Ungentlemanly Acts

by Louise Barnett

  If father and daughter had shared the same bed at Fort Duncan, what about at Fort Stockton? The testimony of Private George Sweat, who had taken care of the Orleman bedchamber at Fort Stockton, could have shed some light on this. Sweat was prepared to testify that Lillie’s bed frequently showed that it had been occupied by two persons, while the cot [Orleman’s bed} was often undisturbed. On one occasion he entered the room after knocking, and “Lieutenant Orleman ran hastily from Lillie’s bed to his own, and his daughter lay on her back with her clothing in disorder.” Geddes’s request to call Sweat as a witness was turned down on the formulaic grounds that Clous invariably invoked—“not material to the ends of justice.”

  Another such rejected application might also have added a significant piece of information about the father-daughter relationship of the Orlemans. First Lieutenant John W. Pullman of the Eighth U.S. Cavalry, was prepared to testify that in camp near Fort Clark he had observed Orleman giving his daughter “spiritous and intoxicating liquors to such an extent that she complained of the fact to said Lt. Pullman.”

  In his own testimony about observing the Orlemans in their bedroom on the night of March 2, Geddes had said that after their intercourse, Orleman had asked Lillie if she wanted a drink of whiskey. She had declined, but Orleman had insisted, telling her she would sleep better. Although nothing was made of this, stage driver Michael Houston included a similar incident in testifying about the Orlemans’ trip from Fort Stockton to San Antonio. He remarked that Orleman “had a bottle of whiskey and treated the boys at Pecos Station as well as Houston, and gave his daughter a drink, too.” The prosecution did not dispute this testimony.

  In his diary entry of March 25, 1879, John Bigelow had discussed a report of Lillie’s drinking that he had heard at Fort Concho:

  I heard something about Miss Orleman which greatly shocked and surprised me … that she drank her whiskey straight and that she did it so well as to make Lieut Hodges’ head swim. After thinking about it I had to own to myself that I had observed a taste of Miss Orleman’s that placed the fact within the scope of possibility, if not probability.15

  On two of the three occasions when Orleman was allegedly observed giving his daughter strong drink, she was resistant to taking it. Two of the three instances (although not the same two) happened in conjunction with sexual episodes. It would seem that Orleman plied his daughter with liquor in the time-honored manner of reconciling her to sex, or—in the incident reported by Pullman—simply reconciling her to her unhappy situation as the prisoner of her father’s desire. Bigelow’s observation and the gossip he had heard about her at Fort Concho suggest that her consumption of whiskey was becoming habitual.

  The argument over calling Pullman as a witness was especially acrimonious. When the judge advocate gave one of his lengthy speeches to support his denial, Paschal could not forbear. His rejoinder, rather than adducing another point in favor of hearing the witness, conveyed only heat: “If this conduct and treatment of Lieutenant Orleman towards his daughter is considered by the Judge Advocate properly parental and gentlemanlike on the part of a father to a daughter, then the defense does not envy the judge advocate.”ah Having won the contest, Clous could afford to be lofty:

  The Judge Advocate declines to reply to the argument of the accused as nothing is therein contained to controvert the position he has taken and the law he has quoted. He scorns to pay any attention to the flings of the defense upon him personally or officially.

  REBUTTAL

  Perhaps the most significant rebuttal witness was one the court did not hear. Lillie Orleman might have been brought back to the witness stand in this part of the trial, but Judge Advocate Clous introduced a doctor’s note saying that she was too ill to appear again, “for six weeks, if at all.”16 The doctor added—gratuitously—that her illness had been brought on by the strain of testifying. Geddes responded angrily: “The accused respectfully submits that he believes this certificate is intended for the purpose of creating prejudice against him; otherwise it would not contain an attempt to give uncalled for evidence.”

  Lillie’s sickness might well have had something to do with the protracted and painful experience of testifying about the most intimate matters of her life. As well as being embarrassed, she must have been fearful of making a misstep that would call her testimony into question: it was, in fact, weak and at times contradictory, although the court protected her from a sharp cross-examination. There would have been no other woman in the courtroom, and in spite of being allowed to testify with her back to Geddes, she must have been acutely aware of his presence.

  Hearing of Lillie’s illness, Lieutenant Bigelow immediately imagined that Geddes would be responsible for “sending her with a crushed spirit to the grave.” A few days later he called on her father and learned that Lillie had a temperature of 105 degrees. He noted that Lieutenant Orleman “did not appear as depressed in spirit as I expected to find him.”17

  Whether or not they followed the judge advocate in blaming Geddes, members of the court could be expected to regard the breakdown of Lillie’s health with sympathy. Clous employed a similar strategy in presenting testimony about Orleman’s health, a matter that was directly relevant to the trial. Two doctors testified that at the time of the alleged “scuffling” in the stage driven by Michael Houston, the lieutenant was paralyzed on one side. On March 16, 1879, Orleman had complained of intense headache and lapsed into unconsciousness. He remained unconscious for four hours and was bled. His entire left side was paralyzed and without feeling, but by April 5, Dr. W. C. Henderson testified, Orleman “could hobble around.” Assistant Surgeon M. K. Taylor described his arm as “entirely useless, having no voluntary motion except slightly in the fingers and the leg so far paralyzed as to drag it after him when he walked.” Could Orleman have engaged in sexual intercourse at this time? The doctor thought it not impossible but improbable. He later ascribed the paralysis to an attack of apoplexy.

  When Orleman was recalled, the judge advocate asked him about the state of his “bodily health and vigor up to about the middle of March, 1879.” Orleman answered that it was very good except for the persistent disease of his eyes that had kept him away from his duties for a year. He then added to his answer, “My health was excellent.” Clous followed this up by asking Orleman if his health had changed, eliciting a defense objection that the accused had not been charged with “altering Orleman’s health.”

  The lengthy speech Clous made to defend his question perfectly illustrates his method. He first “respectfully state[d] that he [was] well aware that the accused [was] not charged with changing the physical condition of the witness.” But then he went on to intimate that very thing:

  The Judge Advocate by the question simply desires to elicit the fact whether or not the accusation of the accused had any effect upon the physical condition of the witness. It is evident from the present appearance of the witness and his limping gait that between the middle of March and his appearance here something must have seriously changed his physical condition. There may have been sickness consequent upon the excitement produced by the accusations, the mind may have been overwrought, apoplexy may have been produced. All of which is legitimate to establish, to show the result, if any, the accusations of the accused may have produced on the witness.

  The court sustained the objection, but it hardly mattered. Clous had painted a vivid picture entirely outside the scope of the charges but designed to arouse sympathy for Orleman.

  Orleman at that time was still awaiting the processing of a request made a year earlier to be retired from active duty for reasons of physical disability.18 Describing his health up to March of 1879 as “excellent” strains credulity in view of this request and of his medical history—an almost unbroken record of health problems requiring leaves of absence. During the Civil War he had a medical leave of absence for diarrhea and debility that lasted fifty-six days. Brought before a commission concerning the overstaying of leaves, he produced documents t
o account for the entire period and was exonerated.19

  Old Fort Stockton. Officers’ Row, where Captain Geddes divided the end house on the left with Lieutenant Orleman and his daughter Lillie [Courtesy of Historic Forc Scockcon]

  Friedlander’s store. The store was just off the post, a brief walk from Officers’ Row (left background), where Friedlander often socialized [Courtesy of Hiscoric Fort Stockton]

  Department of Texas Headquarters. The lengthy trial of Captain Geddes took place in this building, located on Military Plaza in the center of town. [Courtesy of the Witte Museum, Sam Antonio]

  George Paschal, Geddes’s defense at-tourney. Paschal’s kindly eyes may explain some of his popularity as a public figure in later life, but he was only thirty-one at the time of the trial [Courtesy of The Institute of Texan Cultures, The San Antonio Light Collection]

  John Clous, the Judge Advocate. Clous looks far more respectable in this picture than in the drawings in Captain Armes’s autobiography, where he is portrayed as a trumpeter blowing his own horn, a crudely caricatured “Dutchman,” just off the boat, and—after his promotion—as a dwarfish brigadier general being introduced to the President [Courtesy of the Civil War Library and Museum]

  General E.O.C. Ord, his wife, and their daughter Bertie. Bertie probably got tired of holding her pose for the long period required to take a photograph at the time [courtesy of the Massachusetts Commander of Military Order of the Loyal Legion and the U.S. Army Military History Institute]

  Ground Plan of the Orleman-Geddes quarters prepared by Lieutenant Bigelow for the government’s case against Geddes. Bigelow reversed Geddes’s bedroom and sitting room: the captain’s bedroom was actually next to the Orlemans’ bedroom. Bigelow occupied a room at the back of the building [Courtesy of the National Archives]

  Andrew Geddes in the late 1870s [Courtesy of John Bloodgood]

  Geddes in his late fifties in a photograph accompanying a sympathetic article about him in a Washington newspaper [Courtesy of John Bloodgood]

  Lieutenant Orleman during his service in the frontier army [Courtesy of Paul Orleman]

  The Orleman family in 1894, fifteen years after the trial, Lillie is seated on her fathers left; her sister Daisy stands in front of the tree. Orleman holds his first grandson, Louis Henry III [Courtesy of Paul Orleman]

  Major Napoleon Bonaparte McLaughlen, Fort Stockton’s commander. McLaughlen, an old soldier with a fine record, wanted his wife’s lover to be punished, but without any publicity involving himself [Courtesy of the U.S. Army Military History Institute]

  William Tecumseh Sherman, General of the Army. Sherman’s energy, intellect, and determination could be directed toward positive ends, but in the Geddes case these qualities served a darker aspect of his character [Courtesy of the National Archives]

  Absalom Baird, Assistant Inspector General. “Chief Inspector Hound” doggedly carried out his mission to dig up everything he could on Captain Geddes. Ironically, his name is that of a Biblical character who committed incest [Courtesy of the U.S. Army Military History Institute]

  William Dunn, Judge Advocate General. [Courtesy of the Massachusetts Commander of Military Order of the Loyal Legion and the U.S. Army Military History Institute]

  Colonel George L. Andrews, the commanding officer of the Twenty-fifth Infantry and an avowed enemy of Captain Geddes, “evidently so constituted … that he would be wretched unless he was in the midst of perfect order” [Courtesy of the U.S. Army Military History Institute]

  As an officer in the frontier army, he had taken a number of medical leaves. The earliest was December 10 through 17, 1870, when he was described simply as “sick” at Fort Sill. In April of 1873 he had “tertiary intestinal fever” at Fort Gibson. Then, at the end of both 1873 and 1874, he was treated for piles at Fort Sill. In January of 1874 he had an attack of acute bronchitis there that laid him up for a week. In both May and September of 1875 he had episodes of tertiary intestinal fever at Fort Griffin; in June and August of 1877 he had new bouts of fever at Fort Duncan, followed in October of that year by “catarrhal conjunctivitis” at Fort Clark. He was granted a leave of absence and was away from his duties for more than a year, returning, this time to Fort Stockton, late in 1878. Another sick leave, this time for apoplexy, began April 14, 1879. He was retired on November 20, 1879.20

  If Orleman was genuinely ill at the time of the Geddes trial, this would hardly have been unusual: life in a frontier military post tended to be both demanding and unhealthy, and the lieutenant had had numerous complaints in the past. How debilitated he actually was, or why, cannot be determined from the courtroom description of his March attack, but there is a peculiar note in the Fort Stockton medical records about it:

  Lieut. L. H. Orleman 10th U.S. Cavalry was attacked on 16th March with apoplexy or what was believed to be such. Whether there was any real coma, or only a severe headache with congestion; whether there was any real paralysis or only a paresis or slight loss of power, seem difficult points to be ascertained by me as I did not see the case and the accounts seem conflicting.

  As to the etiology in this case; the brain disturbance undoubtedly arose from a quarrel with one of the other officers.21

  In describing Orleman’s March illness, which he had treated, Dr. W. C. Henderson was forced to make several admissions. First, he had left Fort Stockton on April 5 and thus could not testify to the extent of Orleman’s recovery by April 13, the day the Orlemans’ stage trip began. Second, he testified that “the post surgeon had thrown out insinuations that I might be mistaken as to my diagnosis.” Henderson was a good friend of the Orlemans. He had taken his meals with them from January 2 until his departure from Fort Stockton on April 5 and had spent a lot of time in their quarters.

  As the trial transcript demonstrates, appearing debilitated enhanced Orleman’s case, augmenting his status as a victim to the extent that General Ord made a partisan intervention to offer him sympathy, a gesture that would not have been lost on the court.

  After the trial, there is no further record of medical problems until late in Orleman’s life. Following his retirement from active duty, he had a long career as an instructor in various military academies, and he lived to the then extraordinary age of ninety-four.

  Orleman was also asked in the rebuttal phase about stage driver Michael Houston’s allegations. He denied them. He further denied that he had ever used profane language to his daughter. But there was a curious addendum to his account, in which he said that during the journey his daughter had slept on the “middle seat.” When M. F. Corbett took the stand to rebut Houston’s testimony, he denied that any of the coaches on the line had a middle seat. Clous rephrased the question several times in an attempt to save Orleman’s story, but Corbett was adamant: there was no possibility that the Orlemans had travelled in a stagecoach with a middle seat.

  On August 18, Lieutenant John Bigelow, Jr., was the trial’s last witness, when Clous recalled him to deny that he had had sexual relations with Lillie Orleman.

  On August 19 the court adjourned until the twenty-first. Then, on its sixty-eighth day, Geddes read a brief statement, in which he said that he would make no further defense, but simply point out that “of his thirty-four years, eighteen have been spent as an army officer.” Clous declined to make a summation, a typical omission for a court-martial of the period, but hardly typical for a trial of such exceptional length. On the other hand, since the judge advocate deliberated with the court, he had no need to address them here, where his remarks would be part of the record.

  The court was cleared and closed for deliberation. How long it deliberated is not indicated in the trial transcript, but the announcement of the verdict occurred on the same day: guilty, exempting only the specification concerning abduction. Geddes was sentenced to be dismissed from the Army and imprisoned for three years. The proceedings, findings, and sentence were approved a week later by General Ord, who, as commander of the Department of Texas, was first reviewing officer. They were th
en forwarded to army headquarters in Washington, where General Sherman, the Army’s highest-ranking officer, signed his approval on November 4.

  6

  REVIEW

  Not long after the conclusion of the trial, the Army’s highest judicial officer, Judge Advocate General William M. Dunn, submitted his review to Secretary of War George W. McCrary, who would in turn forward it to President Rutherford B. Hayes.1

  The review procedure had been instituted to counterbalance the command influence that could powerfully taint a court-martial verdict. Since the departmental commander decided when a court-martial was warranted and then appointed officers to compose a military court, officers whose own careers were to a large extent dependent upon his good opinion, it has always been an article of faith with critics of the system that a military court is under pressure to return a verdict of guilty.

  Through his independence from military hierarchy and from the emotions that a case might generate locally, the Judge Advocate General was in a position to counter this systemic bias toward conviction. In his office in the War Department in Washington he was removed from the politics of working military bases. He was also physically removed: in the Geddes case he was some two thousand miles away from the Department of Texas and the consternation that the court-martial’s scandalous subject matter had provoked.