The Electric War

by Mike Winchell

  Ever the professional, Westinghouse never responded to this odd offer to duke it out with electricity. He had no comment whenever it was brought up in public.

  Westinghouse publicly opposed the idea of using electricity to kill criminals, but it had been accepted as the most humane method of execution. The wheels had been set in motion. In fact, a key member of the team charged with creating the electric killing machine—soon to be the electric chair—was none other than Harold P. Brown, named the electrical expert on the design team.

  Now the only question was, who would be the first person to receive such a death sentence?

  Enter William Kemmler.

  12 SHOCKED …

  August 5, 1890, 9:30 p.m.

  Auburn Prison, Upstate New York

  Feet slapped the floor at a rhythmic pace, steadily growing louder. Frank Fish stood up and extended a hand. In the other, he held his banjo, worn around the edges and significantly yellowed. It might have been old and stained from constant use, but it had been a source of needed entertainment for Fish and his cellmate, William Kemmler. For the last couple of hours the two had been performing “My Old Kentucky Home” and other songs to pass the time.

  Earlier that day, in late afternoon, Reverend Dr. Houghton and Chaplain Yates had come to read Kemmler his last rites, later commenting to the press that Kemmler had seemed anxious, regretful, and ready for the end. After the final blessings had been given, a thunderstorm—riddled with lightning strikes—flashed blinding light into Kemmler’s cell. Even the man who’d said he was “ready to die” couldn’t help but flinch as thunder boomed and lightning snapped.

  Around the time Fish took out his banjo, the storm passed, giving way to a peaceful sunset.

  The cadence of steps stopped abruptly. The iron latches clicked with an echo; prison guard Daniel McNaughton yanked open the cell door and gave Kemmler a short nod. Kemmler gripped Fish’s hand and then nodded back at the guard. He knew McNaughton, his principal keeper, had been kind in letting the men stay up until this late hour. McNaughton had also shown humanity over the last few days by reading Les Misérables to Kemmler.

  “Keep your courage up, Kemmler, it will all be over soon. I will follow you after a little while,” said Fish, who was also condemned to death, though he’d be spared a year later when his sentence was changed to life in prison.

  Kemmler shook Fish’s hand. “I guess I will behave all right. It can’t come too soon for me. Being so near the end is as bad as the actual going.”

  The two death row cellmates let go of each other’s hands, Fish’s banjo swinging by his side as he and McNaughton left Kemmler alone in his cell.

  Any fleeting hopes Kemmler might have had of winning an appeal and escaping the deathly electric experiment had been dashed not long before, when lawyer Bourke Cockran had nobly fought to prove the electric chair would be just as, if not more, inhumane and cruel than the hangman’s noose. After Thomas Edison had been placed in the witness stand in late July and testified that the electric chair was indeed more humane than the gallows and was therefore the proper method of execution, the appeal was shot down. There was no disputing the guarantee of the great Thomas Edison. To most, his words were as powerful and certain as God’s. As the Albany Journal later explained, “The Kemmler case at last has an expert that knows something concerning electricity. Mr. Edison is probably the best informed man in America, if not the world, regarding electric currents and their destructive powers.” Bourke Cockran had no choice but to concede the appeal, though his closing remarks warned that the decision was bound to bring tragedy the likes of which the world hadn’t yet experienced.

  Unable to sleep, William Kemmler signed his name onto scraps of paper—his autograph was now highly sought-after, and he wanted to repay the people who’d shown him kindness during the last few months, especially Gertrude Durston, the warden’s wife, who had taught him how to sign his name. Having never learned to read or write, Kemmler had grown proud of this newfound skill. When every piece of paper had been signed, Kemmler lay down and closed his eyes.

  * * *

  August 6, 1890, 5:50 a.m.

  Auburn Prison, Upstate New York

  “William, it’s time,” said Warden Charles Durston, his voice shaky.

  William Kemmler sat on his cot in a gray sack coat and vest and yellow patterned pants. He wore a white shirt under the vest, with a black-and-white bow tie. He ran his hand over the freshly shaven patch atop his head and nodded at prison guard Joseph Velling, who folded the razor and placed it in his pocket.

  Kemmler looked back at the warden and started to stand. “I’m ready to go.”

  The warden held up his hand, motioning for Kemmler to remain seated. The jittery warden reached into his breast pocket and produced an official document. With a sigh, he recited the new death warrant, hesitantly reading, “By a current of electricity sufficient to cause death.”

  Kemmler got to his feet and Velling cut a slit in the man’s trousers at the base of the spine. This would be where one of the electrodes would be attached, while the other would be attached securely to the new bald spot on his scalp.

  Warden Durston turned, passed through the open iron-barred door, and walked down the hall; Kemmler and Velling followed.

  It was a short death march, as the chamber that housed the electric chair was only down the hall from Kemmler’s basement cell. Oddly, the room was lit by gaslight, not electric bulbs. Twenty-seven witnesses—two of them handpicked reporters—sat in a wide, arching semicircle inside the death chamber as William Kemmler entered. One witness said the convicted murderer was a “spruce looking, broad-shouldered little man.”

  Sketch of Kemmler execution in Scientific American

  Warden Durston led Kemmler to the square, high-backed chair located in the center of the back wall, the witnesses half-encircling him now. The wooden chair, which many said reminded them of an easy chair, had a seat of perforated wood and arms two inches wide, with three wooden braces across the back, the upper two fastened to a hard rubber cushion. A rounded rubber cup—the lower electrode inside—jutted inward from the bottom of the chairback, with a wire trailing toward the far wall. A metal cap hung stiffly from an adjustable arm at the top of the chair, a long wire leading up to the ceiling. Inside the cap was the upper electrode, which would be placed against Kemmler’s scalp. A small sponge surrounded each electrode to allow better contact and prevent scorching of the flesh.

  “Give me a chair,” announced Warden Durston, startling the witnesses, who thought he was referring to the chair of death. A regular kitchen chair was pushed forward, in front of and slightly to the right of the electric chair, and Kemmler was directed to sit down facing the witnesses. Warden Durston asked for another chair and placed it next to the seated Kemmler. He put his arm around Kemmler’s shoulders.

  “Now, gentlemen, this is William Kemmler,” said Durston. Kemmler bowed slightly toward the audience. “I have just read the death warrant to him and have told him he has got to die,” said Durston. The warden’s hands and voice trembled. He turned toward Kemmler. “Have you anything to say?”

  William Kemmler began to stand but instead remained seated. “Gentlemen, I wish you all good luck,” he said, gazing over the crescent moon of onlookers. “I believe I am going to a good place, and I am ready to go. I want only to say that a great deal has been said about me that is untrue. I am bad enough. It is cruel to make me out worse.” He bowed again and then rose to his feet.

  The warden motioned to Kemmler. “Take off your coat,” he ordered, his voice still unsure. He then cut off the tail of the shirt, which had been sticking through the slit in the man’s trousers, exposing his bare skin for the lower electrode. “Sit there,” he said, pointing to the electric chair.

  Velling and Durston fastened the eleven straps to secure Kemmler’s body to the chair. The warden’s hands were shaking.

  Kemmler whispered, “My God, Warden, can’t you keep cool? Take your time.”

&n
bsp; The metal cap was lowered onto the shaved spot on Kemmler’s head, the electrode inside pressed firmly to his scalp.

  Dr. Fell emerged with a syringe. He applied a generous amount of saltwater solution to the sponges. When his job was done, he moved back and stood beside Alfred P. Southwick, who was staring at his invention, which was now, before his very eyes, fully realized.

  The warden placed a leather mask over Kemmler’s face. He tightened the straps so the nose was pressed back, Kemmler’s mouth the only portion still visible to witnesses.

  Dr. Edward Charles Spitzka, the principal doctor in charge, moved to the back of the chair and placed the lower electrode through the clothing and against the skin at Kemmler’s spine. “God bless you, Kemmler.”

  Kemmler nodded slightly.

  The multiple physicians present had debated how long the current should be left on. In the end, they decided Dr. Spitzka would give the command when the current should begin and when it should end. The plan was to hold the charge for twenty seconds. Dr. Spitzka asked for and received a stopwatch to keep the time.

  Two doctors inspected the straps and connections to make sure everything was set up according to plan. After they both conferred and agreed it was ready, one said, “God bless you, Kemmler, you have done well.”

  The witnesses, many of whom were shaking, sweating, and tearing up, now nodded in agreement. “You have,” said a few of them.

  Warden Durston moved over to the wall separating the death chamber from a small room. Inside this control room, Edwin F. Davis, a prison electrician, was in charge of a switchboard that held the many knobs and switches. Like spaghetti noodles, wires jutted out from the board and trailed through the window and up to the roof. The wires snaked around the prison’s signature dome and then dropped down into a room on the second floor that held the massive dynamo, almost a thousand feet from the death chamber.

  “Ready?” Warden Durston asked the control room. A knock on the wall signaled the dynamo had reached the proper voltage. Durston turned to the physicians. “Do the doctors say it is all right?”

  Dr. Spitzka looked at his team, who nodded. Then he looked back at the masked Kemmler and said again, “God bless you.”

  Kemmler nodded as he had before.

  Dr. Spitzka addressed the warden. “All right.”

  “Goodbye,” Durston said softly to Kemmler, his voice still uneven. He rapped on the wall twice, which was the preset signal to the control room that it was time.

  Edwin F. Davis watched the bulbs in the control room light up. The voltage was set. He pulled down the switch that placed the chair in circuit.

  Back in the chamber, Kemmler’s body stiffened. His fingers grasped the chair as his chest bulged forward against the restraints. The index finger of his right hand bent with such force it pressed his nail into his palm, blood dripping from the laceration. His mouth twitched and grimaced, but no sound came from his lips.

  Witnesses wriggled in their seats like they felt the current, too, and many looked away from the dying man.

  Dr. Spitzka held the stopwatch to his face, where he saw it had been ten seconds, and then peered back at Kemmler.

  “Stop!” he cried a moment later. The command echoed throughout the room.

  Warden Durston rapped hard on the wall again, prompting Davis to pull the switch to take the chair out of circuit. It had been seventeen seconds.

  Instantly, Kemmler’s body relaxed and slumped against the eleven straps holding him to the chair.

  “He’s dead,” said Dr. Spitzka.

  Spitzka asked the other doctors to examine the body to confirm death, pointing out the paleness of his skin, the brightened nose. The doctors nodded in agreement, and by all accounts, William Kemmler had been successfully executed by way of electricity, in a mere seventeen seconds.

  Warden Durston detached the electrode from Kemmler’s head by lifting the metal cap a few inches. Witnesses that made up the scientific community immediately began to congratulate one another and shake hands, as many of them were there only to witness the manner in which the chair would work. All appeared pleased—this had been a successful experiment.

  Alfred P. Southwick stepped forward and faced the satisfied witnesses. A decade in the making, and this was his moment. He gestured toward Kemmler’s limp body. “There is the culmination of ten years’ work and study.” Southwick wore a wide grin. He knew this was a significant victory for his invention, and he also knew Thomas Edison had just experienced a crucial moment in his battle against alternating current. He cleared his throat and continued. “We live in a higher civilization from this day.”

  But Southwick’s speech was cut short when a witness pointed to the blood dripping in pulsating fashion from the cut on Kemmler’s hand, which had been caused by his fingertip digging into his palm.

  Eyes grew wide; the doctors exchanged worried looks. If the blood was still dripping from the wound, it meant his heart had to be beating.

  “Great God!” cried one of the doctors.

  Kemmler’s chest heaved. “See,” said another doctor. “He breathes!”

  “Turn on the current!” hollered Dr. Spitzka. “Turn on the current, instantly! This man is alive!”

  13 … TO DEATH

  August 6, 1890, 6:45 a.m.

  Auburn Prison, Upstate New York

  The witnesses’ faces grew as pale as Kemmler’s skin.

  Kemmler’s body twitched slightly. The onlookers stepped back on instinct. Alfred P. Southwick, who moments before had begun a victory speech, moved back to the far wall and stood next to Dr. Fell. They watched.

  Kemmler groaned.

  One of the two reporters present called out, “For God’s sake, kill him and have it over.” Then the man fainted and was caught by neighboring witnesses. They laid him down on a nearby bench and fanned air on his face.

  Blood trickled from Kemmler’s ruptured hand to the floor, a small puddle forming quickly.

  “Have the current turned on,” Dr. Spitzka shouted to Durston.

  The warden was a visible mess, shaking and trembling. He dashed to the wall and rapped twice, but nothing happened.

  A thousand feet away, in the second-floor room, the massive dynamo had been powered down. Edwin F. Davis sent a two-bell alarm to the men in charge of the dynamo, the heart of the device, signaling them to turn the machine back on at once. But there was a problem. Since Dr. Spitzka and Durston had already ordered the dynamo shut down, the voltmeter was near zero. It needed time to kick back into gear and reach sufficient voltage. Davis couldn’t open the circuit and run current to the chair until the dynamo had been powered up.

  All anyone could do was wait. A minute passed.

  Kemmler’s groaning turned into a strained wheeze at regular intervals, as if he was desperately trying to breathe.

  Two witnesses got sick; several were forced to turn away. The unconscious reporter was still being fanned as he lay on the bench.

  George T. Quinby, the district attorney who had prosecuted Kemmler, was so unnerved he rushed from his chair and out of the chamber, holding his stomach. He later passed out in the hallway.

  Two minutes after the command had been given to restart the current, the voltmeter held the proper reading and Davis signaled that the charge was coming.

  Durston looked at the doctors, who all stepped away from Kemmler’s body quickly, not wanting to have the current jump from him to them.

  Durston knocked twice and a click came from the other side of the wall as Davis opened the circuit.

  Kemmler’s body shot into a statuesque pose, back arched and chest puffed out. The straps grew taut and creaked to restrain him. There was no more sound from Kemmler’s mouth—no groaning or wheezing.

  Dr. Spitzka cautiously moved closer to examine Kemmler’s body, but Warden Durston made it clear how this round would go as he yelled to Edwin F. Davis in the control room, “Keep it on! Keep it on!”

  Kemmler’s head smoked. In haste, the electrode had not bee
n securely fastened as before, and the sponge now held little saltwater solution. A spark formed in the space between the electrode and the bare spot on his scalp, scorching the skin and giving off a smell of burning flesh that hung like a cloud in the death chamber. The lower back of the chair seemed to catch fire, but it was actually the other electrode as it also sparked and set the back of the vest and shirt aflame.

  Dark spots—a combination of purple and black—formed on the visible parts of Kemmler’s skin.

  Finally, Warden Durston called out, “Cut the current! Cut the current!”

  Davis shut down the death machine for good.

  How long the current had been left on would be a source of great debate in the days to come. Some claimed it was on for four and a half minutes, while others said two. The official report, though, stated William Kemmler had received two thousand volts of electricity for seventy seconds.

  Someone extinguished the flames on Kemmler’s back, leaving a smoking lump of mutilated body. Many witnesses got sick again. The team of doctors examined Kemmler thoroughly, taking no chances this time, and declared his death some time around 6:51 a.m.

  Witnesses tried to rush from the room, many with hands cupped over their mouths and noses, but all were forced to sign an official death certificate before leaving. Oliver A. Jenkins, the Erie County sheriff, had tears in his eyes as he left Kemmler’s smoking corpse behind.

  At 6:52, in the telegraph center that had been crudely thrown together across the street at the New York Central Railroad station, the first tap of a telegraph set off a torrent of clicks as reporters wired the news all over the world.