Ungentlemanly Acts

by Louise Barnett

  According to Geddes, between the third of March and the fifth or sixth Lillie constantly accosted him with more stories and details of what she had suffered. She told him that in Austin she had once hidden herself for three days to escape her father’s sexual advances. Her father had come into the room where she and her younger sister Daisy were sleeping and wanted to get in bed with Lillie. She protested because of Daisy’s presence, whereupon he picked the sleeping child up and carried her out of the room: “She [Lillie] hurriedly slipped on her shoes and what clothing she could and ran off.”

  At Fort Griffin she had refused to do it. Her father took her out for a ride, stopped, pulled out his gun, and said he would shoot both of them unless she agreed. She told Geddes that her mother knew and people in Austin suspected. When Lillie and her mother threatened to expose Orleman, “he used to say to them that he would give his resignation in, leave the country, and let them and the children get along the best way they could.” He would actually write out a resignation. This was always effective in obtaining her submission.

  Whenever her father was with her, Geddes quoted Lillie as saying, it seemed impossible for him to let her alone. She said that he never even respected her when she had “her sickness.” And she feared that he would begin on her younger sister, ten-year-old Daisy. She also feared that when Geddes confronted him, her father would get his gun and kill himself and her, as he had threatened to do. Geddes told her, “He is not that kind of a man—a man that would act toward his own daughter as he has done towards you has not the courage or manliness enough to shoot anybody.”

  Eventually, the patient listener related that he became tired of Lillie’s stories. One day when she began with “There is something I want to tell you, but it will disgust you so that you will never speak to me again,” he cut her off: “I said, ‘then do not tell it, Miss Lillie.’”

  Above all, Geddes testified, Lillie wanted to be rescued. She repeatedly spoke to him about “taking her away from a life of shame.” She “begged me to do so, crying always at the time.”

  Geddes denied any improprieties in his behavior toward Lillie. Questioned by his attorney, he also denied a number of specific accusations—that, for example, he had threatened to bring a civil suit against her father. He denied having led Lillie to believe he would get a divorce and marry her. He denied having powers of mesmerism. And above all, he denied visiting her in her quarters when her father was at Stables, a time, directly after dinner, when he habitually went riding. His orderly, Private William Phelps, testified that he was instructed to bring the captain’s horse to his quarters every day at that time.

  Geddes said he had not visited when Lillie was alone, except for one time when she inadvertently locked the door. He went at that time, he said, only because of her repeated invitation. Further, the injunction in one of his letters to her—“please write”—was explained as meaning that if she had anything more to tell him, she should write it (rather than constantly accosting him in person).

  This standoffish behavior on Geddes’s part seems inconsistent with the noble speech he supposedly made to her on March 3, holding out an unconditional hand of friendship and pledging to do his utmost for her. It was a dilemma for Geddes: admitting to the court that he had intentionally seen her alone would have reinforced the seduction charge, but he also needed to establish his altruism toward Lillie, a young woman trying to extricate herself from a horrible situation. It was difficult to document a laudatory sequence of actions without straying into the negative territory of the seduction plot.

  When Geddes finished his testimony, the judge advocate refused the opportunity to cross-examine. The court similarly had no questions.

  Geddes was the central witness on his own behalf, but he was supported by others. Captain Armes, who served with Orleman in the Tenth Cavalry, stated that he had seen Orleman on Geddes’s porch on March 11—that is, at a time when Orleman denied he was on friendly terms with the captain. In explaining why he remembered the date, Armes worked into his answer one of his typical character assessments:

  I had requested Lt. Orleman to be relieved from a Board of Survey of which he was recorder on the ground that I had publicly denounced him several years before as a low bred individual and that I could not expect fair action upon any examination he would make.

  Armes’s diary repeated the characterization of Orleman as “low bred.” Since the Army regarded Armes as a troublesome officer who had been rightfully dismissed and later reinstated by political influence, his testimony probably did not help the Geddes case. Aside from that, the aristocratic Virginian was always finding his colleagues beneath him and quarrelling with them.

  Another defense witness was Geddes’s good friend Joseph Friedlander, who had been one of the party on the Fort Davis trip. In one of her frantic notes Lillie had written to Geddes that her father thought Geddes had “told Friedlander,” and in fact Geddes had confided in his friend.

  On the stand Friedlander intimated that the community of Fort Stockton pretty much believed that some sort of illicit relation existed between Lieutenant Orleman and his daughter, but Friedlander was a good friend of Geddes—and a man whose own reputation was persistently assailed by the prosecution. Judge Advocate Clous intimated darkly that Geddes knew damaging information about his friend and was in Friedlander’s debt as well.ae Moreover, a member of the court had objected to Friedlander’s not having taken the oath with his hat on since Friedlander was “an Israelite.” Clous quoted from a volume entitled Duties of the Judge Advocate which asserted that “Jews regard no oath as obligatory unless their head is covered.”af How strictly observant Friedlander was never entered this discussion.

  Clous also hauled into court several witnesses to testify against Friedlander’s character. A farmer, Joseph Landa, stated that Friedlander had a bad reputation at Fort Stockton and a low standing in Landa’s estimation: “The man has told me lies off and on as long as I knew him and brought me to great losses and represented things differently what in reality it was [sic].” Cross-examination brought out that there was a long-standing feud between Friedlander and Landa over business matters.

  At this point, the trial’s fifty-ninth day, tempers must have been frayed. Geddes complained that a member of the court, Assistant Surgeon Brown, had “on several occasions taken it upon himself to snub and reprimand the accused and his counsel verbally.” Geddes wanted any further reprimands to be put in writing, no doubt with an eye toward establishing irregularities if the verdict should go against him. The court rejected his request.

  Unlike the prosecution, which stood or fell on the testimony of Lieutenant Orleman and his daughter, the defense called several witnesses who could corroborate Geddes’s accusations and who appeared to be disinterested. Of these witnesses, no one proffered more explicit support of Geddes’s story than Michael Houston. If his demeanor in court was as persuasive as the substance of his story was scandalous, he would qualify as the star witness. Houston recounted an experience surprisingly similar to that of Andrew Geddes’s lurking outside the Orlemans’ window on the evening of March 2. But Houston had had no motive to put himself in the way of revelation: he was simply the stage driver who transported the Orlemans as his only passengers when they left Fort Stockton in April, bound for San Antonio and the coming trial. Houston claimed to have overheard an incriminating conversation during this trip:

  The first that I heard that drew my attention was that Miss Lillie Orleman was crying—next that I heard was Lieutenant Orleman telling that he could have left Fort Stockton liked and respected if he had never took her there, then she says that he could have left that way anyway if he had acted the part of a gentleman. The next I heard her say was that he made her deny the statement she made to the major. He told her he did not. She answered back to him, “Yes sir, you did.” Then the next she says was that it was the proudest act of her life that she had made the statement to the major. Then the next was that that had been going on now for six years. />
  She says to him, “Papa, you have been raising me as your daughter and using me as a common woman.” He says, “I was not the first one that did it.” She says, “You were, you were.” Next, I heard her say, “Just think of the idea, of your using your own flesh and blood in that manner.” Sometime after that he asked her, “How did Lieutenant Bigelow feel—you have felt him all over, I suppose.” She answered, “Like any other man, of course.” The next thing I heard him say was “would she not wish that her darling Andrew was here tonight.”ag He says, this is the next I recollect now, he called her a little whore and a puppy. He said that Major Geddes had said that she sat on his lap and [he] finger fucked her. This is the words he said. She said that the major had always treated her like a gentleman. After that he put his head out of the back and asked how far it was to any house.

  Houston reported that he heard the sound of scuffling and Lillie’s voice saying, “Papa, quit that, stop.” After that, he heard nothing but breathing and thought that “criminal intercourse” was going on. Around April 17 when he returned to Fort Stockton he told Michael Francis Corbett, operator of the stage concession and his employer. At that time, he testified, he had never spoken to the accused and knew nothing of matters between the Orlemans and Geddes.

  Cross-examined by Judge Advocate Clous, he added, “I heard her say—she was crying at the time—that her mother and her aunt had suspected her. The Lieutenant said it was a lie, that her aunt had not seen her mother for two years.”

  Clous brought out that in his original statement Houston had reported that when Lieutenant Orleman was committing the act of criminal intercourse with his daughter, “he asked her who did it best: he, Lieutenant Bigelow, or Major Geddes.”

  The prosecution suggested that Joseph Friedlander had helped the driver prepare his statement. Houston denied this, or that he had known Friedlander until they had been stage passengers together on the trip to San Antonio for the trial. Discovering their common reason for the stage journey, they had talked about the matter: “He asked me several times if I was positive. I told him I was—I do not remember anything more that I said or he said.” Given the length of time necessary to travel by stage from Fort Stockton to San Antonio—five days—the two men had ample time to become acquainted and thoroughly discuss the case.

  Clous expressed skepticism that Houston could have overheard a conversation occurring inside the stage. Houston rejoined that the driver’s seat was separate from the passengers by a “light canvas,” and that the partition was only buttoned down on one side at the time. Clous persisted. Did the driver usually eavesdrop on his passengers? Houston answered indignantly, “I never was and would not have been then if it had not been for the crying attracting my attention.” He expressed regret at having become a witness: “I would have come no way, if I had known that I had to stay so long.”

  Clous returned to Houston’s association with Friedlander in order to insinuate corruption. Houston replied, “I am not that kind of a man, to be bribed by Mr. Friedlander or any other man.” Perhaps not. But if he had been, the substance of the conversation he testified to hearing would most likely have come to him from Friedlander, who would have heard it from Geddes, who would have had to invent it himself. That Houston, who had no connections with the parties in the case, invented such a convenient story himself strains credulity.

  Friedlander was clearly Geddes’s confidant, and he might have known that this particular stage driver was, as Clous insinuated, open to persuasion. Nevertheless, it seems improbable that any of the men in this chain of scandalmongering would have made up such details of the story as Lillie’s saying that her mother and aunt suspected and Orleman responding that her aunt had not seen her mother for two years.

  It was one thing to report—as Geddes did—an episode of incest overheard and partially observed by the occupant of the adjacent quarters. It was quite another to come up with such a full-blown conversation that brought in the name of two other officers as sexual partners of Lillie’s. Geddes never suggested, either in his testimony or in his deposition, that Lillie had had relations with a man other than her father. Such a claim would only have muddied the waters and made his motive in rescuing her seem less valid.

  According to Houston, Orleman told Lillie that Geddes had admitted “finger fucking” her. That Geddes, or his protective friend Friedlander, would have used such an expression, or asserted that it had come from the mouth of Orleman, is inconceivable. Geddes strenuously denied any sexual or romantic interest in Lillie or any improper behavior. No matter what the context, it would have been counterproductive to place such an idea before the court.

  As for the possibility that Houston might have been able to overhear his passengers’ conversation, the prosecution made every effort to discredit it. Houston’s boss, Michael Francis Corbett (the same Corbett who had had a falling-out with Geddes over the latter’s reputation), testified that it would have been impossible for the driver to hear anything from the coach because of the canvas partition. He described the road as being so bumpy that the noise of the voyage would have effectively drowned out any conversation within the stage. Houston stoutly maintained that the overheard conversation had occurred on a smooth stretch of road. Corbett also described Friedlander as a receiver of stolen property and asserted that he would not believe him under oath. He denied “jealousies growing out of commercial rivalry.”

  Corbett was not asked if Houston had reported the Orlemans’ conversation to him when he returned to Fort Stockton.

  If there was at least a possibility that Houston was a tainted witness, the prosecution made no such suggestion about the defense’s most compelling witness, like Houston a man who had no personal relationship with Geddes and no apparent reason to speak ill of the Orlemans. This was Corporal George A. Hartford of the Eighth Cavalry. He testified that he was stationed at Fort Duncan, Texas, in May 1877, where he saw Lieutenant Orleman and his daughter. He thought, but could not be certain, that it was between the middle and the end of the month. (Orleman later testified to having left the post on May 15.) Corporal Hartford had a detailed and vivid recollection of the scene:

  I was standing near the house that evening. I do not know what one it was, listening to Miss Orleman playing on the piano. While I was standing there, the music stopped, and her father crossed the room, and she walked back with him, Miss Orleman. Lieutenant Orleman sat down in a chair and took Miss Orleman across his knee, sat her down on his knee, and put his arms around her, hugged her a number of times, then run his hand down over her legs outside of her dress, and commenced to lift her up off of his knee and hold her up against his breast. Then,he sat her back on his knee again and went feeling her legs. I could not swear that he had his hands under her clothes but it looked like it, and he put his face down against her breast and he appeared to be biting her. He also kissed her. That is about all I recollect now about the matter. He continued this action while I stood there. I think it was about five minutes I stood there. He was still sitting in the same position when I left.

  Paschal wanted Hartford to say whether what he saw appeared to be innocent or not, but Clous objected and the motion was sustained. The next series of questions made the answer clear, however.

  Q: What induced you to leave at the time you did?

  A: Did not care to see any more.

  Q: How often did you see him kiss her, and what was his manner toward her when he kissed her?

  A: I could not tell exactly the number of times. I did not keep an account of it. Perhaps as many as a dozen times, maybe more. His manner towards her was rather warm.

  Q: Explain what you mean by his manner being rather warm.

  A: Well, he seemed rather more of a man that was newly married than a father towards his daughter. He had his hand, one arm, around her legs, about the knee. The other under her back or waist and would lift her up bodily off of his knee up against his breast.

  Q: How did Miss Orleman act while this conduct was going on
?

  A: She did not seem to return his embraces. She seemed rather passive in his arms.

  Corporal Hartford surely did not know that he was describing a typical response to incest, a state of passivity in which the victim attempts to dissociate herself from what is happening.14

  In the face of Hartford’s powerful story, Clous directed most of his efforts of cross-examination to casting doubt on the date of the alleged incident, attempting to establish that Hartford was speaking about a time when Orleman was away from Fort Duncan. But given an event that happened more than two years earlier, that Hartford might be unable to remember the date precisely hardly discredited his testimony. He met the judge advocate’s persistence on the matter by saying, “I am not positive. I think it was [in the last two weeks of May], to the best of my recollection.” He was positive about what he had seen.

  The court asked Hartford if anyone had observed this scene with him. He replied that Private Joseph Smith had, but Smith had been discharged a year ago and was now, possibly, in Brazil. He added to his previous testimony that Miss Orleman appeared to be a grown woman, eighteen or nineteen, a statement that suggests the absence of coaching since the defense would have informed Hartford that Lillie was only sixteen at the time.

  Hartford explained his voyeuristic behavior by saying that he had been attracted to the vicinity by the sound of Miss Orleman’s playing, and he remained to observe the scene he had described in the hope that she would begin to play again.

  The next day Hartford returned to the stand to add that he had suspected criminal intimacy between Orleman and his daughter: “My reasons for thinking so were that I had heard it commonly reported that Lieutenant Orleman slept in the same room with his daughter and frequently in the same bed with her.”