Ungentlemanly Acts: The Army's Notorious Incest Trial

by Louise Barnett

  2 All quotations from Dunn’s review are taken from the copy previously referred to in the court-martial file of Andrew J. Geddes, QQ1387, Box 1926, JAG, RG 153, NARA; hereafter called “Review.”

  3 Dr. T. Gaillard Thomas, New York Journal of Medicine, 3d series, 6 (1859): 196–216; cited in unpaged portion of Dunn’s review.

  4 Dunn enumerates these witnesses: Capt. John H. French, Capt. David Schooley, Capt. M. L. Courtney, Capt. C. A. Gray, Lieut. D. B. Wilson, Lieut. 1. W. Tear, Lieut. Harry Read, and Lieut. James Pratt—all of the Twenty-fifth Infantry.

  5 Harry Barnard, Rutherford B. Hayes and His America (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1954): 291.

  6 John W. Burgess, The Administration of Resident Hays (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1916): 136.

  7 Hayes to Lucy Webb Hayes, June 10, 1861, and August 25, 1861; cited in Barnard, Rutherford B. Hayes, and His America: 216.

  8 Col. James B. Fry, “Justice for the Army,” The Army and NavyJournal 21 (August 25, 1883): 63. Fry is commenting on, and liberally quoting from, an article that appeared in the New York Herald, January 21, 1881.

  9 Court procedure prohibited identifying members of the court by name. The same person may have been responsible for most or all of the interventions to spare Lillie from testifying, and it may have been Dr. Brown, who made his annoyance with the defense explicit.

  10 Research indicates that when daughters reach the age of attracting boyfriends, their incestuous fathers often become violently jealous and controlling, monitoring their behavior to preclude contacts with possible rivals. Tamar Cohan, a researcher on contemporary incest, states: “In many cases, the incestuous father feels that the daughter is his exclusive property” (“The Incestuous Family Revisited,” Social Casework 64 [1983]: 155; see also Judith Lewis Herman, Father-Daughter Incest [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981]: 73, 91–92.)

  11 Herman, Father-Daughter Incest, 87, observes that “many researchers have noted that incest … fulfills the offender’s hostile and aggressive wishes.”

  12 David Stout, “An Army as Good as Its People, and Vice Versa,” “The News of the Week in Review,” The New York Times, July 26, 1998: 4; cited from Broad Arrow, Army and Navy Journal 19 (April 29, 1882): 890.

  13 ACP 4246, Napoleon Bonaparte McLaughlen, AGO, RG 94, NARA.

  14 Oliver Knight, Life and Manners in the Frontier Army (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1978): 75.

  15 Review of court-martial, April 28, 1873, PP3110, JAG, RG 153, NARA.

  16 Karin C. Meiselman, Incest: A Psychological Study of Causes and Effects with Treatment Recommendations (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1990): 100.

  Chapter 7

  1 More properly, Pena Colorada, but always written incorrectly in army documents. The camp was located south of the Glass Mountains a few miles southeast of the present Marathon, Texas. Clayton W. Williams, Texas’ Last Frontier: Fort Stockton and the Trans-Pecos 1861–1895, ed. Ernest Wallace (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1982): 233.

  2 Letters Sent, Department of Texas, RG 393, pt. 1, vol. 13, NARA.

  3 Letter ofjune 17, 1880, in Box 1926 of QQ1387, RG 153, NARA.

  4 Philip Sheridan to Wm. T. Sherman, November 24, 1877; Philip Sheridan to Wm. T. Sherman, December 12, 1879, Sherman Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

  5 Stanley P. Hirshson, The White Tecumseh: A Biography of General William T: Sherman (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1997): 12.

  6 William T. Sherman to Elizabeth Bacon Custer, October 17, 1882; cited in Lawrence Frost, General Custer’s Libbie (Seattle: Superior Publishing Company, 1975): 254.

  7 Two recent biographers of Sherman discuss his relationship with Mary Audenreid and Vinnie Ream: John F. Marszalek, Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order (New York: The Free Press, 1993); and Michael Fellman, Citizen Sherman: A Life of William Tecumseh Sherman (New York: Random House, 1995): 358-70.

  8 Sherman to Mary Audenreid, July 11, 1882, Sherman Papers.

  9 Peter Gay, The Education of the Senses, vol. 1 of The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984): 102.

  10 Cited in Fellman, Citizen Sherman: 363, 365.

  11 See Vinnie Ream Hoxie Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

  12 Letter of June 17, 1880, to General A. H. Terry, QQ1387.

  13 Oliver Knight, Life and Manners in the Frontier Army (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1978): 75.

  14 According to a document entitled “J. W. Clous, 24th Infantry, Feb. 10, 1880, his opinion in the matter of Affidavit of Mary Stewart, accusing Mrs. W. H. Beck of adultery with Joseph Friedlander, and Mrs. N. B. McLaughlen of same offense with Captain A. Geddes, 25th Infantry,” QQ1387; hereafter called “Clous Report.”

  15 Entry of May 8, 1879, Bigelow Diaries, USMA Archive.

  16 Clous Report.

  17 Clous Report.

  18 J. C. Nott and George R. Gliddon, Types of Mankind (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1868): 260.

  19 Peggy Pascoe, “Race, Gender and Intercultural Relations: The Case of Interracial Marriage,” in Writing the Range: Race, Class, and Culture in the Women’s West, ed. Elizabeth Jameson and Susan Armitage (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997): 79n.

  20 Chicago, March 13, 1880, Headquarters, Military Division of the Missouri, Report, ACP File of Andrew Geddes, RG 94; hereafter called Baird Report. All page numbers cited refer to this book’s Appendix B.

  21 Baird Report (see Appendix B, p. 231).

  22 Baird Report (Appendix B, p. 232).

  23 R. E. Drum to E.O.C. Ord, March 2, 1880, QQ1387.

  24 Drum to Ord, March 2, 1880, QQ1387.

  25 Clous Report.

  26 Clous Report.

  27 Shirley A. Leckie, ed., The Colonel’s Lady on the Western Frontier: The Correspondence of Alice Kirk Grierson (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989): 120.

  28 Entry of June 13, 1878, Journal, January-November 1878, John Bigelow Collection, Union College.

  29 Clous Report.

  30 Baird Report: 4.

  31 Baird Report (Appendix B, p. 235).

  32 Baird Report (Appendix B, pp. 235-36).

  33 Sherman to Dunn, June 15, 1880, QQ 1387.

  34 Clous Report.

  35 Dunn to Sherman, June 16, 1880, QQ1387.

  36 Sherman to Terry, June 17, 1880, QQ1387.

  37 Geddes to Baird, April 9, 1880, QQ1387.

  38 Geddes to Baird, April 27, 1880. QQ1387.

  39 Geddes to Baird, April 27, 1880, QQ1387.

  40 Terry to Sherman, September 11, 1880, QQ1387.

  41 Sherman to Terry, September 11, 1880, QQ1387.

  Chapter 8

  1 Fort Stockton, Texas, Medical History of Post, July 1874–June 1886, vol. 362: 18, AGO, RG 94, NARA.

  2 No. 1057, Letters Sent, Department of Texas, RG 393, pt. 1, NARA.

  3 All citations from the court-martial are taken from the original transcript: QQ2023, The Court-Martial of Captain Andrew Geddes, 25th Infantry, Fort Randall, Dakota Territory, October 1, 1880, JAG, RG 153, NARA. Further quotations from this trial will not be identified with note numbers; all came from the transcript.

  4 The defense queried First Lieutenant Henry P. Ritzius on this issue, but he refused to cooperate.

  5 Olliver Shannon to Andrew J. Geddes, August 29, 1881, filed with QQ2023, JAG, RG 153, NARA.

  6 Andrew Geddes to Adjutant General, May 7, 1882, consolidated ACP file of Andrew Geddes, 6373, AGO, RG 94, NARA.

  7 Notation on Geddes’s letter dated May 12; letter to Geddes from Adjutant General, May 13, consolidated ACP file 6373.

  8 Letter to the President, January 30, 1882, signed by Charles Bentzoni, George L. Andrews, C. L. Hodges, Henry P. Ritzius, Gaines Lawson, H. B. Quimby, and D. B. Wilson, Consolidated ACP File 6373 (see this book’s Appendix C, pp. 239–40).

  9 He became chief clerk October 1, 1897 (Consolidated APC File 6373). The importance of this job to Geddes may be judged by his entry in
the Washington City Directory after his promotion: his name is inscribed in emphatic, larger-than-ordinary letters, and the title “Chief Clerk, Department of Agriculture” appended.

  10 Andrew Geddes to A. W. Fulton,.July 1, 1898, Chief Clerk’s Correspondence, vol. 27 (March 24, 1898–March 17, 1899): 147, Department of Agriculture, RG 16, NARA.

  11 Geddes to Hugh R. Belknap, September 21, 1898, Chief Clerk’s Correspondence, vol. 27: 236.

  12 Medical examination of November i i, 1891, Pension File of Andrew Geddes, certificate 1106737, Letters Received by the Commission Branch of AGO 1863-1870, RG 94, NARA.

  13 Report No. 112,January 18, 1900, extract, 56th Congress, 1st Session: 2–3, in Consolidated ACP File 6373. For the full text, see this book’s Appendix C, pp. 240-43.

  14 Report No. 112: 1.

  15 Shafter to the Secretary of War, December 24, 1897, Consolidated APC File 6373.

  16 Report of the Inspector General, May 29, 1890, Catalogue of the Peekskill Academy, 1890-91 : 44.

  17 Information in a retrospective newspaper article on the Peekskill Academy, n.d., in the file of the Field Library, Peekskill, New York.

  18 Orleman to Adjutant General, May 22, 1901, Consolidated Civil War file of L. H. Orleman, 0159 CB 1866*, Letters Received by the Commission Branch of the AGO 1863–1870, RG 94, NARA.

  19 Daisy Orleman Robinson to Adjutant General, November 7, 1911, 0159CB 1866*.

  20 Carl Orleman to Adjutant General, 1916, 0159 CB 1866*.

  21 Daisy Orleman’s obituary in the New York Times of March 14, 1942, indicated that she was survived by a brother, Carl, and a sister, Violet.

  22 Peekskill Military Academy file, Field Library.

  23 Drew Gilpin Fausc, James Henry Hammond and the Old South: A Design for Mastery (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982): 290.

  24 Obituary of George Paschal, San Antonio Daily Light, September 7, 1894.

  25 George H. Kalteyer, cited in the San Antonio Daily Express, September 8, 1894. In the same article both the Assistant City Attorney and Colonel N. O. Green, who had known Paschal since childhood, described him as a “brilliant” lawyer; San Antonio Daily Light, September 7, 1894.

  26 Sheridan to Sherman, November 24, 1877, Sherman Papers, 47; Sherman to Sheridan, November 29, 1877, Sherman Papers, Letterbook 1872–78.

  27 Armes, July 16, 1879, Ups and Downs of an Army Officer (Washington, D.C.: privately printed, 1900): 466.

  28 Armes, October 21, 1879, Ups and Downs: 458.

  29 Armes, November 23, 1879, Ups and Downs: 473.

  30 Armes, Ups and Downs: 481.

  31 Marcos Kinevan, Frontier Cavalryman: Lieutenant John Bigelow with the Buffalo Soldiers in Texas (El Paso: Texas Western Press, 1998): 228. Armes believed that he had been the victim of a cabal of officers who were out to get him “simply because I happened to have been restored by an act of Congress.” He included in this number “General Ord, Col. M. M. Blunt and the Dutchman” (December 31, 1881, Ups and Downs of an Army Officer: 496).

  32 Letter of January 28, 1886, John Clous ACP File, RG 94, NARA.

  33 Kinevan, Frontier Cavalryman: 239.

  34 Mike Talley, ed., Texas State Travel Guide (Austin: Texas Department of Transportation, 1998): 150.

  35 See QQ2952, JAG, RG 153, NARA, for the court-martial of Henry Ossian Flipper and collateral documents.

  36 Who Was Who in American History—Military (Chicago: Marquis Who’s Who, 1975): 100.

  Epilogue

  1 Thomas F. Boyle, “‘Morbid Depression Alternating with Excitement’: Sex in Victorian Newspapers,” in Sexuality and Victorian Literature, ed. Don Richard Cox (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1984): 212—13.

  2 Peter Gay, The Education of the Senses, vol. 1 of The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984): 370—71.

  3 Leigh B. Bienen, “The Incest Statutes,” Appendix, Judith Lewis Herman with Lisa Hirschman, Father-Daughter Incest (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981): 221—59.

  4 Gay, The Education of the Senses: 392.

  5 Foreword to Joseph Shepher, Incest: A Biosocial View (New York: Academic Press, 1983): xi.

  6 Lev. 18:6—23, The Holy Bible: Authorized or King James Version.

  7 Lev. 18:15—16.

  8 Judith Herman, Father-Daughter Incest (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981): 60, 62.

  9 Kenneth Neill Cameron, Shelley: The Golden Years (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974): 398.

  10 F. Marion Crawford, “Beatrice Cenci: The True Story of a Misunderstood Tragedy: With New Documents,” The Century Magazine 75 (November 1907-April 1908): 449—66, refers to original documents for his account of the crime and its circumstances. He observes that in spite of torture, Beatrice never said that her father had sexually abused her, only that he had beaten her on numerous occasions. According to Crawford, her lawyer made the argument without her acquiescence, thus giving rise to the enduring idea that Beatrice was a victim of incest (456).

  11 Freud, “The Paths to the Formation of Symptoms,” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, trans. James Strachey, 24 vols. (London: Hogarth Press, 1957), vol. 16: 370.

  12 John Henry Wigmore, Evidence in Trials at Common Law, rev. James H. Chadbourn, 10 vols. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970): IIIA, sec. 924a, 736—49.

  13 Wigmore, Evidence, 3A: 736.

  14 Herman, Father-Daughter Incest: 11.

  15 Herman, Father-Daughter Incest: 11.

  16 E. Sue Blume, Secret Survivors: Uncovering Incest and Its Aftereffects in Women (New York: John Wiley, 1990): xiii.

  17 Cited in Anthony S. Wohl, “Sex and the Single Room: Incest Among the Victorian Working Classes,” in The Victorian Family: Structure and Stresses, ed. Anthony S. Wohl (London: Croom Helm, 1978): 202.

  18 Robert Roberts, The Classic Slum: Salford Life in the First Quarter of the Century (London: Penguin Books, 1973): 44.

  19 Wohl, “Sex and the Single Room”: 199, 201.

  20 Christine A. Dietz and John L. Craft, in “Family Dynamics of Incest: A New Perspective,” Social Casework: The Journal of Contemporary Social Work 61 (1980): 602, report that “until recently the discussion of incest has been a greater taboo than its practice.”

  21 Janis Tyler Johnson, Mothers of Incest Survivors: Another Side of the Story (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992): 85. Johnson found that all six of the mothers in her study described a “world of the father” in which “men had the right to do what they wanted.”

  22 Captain Noel Lustig, “Incest: A Family Group Survival Pattern,” Archives of General Psychiatry 14 (1966): 39.

  23 In Judith Herman’s study of 40 women who had had incestuous relationships with their fathers, 17, or 42.5 percent, were oldest daughters, the largest number; 15, or 37.5 percent, were only daughters. (Father-Daughter Incest: 69).

  24 Herman, Father-Daughter Incest: 94: “The phenomenon of the father’s ‘moving on’ to a younger daughter has been observed by many authors, some of whom report even higher proportions of families in which this occurs.”

  25 Herman, Father-Daughter Incest: 78.

  26 Dietz and Craft, “Family Dynamics of Incest”: 603.

  27 Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985): 188.

  28 Cited in Smith-Rosenberg, Disorderly Conduct: 336.

  29 Herman, Father-Daughter Incest: 71.

  30 Herman, Father-Daughter Incest: 71.

  31 Lustig, “Incest: A Family Group Survival Pattern”: 33.

  32 Lustig, “Incest: A Family Group Survival Pattern”: 34.

  33 Krzyzanowski recommendation, 0159 CB 1866*, RG 94, NARA.

  34 Baird Report (Appendix B, p. 233).

  35 Paul H. Gebhard et al., Sex Offenders: An Analysis of Types (New York: Harper and Row, and Paul B. Hoeber, 1965): 226—27; Blume, Secret Survivors: 35.

  36 Karin C. Mei
selman, Incest: A Psychological Study of Causes and Effects with Treatment Recommendations (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1990): 98.

  37 Herman, Father-Daughter Incest: 95.