An Illustrated Guide to American Smokecarvers and their Associates

Adapted from The False Histories

By Tom Miller

1.

At the age of ten, Lucretia Cadwallader found she was able to shape smoke using her hands and a variety of simple tools. Among her first inventions were primitive figurines, screens and parasols. After the denizens of her backwoods Wisconsin town accused her of witchcraft, Cadwallader spent the remainder of her childhood on the run. It was not until her 30’s that she was able to enjoy the protection of Cynthia Wainwright’s Detroit Workshop, where the two women trained an entire generation of smokecarvers in some 400 techniques. Among her most important discoveries were medicinal smoke, used in the treatment of tuberculosis and other pulmonary illnesses, and heavy smoke, which was to prove a deadly weapon.

From the front plate of Karl Mannheim’s Geschichte von der Rauchbauerin, the standard biography of Cadwallader.

2.

The use of Union smokecarvers in the American Civil War was a matter of controversy from the start. Believing that integrating all-woman units into the army at large would be distracting, smokecarving units operated as civilian detachments only loosely attached to the chain-of-command. In early battles, smokecarvers were mainly used to cover retreats and annoy the enemy, but with Cadwallader’s insistence, they eventually began deploying in an offensive capacity.

The most famous smokecarving engagement was the Siege of Petersburg, Virginia, where Cadwallader’s units blanketed the city with heavy smoke. The garrison holding the city attempted to surrender, but a breakdown in communications between General Grant and Cadwallader resulted in the smokescreen being held in place an additional three hours, causing some 20,000 Confederates to asphyxiate. The incident was to shape Southern opinion of smokecarvers for years to come.

The elite first platoon, Adele Company, First Smokecarvers Regiment, which Cadwallader personally commanded. Though smokecarvers did not take to the battlefield carrying firearms, they were trained in their use; they frequently joked their rifles were more useful in driving off the advances of amorous soldiers than against the enemy.

3.

The true possibilities of smoke weaponization were seen five years later in the Franco-Prussian War, as the German Korps des Philosophs laid waste to huge areas of France. The Prussian Army suffocated some 1,300,000 French soldiers and civilians on their march to Paris.

By the time Lucretia Cadwallader and her American relief force arrived, Paris had been under siege for three months and was nearly depopulated. Lt. Gen. Cadwallader and a force of some 200 smokecarvers attacked 1,100 entrenched members of the German Korps, routing them in twenty-three minutes. The battle remains the largest action ever fought between two forces of empirical philosophers and is still studied at West Point.

The German Army sued for peace the following week.

Smokecarvers prepare to board the SS Robert Fulton on the way to Paris. Second Platoon, Charlotte Company, First Philosophers Regiment. Left to right: Signalwoman 1^st Class Tomasina Blandings, Lt. Margo Quincy, and Sgt. Amy Stafford.

4.

Trapped in Paris during the siege, American entrepreneur Roger Nestleton commandeered a very large piece of field artillery and modified it so that a human being could be fired from it. Wearing an asbestos suit, Nestleton was shot 380 miles, splashing down in the English Channel near Dover. Some 95 others followed before the city ran out of asbestos.

Upon his return to America, Nestleton founded American Cannon Travel (ACT), building a series of cannons and giant nets so that businessmen could travel across the country. Though ACT’s astronomical insurance premiums (and the nascent aviation industry) eventually bankrupted the company, the Long Island Commuter Cannon (LICC) remained in operation until 1942, cutting the travel time from eastern Long Island to Manhattan to two minutes. Fare was $2 each way or $10 for a week's pass. After Pearl Harbor, the cannon was disassembled and moved to Battery Park to protect New York Harbor.

Roger Nestleton celebrates the first successful cross-country cannon journey in 1891—the three-shot trip from New York to Sacramento via Chicago and Omaha lasted six hours and twenty-three minutes. To the right, commuters wait for the LICC.

5.

With the tremendous loss of life due to heavy smoke, anger toward smokecarvers in France ran high. Paris became the nexus of the Trencher movement, named for the millions of soldiers who developed respiratory illnesses while fighting in the trenches. Though primarily a political movement in France, Trencherism spread quickly through the American South, which had suffered similar atrocities. The American Trenchers lost no time in waging a campaign of terror and violence against empirical philosophers; in 1903 alone, Trenchers lynched some 300 smokecarvers in Georgia and killed 140 kite jockeys in New Mexico.

This cartoon from a prominent French newspaper depicts four American smokecarvers standing over a French schoolgirl. The caption reads: “Let us seduce this innocent to our wicked ways! Soon, she shall suffocate babies and old men, just as we do.”

6.

Even in sympathetic “Gray” states, smokecarvers faced prejudice and discrimination. The virtually all-female profession was alternately derided as a hotbed of lesbianism and accused of encouraging sexual promiscuity with men, due in large part to effective smoke-based contraception.

Sexual politics were especially nasty at the Detroit Free University, where women comprised 95% of the smokecarving program, but only 10% of the university at large. Each spring, the Roustabout Club put on a raunchy all-male revue, parodying the “exploits” of smokecarvers. With the exception of 1911, when it was suspended out of respect for Lucretia Cadwallader’s death by apparent spontaneous combustion (ruled a suicide by the Detroit Medical Examiner), the Roustabout Revue has opened annually on May 1 for a one-week run. The Revue continues today with an all-male cast, though in recent years the subject has shifted from straight misogyny to political satire.

Professor Amos Templeton in costume at an 1908 performance of the “The Petticoat Brigade.” Courtesy of the Detroit Tattler.

7.

Following the Rouen Convention of 1915, which outlawed smokecarving worldwide, a handful of dissidents fled to Mexico (a non-signatory of the pact) to continue practicing their art. Kite jockey Peter “Polly” Crakehill became famous for smuggling smokecarvers out of California in wind-powered stagecoaches. Topping out at 55 miles per hour, his coaches easily outran most motorcars of the day. Crakehill also dreamed of kite-powered human flight and vanished in 1917 after ascending to a height of 14,000 feet pulled by a string of simple box kites.

On the left, a Pocock Charvolant used by Polly Crakehill for scouting; normally his passengers rose in a much heavier Concord 8AL, which lofted six kites. To the right, Crakehill’s final flight.