: over a million. There’s no record of President 
Theodore Roosevelt making any such speech,   but there were such predictions around this time. 
And they were right: Ellis Island had its busiest year in 1907 with more than one million immigrant 
passing through—for context, more than 12 million immigrants passed through in the 62-year period 
from 1892 to 1954. The article also mentions that, three years after the U.S. took over the Panama 
Canal project from France amid its high worker   mortality rates, Waxman assigned Colonel William 
Thomas Kirchner as chief engineer of the Panama Canal project; Roosevelt did the same with 
George Washington Goethals in February 1907, having signed a treaty in 1903 granting the 
U.S. the rights to build the Panama Canal Zone   following several years of high worker mortality 
rates—as high as over 200 workers a month in 1884. A later article talks of President Waxman signing 
the Immigration Act—which, notably, is directly copied from the Immigration Act which President 
Roosevelt signed into law in February 1907. Another article reports on the “germ of 
laziness” finally becoming known as hookworm,   following a major outbreak in Cornish mines in 
1902, in addition to common cases in the coal mines of Belgium, France, and Germany. This 
is mostly true; the discovery of the parasite occurred sometime earlier, but Charles Wardell 
Stiles discovered a new species of hookworm   around the turn of the century, as documented 
in several newspapers around 1902 and 1903. As much as 40% of the U.S. South were estimated to 
have been infected. The Cornish mine in question is likely the Dolcoath mine, which was said 
to have had the right conditions for hookworm   to propagate; in 1903 and 1904, random 
tests found 94% of the men were infected with the parasite. The mention of European 
mines is also accurate—as would be mines in   North Queensland in Australia, among other places.
One story mentions that radio signals carrying the music of George Frideric Handel was broadcast from 
an experimental alternator-transmitter at Brant Rock, Massachusetts, a transmission then generally 
used for reports using Morse code. This is based on a real historical story; on Christmas Eve in 
1906, Reginald Fessenden made the first music broadcast, transmitting sound of himself playing 
O Holy Night on violin and a phonograph record of a song by Handel. Perhaps the most inaccurate part 
of this newspaper article is the reporting itself; Fessenden’s seemingly went unreported until a 
brief mention in 1928 and a more significant report in 1932. That the information is 
based on Fessenden’s own memory has led   to some doubts as to its veracity, but it’s a 
logical historical inclusion here, nonetheless. At the beginning of the next mission, Abe is 
seen using a grindstone to sharpen one of his   tools. Of course, this is most certainly 
accurate, with grindstones having existed for centuries by this point, and the treadle and 
crank mechanism being introduced around 1480—over 400 years earlier than the game’s setting.
[Abe: “Is it true what they said about you when you arrived? That–that you ran off those 
hired guns?”] The term “hired gun” doesn’t appear to be in print until several decades after the 
game, but the noun “gun” has been used as slang   for a professional criminal since the mid-1800s, 
so it makes sense for someone to have said this phrase at some point between those dates.
[John: “Been in these parts before, but that was years ago.”] [Abe: “It’s changed. Rich 
fellers are coming in and buying everything.”] This is unsurprising. The Homestead Act of 1862 
allowed citizens to claim surveyed government land. They were required to live on the land and 
improve it through cultivation for five years,   after which point they were entitled to the 
property through only a small registration fee. It’s said that small farmers acquired more 
land under this act in the 20th century than   the 19th—which may be where Mr. Geddes comes in.
[Abe: “Well, it ain’t as wild as it once were, at least.”] This was, of course, true when it was 
mentioned in the context of the game’s opening,   and it’s certainly true now. The Wild 
West is generally considered to have ended by the turn of the century—so it 
was even less wild in 1907 than in 1899. Some popular Wild West figures 
lived into the 20th century,   and the frontier expansion continued well into the 
1910s, but this is often seen as the ‘footnote’ to the Wild West. As far as most historians are 
concerned, the Wild West was essentially over. [Tom Dickens: “What was you doing before you came 
here?”] [John: “I told ya… wife got cheated out of inheritance… we was in a legal dispute. It was 
a bad time.”] The concept of inheritance and wills dates back to Ancient Greece, where they 
were usually signed before several witnesses.   They were further developed in Ancient Rome, 
where they were influenced by Christianity, and in England, where distinctions began to 
be made between actual and personal property. At the end of this mission, as John 
and Abigail both leave for work, Jack   is seen reading a book. More specifically, he’s 
reading Otis Miller and the Boy from New York, one of the penny dreadfuls about the legendary 
gunslinger. Otis Miller seems pretty clearly based   on the famous outlaw Jesse James, a connection 
made most obvious in one of the game’s newspapers, which reprints a folk song about Otis Miller 
that is very similar to a real-life folk song   about Jesse James—also sung by sone 
gang members many years earlier—and, as a result, gives the two outlaws a lot of 
similarities, such as a brother named Frank,   a son named after them who was arrested and 
acquitted for train robbery, and the fact that both men were shot and killed by members of their 
gangs. Miller’s gun, found in the game world,   is a Schofield Revolver, modelled on the Smith 
& Wesson Model 3 variant the “Schofield”, said to have been a favourite of Jesse James—and 
also the same model used to kill him. Perhaps more   relevant, though, is the fact that Jesse James 
was also the subject of several dime novels in the early 1900s, which physically bear a striking 
resemblance to the one Jack is reading here. [Abe: “Aw heck. Hey, maybe them Laramie boys 
weren’t so tough after all, hm?”] Interestingly, the word “Laramie” seems to have a 
strong association with the state   of Wyoming—it’s the name of both 
a city and a county in the state, Fort Laramie is the name of both a Wyoming 
town and a former military institution,   the Laramie River and Laramie Mountains run 
through the state and neighbouring Colorado, and in 1898 the Missionary District of the Platte 
was renamed Missionary District of Laramie after   it was expanded to include parts of Wyoming.
This is most likely not a coincidence. One of the game’s newspapers refers to the 
group as the Laramie Corporation, noting that,   under the guidance of the Cattle Association, 
they are “visiting small farm owners offering large sums” of money. Unsurprisingly, these 
organisations conceptually resemble the Wyoming Stock Growers Association—originally called the 
Stock Association of Laramie County. The group was established in 1872 to organise the cattle 
industry in the area, but, before long, it had grown into a political force that was essentially 
the government of the Wyoming Territory. Regarding the group’s resemblance to the 
Laramie Gang: in 1892, Frank Wolcott—one of the group’s members—hired around 50 gunmen 
(including known Texas killers) to eliminate   alleged rustlers in Johnson County. On 
April 8, they murdered Nathan Champion, accusing him of being a rustler and 
pinning a note on his chest reading   “Cattle Thieves Beware”. However, Champion 
wasn’t a cattle rustler at all; he was just a small rancher who stood up against the unfair 
practices of the association. A familiar story. [David Geddes: “I don’t care what you used to 
do or what you… your name is; this is the land   of second chances.”] This is a phrase that has 
been used by several characters and figures to refer to their own lands—like Australia, Canada, 
South Africa, and, of course, the United States, especially in the 20th and 21st centuries. 
President George W. Bush notably used the term   in his 2004 State of the Union address. [George 
W. Bush: “America is the land of second chance.”] It’s essentially an extension of the ethos of the 
“American Dream”: the idea that everyone is given   the chance to succeed at a better life. At perhaps 
no time did this feel truer to white people than during and immediately following the American 
frontier: promises of gold, the expansion of land,   the shaping of personality. Such is the dream 
that the Van der Linde gang was counting on, and that John and his family do the same.
[Laramie gang member: “Now, get outta here, hayseed.”] In this context, the word 
“hayseed” is a humorous (sometimes   derogatory) way to refer to those from rural 
areas, not unlike “yokel” or “bumpkin”. Its first known publication was in Moby-Dick more 
than 50 years earlier, and it had been printed   many times in the decades that followed, 
so a very logical attempted insult here. In one of the next missions, John goes to the 
post office to pick up deliveries for Mr. Geddes   and a parcel for Abigail. The post office was 
established in 1792 in the Postal Service Act. Shopping in this manner, meanwhile, was 
introduced to the United States by the   first mail-order catalogue in 1845: Tiffany’s 
Blue Book. A pioneering mail-order business, Montgomery Ward, produced its first 
mail-order catalogue in 1872, cutting   out the intermediary and allowing the prices 
to be lower. Richard Warren Sears, meanwhile, started selling watches through mail-order 
catalogues in 1888, soon leading to the very   popular Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalogues, 
which are imitated elsewhere in the game. [Abe: “Mr. Jim.”] [John: “Abe.”] [Abe: “There’s a 
telegram messenger for you.”] In more urban areas, telegram messengers would travel by bicycle—so 
much so that the Western Union Telegraph Company   would buy 5,000 bicycles a year and resell them to 
telegraph boys at a discount. And they mostly were “boys”: in these areas, telegram messengers were 
usually young men between the ages of 10 and 18. The telegram that John receives has been sent 
through the Ellsworth Wrought Telegraph Company.   The word “Wrought” refers to “What hath God 
wrought”, a phrase from the Bible’s Book of Numbers that was also the first ever 
telegraph message sent long distance,   from Baltimore to Washington by Samuel Morse 
in 1844. The word “Ellsworth”, meanwhile, refers to Annie Ellsworth—the daughter 
of one of Morse’s friends—who suggested   that he use the phrase in the first place.
[John: “Jim, stop. If you’re the J.M. I know, stop.”] The reason there are so many “stop”s 
throughout the message is because punctuation   cost extra to send, whereas an extra word 
like “stop” was free—so it was often used in the place of commas or full stops.
This isn’t the only message John receives in this mission; he finds a letter for him by 
Abigail. [Abigail: “Part of you is hell bent   on ending up the same way.”] The term “hell 
bent” is traced back to around the first half of the 1800s. A similar phrase is “hell-bent for 
leather”—sometimes just “hell for leather”—meaning “as fast as possible”, first printed in 1889.
[Tom: “Just interested, that’s all.”] [John: “Ain’t nothing interesting… unless you find gossip 
about a man’s marriage worthy of your time.”] Interestingly, the word “gossip” originally 
referred to someone with whom one was close and   could share their personal life—like a sibling or 
a friend. From around the 16th century, it usually referred to a person who would “delight in idle 
talk”—also known as a “tattler” or “newsmonger”. Later, the word was redefined to refer to 
the conversation itself, or the act of it.   It was seen as something that only women did—not 
because men didn’t do it, but when men did gossip, they saw it as more important—a discussion, 
not a whisper—so it wasn’t labelled as such. In one of this chapter’s last missions, 
John heads to Blackwater for the first   time in the game. Interestingly, there are 
quite a few places called “Blackwater” in the United States—a census-designated place in 
Arizona, an archaeological site in New Mexico, a dam in New Hampshire. But the one with the 
most in common to the game is Blackwater,   Missouri—particularly because it’s also 
a relatively small city with a similar layout (though, to be fair, that layout 
wasn’t exactly uncommon). Blackwater,   Missouri, was mapped in 1887, having functioned 
as a trading point for some time beforehand; similarly, Blackwater, West Elizabeth, 
had apparently been nothing more than a   small trading post in the decades before the game, 
though it was founded some time earlier, in 1767. Like a lot of locations in the game, though, 
Blackwater is likely an amalgamation of several   real-life areas. It’s regularly compared 
to Texas—particularly the cities of Dallas, Galveston, and Houston—especially 
due to their proximity to water and   their political and economic significance. 
Oklahoma City is another possible candidate for the latter reasons. In any case, it’s 
unlikely that there’s one singular answer. In this mission, John visits the West Elizabeth 
Co-Operative Bank to attain a bank loan in order   to buy Beecher’s Hope. Cooperative banks are 
generally known as credit unions in the United States, owned and managed by its members, all 
of whom have accounts within the bank. The   first credit union in the U.S. was St. Mary’s 
Bank in New Hampshire, established in 1908, one year after the events in the game. West 
Elizabeth Co-Operative Bank, meanwhile,   is said to have been established in 1851—so 
either it was established as a credit union far beyond its time, or perhaps renamed quite 
recently, so only a little beyond its time. As for the bank loan: around this time—the 
late 1800s and early 1900s—five- or six-year amortisation periods were fairly standard. 
Borrowers often had to pay 50% of the purchase   upfront, followed by interest-only payments 
and a large balloon payment for the remaining loan balance in the final month. However, the 
short repayment time and the hefty down-payment   meant it was mostly the wealthy who would apply 
for bank loans, rather than standard citizens. Inside the bank is a typewriter. Interestingly, 
there are several predecessors to the typewriter dating back to the 1500s, and several typing 
and printing machines were patented in the U.S.   and Europe in the early 1800s, but none 
were commercially produced until 1870: the Hansen Writing Ball in Denmark, which became 
highly successful in Europe. It was, of course, followed by many others by many other companies 
in the U.S.—like the Hammond Typewriter Company   in 1880, Fitch Typewriter Company in 1888, and 
the Underwood Typewriter Company in 1895—so its existence and usage in 1907 (especially 
in a bank) is entirely unsurprising. These last two missions—“The Landowning Classes” 
and “Home of the Gentry?”—have fitting titles. The “gentry” are people of high social class; in the 
United Kingdom specifically, the “landed gentry”   refers to the social class of landowners who had 
a country estate and were able to live entirely through rental income. Home of the Gentry is also 
the title of a Russian novel published in 1859. When John makes it to Beecher’s 
Hope, he chases off some squatters,   either by killing them or giving them 
$10—which is equivalent to around $380 today. Towards the end of this mission, John bumps into 
everyone’s favourite uncle, Uncle. [Uncle: “I saw you going into the bank… and by the looks 
of things you ain’t robbed it.”] [John: “I’ve   gone straight.”] The word “straight” meaning 
“honest” or “true” dates back to the 1520s. The term “go straight”, however, apparently dates 
to around 1919, so about twelve years later than John uses it here—though, being an informal 
term, his usage may not be entirely inaccurate. [John: “I’ve gone straight.”] [Uncle: “Oh, 
bullcrap.”] The first use of this word—or, at least, the more vulgar version—dates to 
around 1914 in both British and American slang,   but Uncle is a man ahead of his time, so his 
usage is unsurprising. The word “crap” being swapped out for its vulgar equivalent dates 
back to around 1846, the first recorded use   of the word referring to bodily waste.
Speaking of bodily waste, Uncle convinces John to let him stick around. [Uncle: “I’ll come 
too.”] [John: “Nah, you don’t have to.”] [Uncle: “I’m real sick, John. Lumbago.”] The noun 
“lumbago” is derived from the Late Latin word meaning “backache of the lumbar region”—and 
that’s what lumbago is: lower back pain.   A report from 1862 showed that railway workers 
had greater sickness than many other occupations and that lumbago was one of the main causes, 
becoming an increasing problem between 1860   and 1880. More recently, the term “lumbago” was 
deemed “too general” by the medical community, so more specific terminology is used instead.
In this mission, Uncle has a different horse, and, interestingly, it has a moustache—which 
is common in several real breeds of horse too.   Several countries prohibited the trimming of horse 
whiskers as it impacts their sensory ability, and the International Federation for Equestrian 
Sports banned it at its events in 2021. While in Blackwater, John can purchase the latest 
edition of the Blackwater Ledger. One article talks of the Kinetograph “bringing moving pictures 
to the screen”. In some ways, this is true;   the Kinetograph is the motor-powered 
camera through which film was shot, developed in the early 1890s by Thomas 
Edison’s employee William Kennedy Dickson   and his team. The manner through which these 
films were displayed was the Kinetoscope, with one person viewing at a time through 
a peephole; this was eventually succeeded   by the Projectoscope or Projecting Kinetoscope, 
thought to have made up for 30% of all projector sales in the U.S. around 1907 to 1908, the same 
period as the projector is mentioned in the game. Another article describes the “rapid growth” of 
Blackwater, which is unsurprising—such growth was fairly common around this time, especially with 
the expansion of the railroad and the end of the   frontier. There’s one quote from the article that 
is particularly interesting, though: the last one, describing Blackwater as “a great gal” and “a 
huckleberry above most people’s persimmons”—also   a real quote from some papers in 1844, attributed 
to a steamboat pilot describing a girl. One interesting story is called “Queer Pranks of 
Lightning”, describing a recent storm in which a   bolt of lightning struck a house, travelled along 
an ornamental awning, and shattered a window, severely shocking three people and knocking one 
woman “completely … senseless”. There are several   somewhat similar newspaper articles published 
around the same time, some of which curiously use similar phrasing; one particularly similar 
one describes the lightning causing chaos within   a house: knocking out window casings, shattering 
plastering, ejecting pictures from the walls, and rendering one woman unconscious 
for a full hour. Queer pranks, indeed. There’s a story about the remaining lines owned 
by Leviticus Cornwall’s company to be consolidated   and continue service under the Pacific Union 
Railroad. This is unsurprising and fairly common. Mergers and consolidations have seen the number 
of Class I railroads in the United States—those   with revenue exceeding $1 million at the time, 
$1 billion today—have decreased from around 132 in the 20th century to fewer than a dozen 
today, including the Union Pacific Railroad. [Sadie Adler: “John Marston!”] [John: “It is good to see you.”]
In this mission, John and Sadie track down Nathan Kirk, an accountant on the run from 
New York for embezzling money. Unsurprisingly, there are plenty of different cases of 
embezzlement around this time so it’s likely not   based on any particular one. One interesting case 
is that of Paul R. Holland, a cashier of the First National Bank of Turtle Creek in Pennsylvania, who 
was found guilty on four counts of embezzlement   and four counts of misappropriating funds. 
His defence was that he was “so ill” at the time “that he could not give close attention 
to his duties as cashier”, and implied that   his co-workers had taken the money. A somewhat 
familiar tale. [Nathan Kirk: “It’s all a mistake, my wife… my wife is a, is a desperate woman.”]
[Sadie: “I didn’t think I’d see any of you again… after you left for the Yukon.”] Interestingly, 
“Yukon” is actually the name of at least four towns, one ghost town, and an unincorporated 
community in the United States—but here,   Sadie is much more likely referring to the 
Yukon Territory in north-western Canada, also referred to as “the Yukon”. [John: “We came 
back. Didn’t strike it rich, as you can see.”] John and his family likely left in search 
of riches after the Klondike Gold Rush of   the late 1890s, during which around 100,000 
prospectors set to migrate to the Klondike region of Yukon after gold was discovered there. 
Of these, only around 30 to 40 thousand arrived, around 4,000 actually found gold, a few hundred 
found enough to call themselves rich, and only   about a handful actually managed to maintain this 
wealth. John’s family, it seems, was not alone. [Man: “We get plenty of New Yorkers here; it’s 
resort town, you see, the ‘Adirondacks of the West’ the mayor calls it.”] The Adirondack 
Mountains are in north-eastern New York,   so trying to establish an equivalent title in 
the west is only logical for a resort town. The six million-acre Adirondack Park was established 
by the state of New York in 1892; more recently, the park hosts around 12.4 million visitors 
per year, so borrowing its name seems like   a great marketing tool for Strawberry—an 
unsurprising move considering its mayor. In the next mission, John and Uncle return to 
Saint Denis to look for Charles. There are a   few interesting changes throughout the city since 
Arthur’s last visit in 1899, like the renaming of Cornwall’s business, but one particularly 
interesting one is the changing of Victory   Street Station to Victoria Street Station—perhaps 
a reference to Queen Victoria, who died in 1901, less than two years after Arthur. This would be 
unsurprising, considering her record-breaking   reign: the longest of any British monarch at the 
time, at almost 64 years. There are other places in the U.S. likely named after the Queen, too: 
like Victoria, Kansas, named before her death; and Victoria, Virginia, named after it.
One change that’s not present in Saint Denis is   the aforementioned resegregation of streetcars, 
which was actioned in 1902 in New Orleans—and would remain that way for the next 56 years. 
Many attitudes changed in the increasingly volatile political climate over these eight years, 
however absent such changes may be in the game. In this mission, John is told to look for 
Charles at Saint Saturnines. Unsurprisingly,   this name reinforces Saint Denis’s connection 
to New Orleans with a French-associated name: Saint Saturnin of Toulouse was one of the 
“Apostles to the Gauls” in the third century.   “Saint-Saturnin” is also the name—or part of 
the name—of at least 14 communes in France. Charles is given at least two different nicknames 
throughout this mission. The first is “Lone Wolf”,   which is a name used for several different 
characters, books, and songs. Interestingly, though, it’s also the name of at least 
three known Native American figures:   Guipago, the last Principal Chief of 
the Kiowa tribe; Lone Wolf the Younger, a Kiowa who was given his name by 
Guipago; and Hart Merriam Schultz,   an artist known by his Blackfoot name, Lone Wolf.
Another of Charles’s nicknames is “Indian Hercules”. Interestingly, this is a title that 
was awarded by King George V and Queen Mary   to Kodi Rammurthy Naidu, an Indian wrestler, 
strongman, and bodybuilder in the early 1900s. In this mission, Charles partakes in 
a bare-knuckle fight. Interestingly,   while the sport originated in England, some 
sources suggest that New Orleans was the “traditional centre” of bare-knuckle boxing. 
In fact, the event that is largely considered   the first bare-knuckle world championship fight 
took place in Kenner, Louisiana, in 1870. What was largely considered the last sanctioned 
bare-knuckle boxing match in the U.S. took   place in Mississippi in 1889—so the fact that this 
event is taking place in relative secrecy in 1907 certainly makes sense. It saw a resurgence more 
than a century later and is fought legally today. In one of the next missions, John helps 
Sadie track down a bounty that was stolen   from her. [Sadie: “He’s wanted in five states. I 
caught him last week. He was disguised as a lady in a house for fallen women.”] While not an exact 
comparison of course, this is somewhat reminiscent of Elaine Parent, the “Chameleon Killer”, who 
apparently travelled around the world in the   late 20th and early 21st centuries with more 
than 20 identities, sometimes as a man. She was known to have killed at least one person—her 
former flatmate—but her variety of aliases led   to the belief that she actually killed several 
more, stealing their identities upon doing so. In a more historical sense, this could be a 
reference to the capture of Jefferson Davis   at the end of the Confederacy in 1865. In his 
unsuccessful attempt to evade the Union soldiers, he wore a cloak, and his wife threw 
a black shawl around his shoulders.   Political cartoons later depicted this as 
Davis trying to flee in full women’s clothing. In this mission, John and Sadie look upon the town 
of Armadillo, where, if John later returns, he   finds a man warning people to leave. [Town crier: 
“Hey friend. Place is full of cholera. Head in there at your own peril. Well, half the town has 
died and most of the rest have fled.”] This isn’t entirely out-of-place, though it is a little later 
than one might expect. There was a major cholera   outbreak in the United States in the mid-19th 
century, which impacted several major cities: St. Louis, Missouri, lost more than 4,500 people, 
while Cincinnati, Ohio, lost almost 6,000. Several small towns in the Midwest were also severely 
impacted, largely in Indiana. Aurora, Indiana, had a population of 2,000 in 1849, of whom 1,600 fled 
and 122 died from cholera; similar to Armadillo, the townspeople attempted to purify the air with 
fires at street crossings. Boston, Indiana, had a population of 120 in 1849, of whom 53 died; the 
town was abandoned except for one family, and it’s said there was often no-one left to bury the dead.
Washington, Indiana, had 1,000 people in 1849; 50 people died, and one paper said that only 
five families later remained. Salem, Indiana, had a population of “a few hundred” in 1833, and 
there were 113 deaths in and around the town; the local newspaper stopped publication, and 
the local minister wrote that everyone fled   except “a donkey and a drunken 
grocery keeper”. New Elizabeth, Indiana, saw a mass exodus of 70 of the town’s 
75 families, after 10% of its population died. Amsterdam, Ohio, was said to have existed from 
1837 to 1849, when all of its residents died from cholera; the entire town ceased to exist, and 
its only remnant is a road named “Amsterdam Road”. [Town crier: “Years ago, it was the scarlet 
fever, then the desert plague, then typhus,   now the cholera.”] Some deaths in Amsterdam, Ohio, 
were attributed to diseases like typhoid, malaria, and scarlet fever, and it would be unsurprising 
elsewhere too: there was a world pandemic of   scarlet fever from around the 1820s to 1880s, 
and a U.S. epidemic of typhus in the mid-1800s. The Armadillo town crier gives John a handbill 
from the New Austin Sanatory Committee, which   matches the handbills distributed in the 1800s, 
like one from New York around the late 1840s. [Town crier: “Some folks say the whole town 
is cursed.”] This theory could apply to a   lot of towns, in and out of the United States. 
One interesting example is Bodie, California, a boom town which had around 8,000 residents 
in 1879; its population subsequently declined, and it was declared a ghost town by 
1915. It’s said that the town is cursed,   and that anybody who takes anything will 
themselves be cursed—though, in truth, this “curse” was started by a park ranger who wanted to 
stop tourists from stealing objects from the area. Later in Armadillo, John encounters an 
undertaker who is throwing dead bodies   in a mass burial site. This was not uncommon; it 
was known as a cholera pit, of which there were several in Canada and the United Kingdom. 
There’s a notable one at a church in Arba,   Indiana—a mass grave with some stones which 
was kept separate from the other graves there. A little further outside of Armadillo, near 
the church, is a man burning the bodies of dead   cholera victims. This was apparently performed 
sometime before this in Japan following other epidemics in the 1700s and 1800s (though it 
was often more for religious reasons) and on at least one occasion in the UK before the bodies 
were placed into a cholera pit. In the U.S., Hoffman Island and Swinburne Island were built 
to quarantine immigrants who arrived by ship   carrying contagious diseases. Swinburne had a 
crematorium, which was used to cremate several bodies of those who died on the island—though 
this was likely for convenience and space.   Some suggested that bodies of dead cholera victims 
should be burned to prevent further infection, though the disease is mostly spread 
through contaminated food and water. In one of the next missions, everyone’s 
favourite Uncle has a few interesting phrases   to say. [Uncle: “Boy is as sour as week old 
milk.”] This line appears to first be published around 1925. [Uncle: “No wonder she didn’t stay 
with you. Not even a retired two-dollar whore…”] This phrase—and a similar version replacing 
“two-dollar” with “two-bit”—was first printed   around the 1920s. [Uncle: “You’re worse 
than a snake with a toothache.”] And this one—replacing “snake” with “rattlesnake”—is 
first seen around 1912. But while Uncle may often seem ahead of his time—or, perhaps, a time 
traveller—these are all pretty informal phrases, so that they were spoken earlier than they 
were first published is not impossible.  John’s line, meanwhile—[John: “Place just needs a 
woman’s touch.”]—was printed as far back as 1815, with the exact phrasing in 1895. So, 
much less likely to be a time traveller. [John: “I know this sounds crazy… some dumb 
old coot I know was telling me there’s houses you can buy pre-cut.”] [Albert Cakes: “Not crazy, 
friend. The very latest in modern convenience.”] Unsurprisingly, he’s correct. Kit houses—also 
known as mill-cut, pre-cut, or ready-cut houses—were popular in the United States in the 
early 20th century. They were especially popular   in the 1910s and 20s; over 100,000 kit houses 
were said to have been built in the country between 1908 and 1940. Aladdin Homes in Michigan 
apparently presented the idea in 1906, and Sears, Roebuck & Co.—the company that would become 
the largest provider of kit houses—entered the   market in 1908. Construction began to gradually 
decline after the stock market crash in 1929, and the final Sears catalogue was printed 
in 1940—though several other companies   lasted until the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, 
and at least one North American company (which began in 1945) still operates today.
[John: “I’ll take that one.”] John selects Modern Style 144 for his house—though in the next 
mission, that seems to have changed to Modern   Home Number 420. In any case, Sears, Roebuck & 
Co.—clearly one of the main inspirations behind Wheeler, Rawson & Co.—also had a ‘Modern 
Style’ category in its own catalogues. [Albert Cakes: “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Martin. 
Albert Cakes Esquire, at your service.”] In the United States, “Esquire” is generally reserved 
for lawyers. Some state bar associations—like New York—actually protect the term, making its use 
by non-practicing lawyers essentially unauthorised   practice of law. In the United Kingdom, 
use of the term is a little less rigid, usually just a polite title applied to 
a man’s name when none other is used. Sometime later, Charles arrives with some 
security. [Charles: “I left Uncle armed to the   teeth back at the ranch.”] The term “to the teeth” 
meaning “well-equipped” dates to the 14th century, apparently referring to knights wearing 
armour from head to feet. It began to be   used more around the mid-1800s, initially still 
applying to weapons and military equipment—so more or less the same way Charles is using it here.
[Willard Wayne: “Now, Nils. He’s an acquired tase, but boy can he work metal. Norwegian, you 
see. Viking blood.”] This is, of course, correct. “Viking” is the modern name of 
seafaring people from Scandinavia—that is,   Denmark, Norway, and Sweden—in the late eighth to 
late eleventh centuries, often used specifically for raiders or pirates. Around the nineteenth 
century, the word was used in a more noble   or romantic sense, referring to warriors.
A Norwegian man being in this area is not entirely unsurprising, considering Tall Trees is 
adjacent to the Great Plains; after the Civil War, several immigrants from Norway settled 
around the Great Plains (though largely   further north). By 1900, there were more than 
300,000 Norwegians living in the U.S.—one of the largest populations from any European nation.
[Wayne: “Fellers up there used to worship a god with a hammer.”] This is 
unlikely to need explaining,   but yes, Norse mythology features a god named 
Thor, associated with thunder, lightning, and strength. And the hammer, of course, is 
Mjölnir, a devastating weapon wielded by Thor. [John: “A few minutes ago, he was chewing 
my ear off.”] To “talk [someone’s] ear off”   dates to around the early 1900s, so it seems 
pretty accurate here. It’s likely combined with “chew the fat”, referring to making small 
talk, which originates sometime before 1885. In the iconic next mission, John, Charles, and 
Uncle build a house. Well, John and Charles   do. [John: “How did I know you’d try to weasel out 
of doing any work?”] The word “weasel” meaning to “extricate oneself [from a difficult place] 
like a weasel” was first recorded in 1925,   so quite some time after its usage here.
[Uncle: “Definitely not a job for a man with terminal lumbago… unless you wanna 
dig a six-foot deep hole for me when the   workday’s over.”] [John: “Don’t tempt me.”] The 
earliest-known reference of the six-foot deep hole—though almost certainly not the actual origin 
of the tradition—was in 1665, when John Lawrence, the Lord Mayor of London, ordered that the 
bodies of those who died to the Great Plague   be buried “at least six foot deep”, apparently 
believing that it would prevent the spread. In reality, graves are actually rarely dug to six 
feet unless one intends to bury another coffin on   top. California only requires 18 inches—less than 
two feet—atop a coffin, while other places require 30 to 36—2.5 to 3 feet. In central Appalachia, 
graves were often dug to around six feet to prevent animals from burrowing and disturbing the 
body, and while this practice does still occur   today, it largely became unnecessary with the 
introduction of concrete vaults and metal caskets. At the end of this mission, John writes a 
letter to Abigail. [John: “Charles Smith has also appeared and is unsurprisingly a pillar 
of strength.”] This term is definitely accurate in this time period; it’s based on “tower of 
strength”, which was first published as “a   strong tower” in Proverbs 18:10, then as “tower 
of strength” in Homer’s Odyssey in 810 B.C., the Book of Common Prayer in 1549, and 
William Shakespeare’s Richard III in 1594. [Uncle:   “Oh, you don’t build a barn, dumbass… You buy one 
pre-cut, just like the house.”] This is correct; several companies offered alternatives to kit 
houses, including duplexes, apartment buildings,   garages, outhouses, and, of course, barns.
[Uncle: “This is the industrial age.”] He’s right about this too; the Industrial 
Age began around 1760 in Great Britain,   and a bit later elsewhere. Some decades after 
the events of the game, the Industrial Age would be followed by the Information Age—also 
known as the Computer or Digital Age. [Uncle: “Now, this feller probably saw 
you, thought ‘here’s some corn husk idiot, some country rube’…”] “Rube” is essentially 
another version of “country bumpkin”. It’s said   to have originated at least ten years earlier, 
from the shortened version of the name Reuben, seen as a conventional name for a country 
man since at least the early 19th century. In this mission, John bumps into Sadie 
again, and they set out to track down a   bounty based on a tip. [Sadie: “This 
Painted Sky tip is pretty fresh… An encyclopedia salesman was up there.”] This was 
actually a relatively common job at the time;   there were plenty of job openings to be found.
[John: “Hey, so who is the bounty?”] [Sadie: “Ramón Cortez. He’s with the Del Lobo 
gang.”] Interestingly, looking into the Del Lobos a little more reveals some similarities 
with the Five Joaquins, an outlaw gang—or group of gangs—who operated in California in the 
early 1850s. As their name suggests, the gang was said to have been led by five men named or 
nicknamed Joaquin, at least four of whom were   related in some way. Similarly, the Del Lobos have 
several members who are related, such as: brothers Ramón and Esteban Cortez; brothers Alfredo and 
Jorge Montez and their cousin Carmella; and the married couple Barbarella and Ricardo Alcazar.
[John: “Are they Mexicans?”] [Sadie: “Some. And some Californios. And some regular Americans 
too.”] The main issue with comparing the Del Lobos to the Five Joaquins is that much of the 
story around the Joaquins is shrouded in mystery   and legend. However, as far as the stories go, 
the groups did band together in California, so there’s a good chance that what Sadie says 
here would have applied to them as well. Well,   Californios, at least—that is, Hispanic 
Californians—as “regular” Americans may not have been especially welcome as 
far as the stories are concerned.  After John and Sadie capture Ramón, he 
offers John money to kill Sadie, increasing from one hundred to three hundred dollars—the 
equivalent of around $3,300 to $10,000 today. By the end of the mission, he says he has 
around $5,000 worth of gold—the equivalent   of over $167,000 today. If only Dutch were 
here to take some of that [Dutch: “money”]. Back in Armadillo, John can encounter four members 
of the Del Lobo gang threatening the sheriff—and   can choose to help take them down. [Sheriff: 
“I don’t know what you made of that, but it was a close thing, and in light of that, and the 
sad demise of this settlement, I am resigning my post.”] While certainly not the same situation, 
this is almost reminiscent of the story of Harry   Love, who was a deputy sheriff in Los Angeles. 
He later worked to pursue the Five Joaquins and, alongside his group, the California Rangers, he 
allegedly killed Joaquin Murrieta. After this, the Rangers disbanded, and Love tried to settle 
down near Boulder Creek, California. About fifteen years later, he was killed by the bodyguard of 
his estranged wife when he showed up on her porch. In another encounter with the Del 
Lobos, they cause some trouble in   Armadillo. [Del Lobo: “We own every one of you, 
and we do what we want with you. To the north you   got the Rangers; to the south, Rurales.”] 
This refers to armed government forces; from 1861 to 1914, this referred to the Rural 
Guard: essentially a police force. Interestingly, they are known as Federales in the first Red 
Dead Redemption, also set around this time,   but Federales is the name commonly given to 
the Mexican Army, not the Rural Guard—though it’s likely just used as a catch-all 
for all law and military enforcement. In a different encounter with the Del Lobos, 
John can hear them complaining about their   sleeping quarters. [Del Lobo: “This is a little 
too cozy for all of us.”] [Mercenary: “We was sleeping on top of each other when I was out 
fighting in the Caribbean.”] There are several   military conflicts that have taken place in 
or around the Caribbean. The most recent at this time was the Spanish–American War in 
1898, which partly took place in Cuba and   Puerto Rico in the Caribbean Sea. If this is 
the case, then his comments seem accurate—the living conditions for soldiers during the war 
were unsanitary and led to outbreaks of disease. In one of the next missions, John, Charles, and 
Uncle sing a very catchy tune. [♪ Young miss at dancing school is taught the minuet to tread. 
♪] Like most of the other songs in the game, this is real. It appears to be called “A 
Sailor’s Song”, first printed around the late   1700s. In the game, the seven verses have been 
trimmed back to four and the order rearranged, including the first verse now becoming 
a chorus that is repeated by the group   twice more. There’s also a brief line at 
the end of every verse that is cut off, but other than this, the lyrics 
are almost entirely identical. John and Charles became acquainted with the 
gang known as the Skinner Brothers earlier,   but here they get to experience their behaviour 
up close, as they save Uncle from their torture. Not unlike the Murfree Brood, the Skinner 
Brothers could be based on any number of groups,   but one particularly interesting pair are 
the Harpe brothers: “Big” and “Little”, Micajah and Wiley. Possibly cousins, they were 
killers in the late eighteenth century, operating throughout several southeastern and midwestern 
states. They killed at least two dozen people,   though possibly even more than fifty—and 
they killed indiscriminately and brutally, apparently inspired by the divine, and known 
for mutilating bodies, sometimes filling them   with stones. After being captured, Big Harpe said 
his only regret was the “hasty” murder of his own baby—though it’s said he may have killed at least 
two more. He was decapitated shortly thereafter. Little Harpe was captured a few years later, 
executed by hanging, and he, too, was decapitated. Back in Blackwater, a new newspaper is 
available. One story reports on the Attorney   General founding of the Bureau of Investigation, 
headed by Edgar Ross, formerly of the Pinkerton Detective Agency and then the National Bureau of 
Criminal Identification. This is all logical and historically appropriate, though the dates are 
slightly different to fit within the game; the   Attorney General, Charles Joseph Bonaparte, formed 
the Bureau of Investigation in July 1908—the year after the game—headed by Stanley Finch, 
formerly the chief examiner at the Department   of Justice. The National Bureau of Criminal 
Identification, where Ross formerly worked, was also a real agency founded in 1896.
One article reports on soaring costs and a shortage of supplies on islands like Guarma 
due to the increased focus on sugar production,   after banking institutions like J.D. McKnight 
and Co. took control of the sugar industry. This is fairly historically accurate; Cuba also saw 
similar consequences when it became more dependent   on a one-crop economy—in addition to other events 
at the time—which also occurred amidst American banking institutions like J.P. Morgan & Co. 
seizing the country’s sugar sector and often   amassing significant fortunes in doing so—fortunes 
unseen and unenjoyed by its local residents. Another story mentions that a U.S. deputy 
marshal “and another deputy attempted to   arrest” two people “for introducing intoxicating 
liquors into Indian Territory”, leading to a gun battle where one suspect “was mortally wounded” 
and the other “was arrested”. This is awfully   similar to a story from 1889 in which a U.S. 
marshal “and another deputy attempted to arrest” two people “for introducing intoxicating liquors 
into Indian Territory”, leading to a gun battle   where one suspect “was … mortally wounded” and the 
other “was arrested”. Several local regulations had been passed to limit or prohibit the sale 
or distribution of alcohol to Native Americans   on their lands for years, but the federal law was 
passed in 1834 and remained in force until 1953. While there was a story in 1899 of the 
bubonic plague killing American soldiers   in the Philippines, here there is a story 
of the plague breaking out in San Francisco, after an earthquake that killed over 3,000 people 
and destroyed 80% of the city. This is true; there was a bubonic plague epidemic from 1900 
to 1904 in San Francisco which saw around 120 deaths. In 1906, the city suffered one of the 
country’s deadliest earthquakes in history   followed by devastating fires lasting several 
days, killing an estimated 3,000 people and destroying 80% of the city. During the rebuilding 
efforts, another plague epidemic hit the city in 1907. The city responded much more quickly, and 
around 78 people died during this second outbreak. Sometime later, in another mission, Abigail 
and Jack return to John, now with a new friend,   Rufus. According to the game, Rufus is 
a Labrador Retriever. Interestingly, Labradors date to around the 1830s, when St. 
John’s water dogs were bred with British hunting   dogs to create what is now known as the Labrador 
Retriever. The breed was first recognised by the American Kennel Club in 1917, so ten years 
after Rufus’s appearance here—but, of course, they still existed some time before that, so 
while Rufus may not have been as common at   the time as he would be now, his appearance 
is certainly not historically inaccurate. In one of the next missions, John and 
Sadie are attacked by a bear. [Sadie: “I’m seeing triple!”] [John: “Then shoot the 
three bears!”] Intentional on John’s part or not, this is almost certainly a reference 
to Goldilocks and the Three Bears,   a fairy tale written by Robert Southey and 
first published in 1837. Southey’s tale, however, does not appear to have any 
bounty hunting or shooting involved. [John: “What’re you doing?”] [Jack: “Reading.”] 
Here, he’s reading a book called The Case of the Deceitful German, in the Aldous Filson 
Mysteries series. It seems all other books   in the series are named in a similar manner, 
such as The Case of the Shrew in the Fog, found elsewhere in the game. They 
could be based on any number of   penny dreadfuls or dime novels—and they 
likely are—but in terms of the titles, a close match is the weekly Secret Service 
stories, published from 1899 to 1925, featuring stories such as The Case of the Wall Street 
Queen and The Case of the Chinese Gold King. In a side mission, John is invited into the home 
of a taxidermist. Taxidermy is said to have been around in some form as early as ancient Egyptians 
embalming the bodies of animals of royalty and   burying them within the tomb of their Pharaoh. 
Anthropomorphic taxidermy became popular in the late 19th century. Perhaps the best-known 
taxidermy practitioner was Walter Potter,   who started it as a hobby but opened his work 
to visitors in 1861. Over the years, he created several scenes like those depicted in the game: 
the squirrel’s club, a tea party of kittens,   a village school with 48 little rabbits, 
a cricket match of guinea pigs, a rats’ den raided by police rats. Interestingly, he was 
often sent animals considered “freaks of nature”, like a four-legged chicken, a three-legged piglet, 
and kittens with additional legs and heads. The taxidermist in the game, L. Hobbs, could be 
inspired by several real-life taxidermists, or by none in particular. One notable figure in the 
field is Martha Maxwell, once dubbed the “patron saint of the Rogue Taxidermy movement”—that 
is, using methods of taxidermy to create   unconventional art. That a woman had created such 
pieces surprised many, but her work inspired even more. It’s said she was often lonely, having to be 
away from her family to achieve the successes she desired; but she was not alone in the end, when 
she died from an ovarian tumour at the age of 49. [L. Hobbs: “I tried this with humans once…”] 
There were actually attempts at human taxidermy, and some different versions exist—most notably 
those using a human skull, for instance—but   the deterioration of human skin makes it 
generally impossible to maintain as an art. [L. Hobbs: “… during a cholera outbreak.”] The 
most recent significant cholera outbreak at this   time was in 1866, about 40 years earlier, 
so possibly the one in question. It killed between around 600 to 1,200 people in New York and 
quickly spread all the way down to New Orleans—so definitely prevalent enough for this taxidermist 
to have gotten her hands on some corpses. In another side mission, John can return to 
Jeremy Gill to finish the task Arthur started   years earlier. [Jeremy Gill: “Hey, are you the 
guy that took the photos?”] [John: “I don’t think so.”] [Jeremy Gill: “Oh, must’ve been 
that feller from Quebec.”] A weird side note,   but here he might be referring to Marcel Beliveau, 
who owns a photography studio in Saint Denis, whose name is identical to a 20th- and 
21st-century comedian and director from Quebec. [Jeremy Gill: “I found a giant catfish.”] 
According to the in-game description,   the catfish is over seven-and-a-half-feet 
long and weighs almost 200 pounds—much heavier than the world record 58-pound channel 
catfish caught in South Carolina in 1964. Looking at other catfish species reveals bigger 
ones too: in Thailand in 2005, a Mekong giant catfish measured nine feet and weighed almost 
650 pounds, and as recently as 2023 in Italy, a Wels catfish measured 9.4 feet in length.
On their way to hunt the catfish, Jeremy seems annoyed at the mention of money. [Jeremy Gill: 
“Do you think Hannibal was haggling as he went   over the Alps?”] He’s referring to Hannibal, 
the Carthaginian general who led his army over the Alps into Italy in 218 B.C., to take the 
Second Punic War straight to the Roman Republic—a war that, around 17 years later, he lost.
[Jeremy Gill: “I’m actually planning on turning fishing into a way of, well, uniting nations. I’m 
gonna head to DC, discuss it with the president.”] Interestingly, Herbert Hoover was often considered 
the “fishing president”, though he didn’t become   president until 1929, over twenty years after 
this. Grover Cleveland also developed an obsession with fishing between his two terms as president 
in the early 1890s. But the president at the time   of this mission was Theodore Roosevelt, who was 
known to go fishing every now and then, and known for hunting, but perhaps better known for his 
conservation efforts and programs—so, probably   willing to discuss fishing, at least. In the 
game, Roosevelt is represented by Thaddeus Waxman. [Jeremy Gill: “Then I’m gonna head over to 
Europe, bring the royal families together, while I teach them how to fish.”] There were 
several European royal families around this time, including many who still exist today. 
Interestingly, several royal empires   fell around this time too, beginning with the 
Kingdom of Portugal in 1910 and the Russian Empire in 1917—so perhaps bringing them together with 
fish wouldn’t have been a bad thing. Or perhaps Jeremy Gill is overestimating his own importance.
[Jeremy Gill: “I got invited to China. I’m gonna fish with the emperor there.”] The emperor of the 
Qing Dynasty at the time was Guangxu Emperor—but   he was under house arrest from 1898 until 
his death in 1908. It certainly may have been possible for the emperor to have gone fishing 
while under house arrest—he had other hobbies,   after all. And there’s also a chance that he could 
have at least invited someone to go fishing with him—he wrote a letter to President Roosevelt in 
1904, for instance—but Jeremy Gill? Unlikely. In another mission, John meets Evelyn Miller, 
Dutch’s favourite author, who Arthur met in   chapter 4. Miller bears a striking resemblance to 
the American philosopher and essayist Henry David Thoreau. They have similar appearances; Thoreau 
had different beard lengths throughout his life, but in one famous photograph, he has a 
similar beard to Miller (albeit longer).   They also have similar interests, like 
education; Thoreau taught at a school in Massachusetts and opened the Concord Academy 
with his brother in the 1830s, while Miller   was a professor at Princeton University. They 
both discuss and advocate for nature, neither of them truly rejecting civilisation nor bringing 
themselves to fully embrace a life of wilderness, and they both lament and resist the overrule of 
governments: Thoreau famously in his Resistance to Civil Government, written in part because of his 
disgust by slavery and the Mexican-American War,   and Miller as shown in chapter 4 when he 
advocates on behalf of Rains Fall and Eagle Flies. In this mission, Miller discusses how he 
quit Princeton to live in an isolated cabin   in Tall Trees to work. Thoreau did something 
similar for two years in the mid-1840s, moving to a small house he had built near Walden Pond, 
leading to one of his best-known works, Walden. As for Evelyn Miller’s name: 
it could be completely random,   of course, but if it was inspired by anyone, 
a likely candidate might be Ernest Hemingway, whose middle name was Miller. While not exactly an 
isolated cabin, Hemingway did buy a house outside   of Ketchum, Idaho, in 1959, overlooking Big Wood 
River. He died there two years later, in 1961. In the second part of this mission, Miller takes 
John to see some hunters. [John: “Unless you’re   showing me Big Foot, you should know, I am not 
so easily shocked, Mr. Miller.”] Interestingly, many different cultures—perhaps most—have some 
folk tales of a human-like giant or a sasquatch   in their history. The name “Bigfoot”, 
though, was apparently first used in 1958, after a bulldozer operator for a logging company 
in California discovered mud footprints that were   16 inches (or 40 centimetres) long—a claim that 
was apparently corroborated by his coworkers. [Uncle: “I worked my fingers to the bone building 
this place… Abigail Roberts.”] [Abigail: Marston! Abigail Marston. Miss Marston to you.”] The act 
of a woman taking a man’s name after marriage was a long-standing tradition in the English-speaking 
world, including the history of the United States.   The earliest well-known instance in the country 
of a woman not taking her husband’s surname was in 1855 by Lucy Stone, who found the tradition 
indicative of a woman’s identity being taken from her, particularly after marriage. She faced 
some opposition from the decision—including the inability to vote in school elections—but 
died, still married, at the age of 75 with the same name with which she was born.
In this mission, John and Abigail get their portrait taken at a photography studio. 
Interestingly, the earliest known photographic   portrait of a person taken in the U.S. was 
by Robert Cornelius in 1839: a self-portrait, in fact, for which he would have sat still for 
around ten to fifteen minutes. A couple years   later, Cornelius operated some of the earliest 
photography studios in the country—though the first was opened by Alexander Wolcott in New 
York City in 1840, around 67 years before John and Abigail have their portrait taken here.
[Lockhart: “Yes, wonderful. Handsome couple, quite… something, but you need a background.”] 
These painted backdrops were fairly standard for photography from around 1860 up until 
1920, eventually waning in popularity upon the introduction and increased production 
of Kodak cameras, like the Brownie, which   brought handheld photography to the mainstream.
[Abigail: “I thought you were a cowboy… not a poseur.”] The word “poseur” dates to around 1866,   41 years before Abigail uses it here.
[John: “How’s this?”] [Lockhart: “Perfect!”] Interestingly, the oldest surviving camera 
photograph in 1826 had an estimated exposure time of around eight hours. In terms 
of developing, early cameras required   several minutes, though by the early 1840s, 
this was reduced to about twenty seconds, and even shorter by the 1850s and 60s, so the very 
quick exposure time seen in the game is logical. [John: “What do I owe you?”] [Lockhart: “Five 
dollars.”] That’s about $167 dollars today, so quite an expensive photo.
[Abigail: “There is one thing   I hadn’t done. I never been to see one of them 
moving picture shows.”] To attend this moving picture show, John and Abigail visit the Imperial 
Theatre in Blackwater. There are actually several   theatres with this name in North America, but 
the exterior of the Blackwater theatre bears a striking resemblance to the Imperial Theatre 
in Manhattan, New York City, which opened   in 1923—though that one is for Broadway 
performances, not moving picture shows. Speaking of which, John and Abigail head in 
to watch a moving picture show. [John: “Two   tickets please to see Sketching for Sweetheart.”] 
[Cashier: “That’ll be fifty cents, please.”] 25 cents per ticket is equivalent to around eight 
dollars today, so fairly standard pricing—but for   the time, this appears to be incredibly expensive. 
The average price for a ticket in 1910—three years after John’s purchase here—was around seven cents. 
It wasn’t until 1924—17 years after the game—that tickets rose to around 25 cents each.
John and Abigail watch a short film named Sketching for Sweetheart, a stop motion film 
seemingly combining both animated and live-action elements. It bears resemblance to the 1906 
short film Humorous Phases of Funny Faces, often regarded as the first animated film 
recorded on standard picture film. The main   difference between the films is that Humorous 
Phases of Funny Faces was originally a silent cartoon—digital archives are often accompanied 
by music similar to Sketching for Sweetheart,   but this wasn’t actually composed until the 1990s; 
the first films accompanied by an original score were released in 1908, a year after John and 
Abigail’s experience. However, some earlier film screenings were sometimes accompanied by a 
pianist or organist, and there’s no indication   that this isn’t the case in the game—so, at least 
in terms of music, Sketching for Sweetheart may not be entirely historically inaccurate.
[Abigail: “It looks so real.”] [John: “It’s not.”] [Abigail: “Don’t be such a sourpuss.”] The 
first recorded use of the term “sourpuss” was in 1937—30 years after Abigail’s usage here—in 
the cartoon Porky’s Railroad. [Porky Pig: “I bet she can’t give sweet milk with 
a sour puss like that.”] However,   the first use of “puss” meaning a 
“sour-looking or ugly” face was around 1890, so it seems logical here.
[John: “Will you… Will you marry me?”] For a long time throughout history, 
marriages were simply transactional—there   was more of a signing or meeting than a proposal 
as the woman often had little say in the matter; it was up to her parents. Around the 1700s, the 
idea of marriages being more than simply financial or transactional became more prevalent—and 
that tradition has continued to this day. The concept of getting on one knee to propose 
apparently comes from medieval knights bowing   before noblewomen to swear their allegiance 
and protection. For marriage specifically, it seems to have been first recorded in 
penny paper illustrations of the 1800s.  [Abigail: “You serious?”] [John: “I got this 
ring.”] Marriage rings were definitely accurate at this time. The first well-documented use of 
a diamond engagement ring was in 1477, when the Archduke Maximilian of Austria was betrothed to 
Mary of Burgundy. Interestingly, the popularity of diamond engagement rings declined after the 
First World War in the early 20th century—only   around ten percent of American engagement rings in 
the 1930s contained a diamond—but their popularity eventually increased again after a marketing 
campaign by the diamond company De Beers in 1938. In the last edition of the newspaper, one brief 
story reports on the Governor of California   amending the Pharmacy and Poison Act to prohibit 
the sale of cocaine without a prescription. This is true; in response to the Pure Food and 
Drug Act passed federally the previous year,   newly-elected governor James Gillett signed an 
amendment to the state’s poison law in March 1907 prohibiting the sale of cocaine, morphine, 
and opium without a physician’s prescription. Elsewhere in the paper is a story about Hershel 
E. Bennett breaking the land speed record in the   Stratton Streamer, a steam-powered automobile 
from the Stratton Motor Carriage Company, driving 127.66 miles per hour in Florida. 
This actually happened in real life, though it was the previous year: Fred 
H. Marriott drove the same speed in the   Stanley Steamer from the Stanley Motor 
Carriage Company at the Daytona Beach and Road Course in Florida—the first man 
to go faster than two miles per minute. Red Dead Redemption 2’s final mission 
opens with Jack telling a surprisingly   relevant tale about warriors, princesses, 
and dragons—but upon closer inspection, he’s actually reading a penny dreadful novel about 
Frank Heck, a famous gunslinger. Interestingly, Frank Heck appears at least partially based 
on “Wild Bill” Hickok, an Old West gambler and   gunslinger—they wore similar clothes, favoured 
a pair of revolvers, and both died in saloons. Of course, this being the final mission, 
Sadie shares some of her plans for the   future. [Sadie: “I been thinking I might 
get outta here too. Down South America, maybe … take up with a handsome revolutionary.”] 
If she only goes a little bit south, Sadie will likely find no shortage of revolutionaries 
in Mexico—the full revolution would kick off   only a few years later—but South America likely 
had a large number of revolutionaries as well. Several South American countries underwent major 
revolutions in the early 19th century, and some   a bit later. Perhaps the most recent up to that 
point was the Argentine Revolution of 1905—but there’s also a small chance that Sadie would 
encounter some wars fought between and in Central   American countries on her way to South America.
[Micah: “Hello, Scarface. Did you miss me?”] Of course, this nickname is probably most commonly 
known from the 1983 film Scarface starring Al Pacino and directed by Brian De Palma, itself a 
loose remake of the 1932 film by Howard Hawks, which is loosely based on the 1929 novel by 
Armitage Trail, which was inspired by the life   of Al Capone. But, completely unrelated to that, 
there was at least one person who was known by the name beforehand: Scarface Charley, a chief of the 
Modoc tribe who lived from around 1830 to 1896. [Sadie: Come on out, Micah. At least die like a 
man.”] [Micah: (laughs) “Hellfire.”] As the name suggests, “hellfire” refers to what religious 
people—particularly Christians—believe is the   punishment that bad people will suffer after they 
die—essentially referring to that person’s day of reckoning. A fitting thing for Micah to 
say at this particular point in time, then. [Abigail: “Alright, John Marston. Since you 
bought this millstone around our necks…”] This   quote is a reference to the metaphor involving an 
albatross—specifically, one having an albatross around their neck—to be forced to face a heavy 
burden as an obstacle to success. It originates in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 1798 poem The Rime 
of the Ancient Mariner, in which a sailor’s killing of an albatross brings bad luck and he 
is forced to wear the dead bird around his neck. As for millstones: in a practical sense: they 
are stones used for grinding grains like wheat,   with evidence dating them back around 60,000 
years. In a more symbolic sense, however, the word is used to imply something is rather heavy, as 
in a similar usage to Abigail’s in Matthew 18:6. They’re also symbolic of hard work, physical 
labour, and comfortable and prosperous living:   something that the Marstons have tried—and 
will certainly keep trying—to achieve. Over in Annesburg, John meets Rains Fall. 
[Rains Fall: “My people aren’t really a tribe, we’re just a… bunch of families, I 
suppose… but we’re in Canada now.”] This is logical and has some historical 
precedence. One example is from 1877: to avoid capture after the Battle of Little Bighorn, 
Sitting Bull and his band crossed the northern   border into the North-West Territories of Canada. 
Others joined them, including over a hundred following the Nez Perce War. Facing starvation 
amid limited resources, Sitting Bull and many others returned to the United States after four 
years, in 1881—but some remained. A small reserve was established for them in 1910, and there 
are over 400 registered band members today. When John returns to Evelyn Miller, he finds him 
dead in his cabin, slumped over his work—so he burns down the cabin. While his body likely 
burned, there’s a good chance that his death   was eventually discovered, assuming there 
were records of the cabin. That being said, there are several examples of famous authors 
disappearing throughout history, like Ambrose   Bierce, an influential journalist and Civil War 
veteran, who was last heard from on December 26th, 1913, at the age of 71, before vanishing 
without a trace. Barbara Newhall Follett, a child prodigy novelist, reportedly left her 
apartment on December 7th, 1939, at the age of 25, after quarrelling with her husband, and was never 
seen again. Weldon Kees, who had apparently had episodes of manic depression, was last heard 
from on July 18th, 1955, at the age of 41, and his car was found near the Golden Gate 
Bridge. So, while Miller’s death was perhaps   under different circumstances than many other 
famous authors, it’s not uncharacteristic for one to get entirely lost in their work, 
or for the work to overcome them entirely. How historically accurate 
is Red Dead Redemption 2? It’s an interesting question—one that 
I’ve spent several years trying to answer.  But this isn’t the kind of question 
that can be answered in a single word, or even a sentence. Nor should it be—the 
point of this exercise isn’t to hold the   game accountable to each and every historical 
accuracy or inaccuracy; it’s to use the game as a lens through which history can be viewed. The 
words, actions, and objects of the game world are   a useful catalyst to discuss so many different 
elements of history—not just to determine the historical accuracies or inaccuracies present 
within the game, but to explore history more   broadly and discover what happened in the 
past to shape the lives we live today. Fictional historical stories needn’t 
maintain a strict depiction of history;   the importance is to tell its story thoughtfully 
and, in doing so, capturing the essence of history to give its audience a brief window into the 
past. On that count, Rockstar Games has done an incredible job recreating elements of life 
in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—their locations and people, their perspectives 
and lifestyles, their items and activities.  There are, of course, occasional 
inaccuracies or anachronisms—but never, I feel, to the detriment of the final 
product or to the player. Never does it   feel intentionally misleading in an attempt to 
rewrite history. Any small errors, it seems, is either the result of understandable oversight, 
or creative license for the benefit of the final   product. And the effort to which developers at 
Rockstar have gone to ensure historical accuracies in the game’s world is highly commendable, 
and a testament to their incredible talent. So, next time anyone asks you why you’ve 
spent so many hours playing games like Red Dead Redemption 2, just tell them that you’re 
a real historian and this is your research.