Dr. G. G. Wilkins recalls the old New England training days: farmers drilling with cornstalks and umbrellas, gingerbread and cider carts, and the rye wagons that followed the drum. He then tells how the call of April 1861 turned the Pittsfield common into a solemn recruiting ground, and how Barnaby the bear wrecked the cannon salute. Master coppersmith Silas 'Hacksaw' McAllister tells new stories about re-bushing the town cannon's touch-hole with copper, a powder flask full of rye at inspection, and a copper drum that came home from the war with a bullet dent. Wilkins also answers Cletus 'Rabbit' Miller of Wilkesboro, NC, on hickory ashes and red oak shavings in the thump keg, and knocks down the blue flame myth.

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Dr. Wilkins remembers 1863, when fear of smallpox from returning soldiers led the Pittsfield selectmen to post guards on the roads and press the town tooth-puller into service as its doctor. He covers vaccination scabs, camphor bags, a pest-house quarantine, a coffin full of jars, and a guard who met Barnaby at the privy, and coppersmith Silas 'Hacksaw' McAllister brings new tales of brimstone-smoked army mail, a deacon who took a vaccine scab for snuff, and a pest-house kettle that got through the Barnstead line. In the mailbag, Wilkins answers Cletus 'Rabbit' Miller of Wilkesboro, NC about red oak shavings and hickory ash in the thump keg, then strikes coins on his anvil while he debunks the old blue-flame test.

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Alchemist G. G. Wilkins opens the small leather pouch that runners carried on the Pittsfield-to-Concord roads. He explains the stamped cents they showed as recognition tokens, the folded and revenue-stamped receipts that backed up a cover story, and the notched coppers left on stone walls to tell a runner whether a farm was safe. He tells how Barnaby caught a deputy carrying a counterfeit Wilkins cent. North Carolina runner Junior Vance shares new stories about a drilled dime on a bootlace, red flannel warning signals, a feed-store receipt that went wrong, and a bribed deputy's nicked penny. In Segment 4, Wilkins answers Cletus 'Rabbit' Miller's question about hickory ashes in the thump keg and debunks the blue-flame test.

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Dr. G. G. Wilkins tells about the bitter January night the Suncook stove foundry burned. He spent it in the bucket line beside the county sheriff while a deputy searched his empty still-house and met Barnaby the bear. Along the way he covers cupolas, green-sand molds and what iron founders knew that coppersmiths never did. Wilkes County runner Junior Vance tells new stories about a parlor stove full of jars, a tobacco-barn fire that gave his daddy an alibi, and hollow pig iron, and Wilkins answers Cletus 'Rabbit' Miller's voicemail about hickory ashes and red oak shavings in the thump keg.

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Dr. Wilkins follows the old trading path from the Portsmouth wharves up through Great Bay, the Lamprey River falls and the Northwood ridge to Pittsfield. Molasses rum went west, hill-country rye came east, and salt fish, tinware and ship copper were bartered in between, all while runners slipped past the Portsmouth tide-waiters and the new internal revenue gaugers. Blue Ridge slang historian Clara Higgins brings new stories: eel signals nailed to trees, a hogshead with a false brine top and a widow's hollow butter churn. Wilkins answers Cletus 'Rabbit' Miller's voicemail about hickory ashes and red oak shavings in the thump keg, and takes apart the blue-flame test at his anvil.

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Dr. G. G. Wilkins covers the metals that poisoned New England drinkers, from Massachusetts Bay's 1723 law against leaden still heads and the dry gripes of rum drinkers, to the blue Burton's line he saw on patients' gums, to his own lesson in why quicksilver stays far from a still fire. North Carolina runner Junior Vance tells three new stories about bad metal: a corn-shucking taken down by galvanized-tub ague, a blue-gummed old-timer who taught him the paper-scratch test for lead solder, and a still head cast from a cracked church bell that rang on every thump. In the mailbag Wilkins answers Cletus 'Rabbit' Miller's question about hickory ashes and red oak shavings in a thump keg, then knocks down the blue-flame myth and the safe-pewter-worm myth with a coin stamped on the anvil for each.

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Dr. G. G. Wilkins explains how federal gaugers measured barrels and proof under the 1862 and 1864 revenue acts. He covers the 231-cubic-inch gallon, the diagonal rod, the wantage stick, and chalk and stencil marks, then confesses to the shaved staves, doctored hoops, and cold spring-house dips that kept his taxable gallons low, along with the day Barnaby turned a Concord gauger's hickory rod into toothpicks. Blue Ridge herbalist Clara Higgins brings new mountain stories: a rain-washed chalk count, 'forty-rod' and other barrel slang, frozen applejack, and a cooper paid by the wet inch. Wilkins also takes Cletus 'Rabbit' Miller's call about hickory ashes and red oak shavings in the thump keg and debunks the gunpowder proof test at the anvil.

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Dr. G. G. Wilkins explains how banks stopped paying out gold in 1861, how the Legal Tender Act of 1862 created the greenback, and how the gold premium swung with every battle report until it peaked at 285 in July 1864. By then every Pittsfield farmer weighed his coins like a goldsmith, and Wilkins shows how this played out at the general store, at his anvil and in his grain-and-copper bartering. Retired revenue officer Captain Donald Vance tells new stories about distillers who priced their liquor in gold and a nail keg full of cents. Wilkins also answers Cletus 'Rabbit' Miller's voicemail about hickory ashes and red oak shavings in the thump keg and knocks down the blue-flame myth between strikes on his anvil.

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