Ungentlemanly Acts: The Army's Notorious Incest Trial Page 8

  Lillie’s exegesis of her note to Geddes elides the nebulous expression that everyone agreed he had used. In saying “not treating you right,” Geddes avoided specifying the act that few Victorian-era Americans would willingly name. Therefore Lillie could claim that she interpreted “not treating you right” to mean her father’s harsh words to her and meant “you already know all” to similarly refer to paternal scoldings.

  After Paschal concluded his cross-examination, the court posed questions. Lillie denied that there had been any instances of incestuous behavior with her father. She had been on the witness stand for fourteen days.

  Lillie’s testimony is open to two interpretations. Either she had turned to Geddes because she wanted his help in ending an unnatural relationship with her father, something she had no power to bring to an end by herself, and was then prevailed upon by her father to recant; or she was an innocent young girl who had been the object of a seduction plot and now understood herself to have been betrayed by the man she loved and hoped to marry. Either way, she had been victimized and must have felt wretched.

  Most likely, the court adopted the view of Lillie that a fellow officer had expressed in a letter to Lieutenant Bigelow:

  She is so entirely unsophisticated that she ought not to hear a word spoken unless it’s meant. I feel sorry, sometimes, for girls of her character, when I think of the awakening from their delusions, that must come sooner or later and is never a pleasant experience.9

  The very fact that Lillie’s plan to leave Fort Stockton with Geddes was described in the court-martial charge as his attempt to abduct her confirms this view of her innocence. Lillie had testified that she and Geddes secretly plotted to leave the post together, she possessed by a romantic vision of love and future marriage that she imagined he shared. That this flight was regarded as an abduction rather than as consensual is a reflection of the then prevailing view that women were at all times the passive recipients of male action. At eighteen, the convent-educated Lillie was regarded as properly subservient to and in need of her father’s ruling hand.

  LOUIS ORLEMAN

  Next to his daughter, Lieutenant Louis Orleman was the most important prosecution witness, the man who had initiated the court-martial charges. He was noticeably better prepared than she had been to address the issues raised, such as his and Lillie’s sleeping arrangements. Volunteering an answer to the question the defense had not been allowed to ask, he created a scenario that left no opportunity for the two to dress or undress in the same room at the same time: “My daughter would retire first and I would retire after I knew her to be in bed. In the morning I got up upon the first call of reveille every morning. My daughter usually got up while I was at Stables.”

  Orleman corroborated Lillie’s account of Geddes’s actions on the February trip to Fort Davis. He recounted that he had discovered Geddes pressing his daughter’s knees when he searched the floor of the ambulance for a corkscrew he had dropped. His reaction to this discovery seems curious: rather than addressing the captain or Lillie, he said that he had simply moved her legs.

  Geddes’s deposition had stated that Orleman had fondled his daughter’s breasts on the trip to Fort Davis. Orleman met this accusation with a strong denial: “I did not, and it would have been impossible for me to do it, as she was wrapt up in a heavy lined overcoat, her arms inside of the coat and not in the sleeves of the coat; the coat was a double breasted one and buttoned down to her waist.” He did admit that at one time during the journey, while his daughter had leaned against him and slept, he had had his arms around her.

  Orleman’s description of the evening of March 2 echoed the testimony his daughter had given. He sat on Lillie’s bed and upbraided her for her conduct that day, that is, locking the door while she was alone with Geddes:

  I told my daughter what reputation Captain Geddes bore amongst the officers of his Regiment that I had spoken to about it and that she should never let me find him in the house again, except in my presence. I also told her that on account of his bad reputation no lady could afford to meet Captain Geddes in such a way without having her reputation ruined.

  Orleman described the furnishings of the bedroom in minute detail and asserted that “little sound penetrated” from his set of rooms to Geddes’s.

  In Orleman’s account of his confrontation with Geddes on March 12, Geddes said to him, “Lieutenant, you are too intimate with your daughter and you are not treating her right. I heard everything that happened on Sunday night March 2, 1879.” Orleman then asked the captain what he had heard and how he had heard it: “At first he would not say. Finally he said that he had heard it at my bedroom window where he had listened … . He said that what he heard made him feel so bad that he could not go to sleep.”

  According to his version of events, Orleman did not respond to this revelation with the shock or outrage that a father falsely accused of incest might be expected to display. Instead, he asked Geddes if he thought such eavesdropping was the action of a gentleman. Orleman testified that he thought Geddes’s announcement was simply an attempt to coerce him into granting permission for Geddes and Lillie to leave Fort Stockton together. Knowing Geddes’s reputation as a libertine, he assumed that his daughter was already ruined and in need of removal to cover her shame.

  What kind of man was Louis Orleman? At thirty-eight he was the father of eight children, five of whom were daughters. The family remained in Austin because the children were in school there. Lillie, the oldest child, had been living with him at Fort Stockton since November of 1878, and before that, alone with him at Fort Clark and Fort Duncan from the fall of 1876 to the spring of 1877.

  Colonel Benjamin Grierson, a well-known frontier army officer and commander of the Tenth Cavalry, was asked to testify as a character witness for the prosecution about Orleman’s “truth and veracity.” When the defense objected, on the grounds that Orleman was not on trial, the judge advocate justified the question by noting that the defense implied “that Lieutenant Orleman is so depraved and steeped in crime that virtually he is not in possession of any moral or other attributes that make up the character of man, thus virtually attempting to assail his character in every particular.” This rhetorical overkill was a useful strategy since it developed the expectation that a man who appeared less than a depraved monster could hardly be guilty of such a terrible offense. As usual, the defense objection to this testimony was overruled.

  The tactic of calling character witnesses is always an appeal to the human desire to believe in the consistency of character and, with it, the predictability of behavior. Hence those rueful blurtings of the neighbors who discover a vicious killer in their midst: we never suspected—he was always quiet and polite, attended church, kept his lawn mowed. If a crime is “monstrous,” presumably it is committed by a monster rather than an ordinary person. And if someone is a monster, it should be evident not only in the crime but through and through—in outward appearance, in social habits, in the simple act of saying “good morning.” Those criminals whose behavior always seemed suspect in some way are the most satisfying since they reinforce our need to feel equipped to recognize and make ourselves safe from predators.

  This desire has led to a number of schemes for identifying traits of a criminal predisposition. As an extension of the preoccupation with categorizing race through cranial measurements, Cesare Lombroso began in 1870 to identify criminals by the shapes of their skulls and other physical characteristics. To Lombroso, the “born criminal” was a throwback: “Thus were explained anatomically the enormous jaws, high cheek-bones, prominent superciliary arches … handle-shaped or sessile ears found in criminals, savages, and apes.”10 Lombroso also contended that “there is everywhere a preponderance of crime in the districts dominated by dolichocephaly [long skulls].” He wanted to make a similar broad link between crime and dark hair, but was restrained by the consideration that the warm climate of the dark-haired “races” he studied might also be a factor.11 This may seem like a caricat
ure of racial profiling today, but Lombroso was enormously popular at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth.12 In more recent times, researchers have pursued a relationship between criminal tendencies and chromosomal abnormality, correlating a propensity for criminality with an extra Y chromosome.13 An age that gave considerable credence to phrenologys might well be susceptible to judicial arguments that correlated proper appearance in public with good behavior in private, especially when the issue in question was morally unthinkable. 14 Did Orleman appear neat and well-groomed? Had he ever gone to church? Then he could hardly be guilty of incest!

  Colonel Grierson claimed to know the lieutenant and his family “very well.” He testified that Orleman had a reputation for veracity and discharged his duties satisfactorily. More than that,

  He [Orleman] was kind and affectionate towards his family and never so far as I know had any trouble whatever officially or personally with anyone. He and his family stood high in the estimation of the officers, were liked by all including their families. The general character of Lieutenant Orleman and his family as to integrity, veracity and morality was excellent always since I have known them … . The family was frank, unassuming, industrious, and economical, and from what I know of them I have entertained and do now at this moment entertain the highest regard for Lieutenant Orleman and his family.

  In Colonel Grierson’s glowing testimonial, the Orlemans were a model family and Orleman himself a paragon.

  Although Lillie had admitted to sitting on the lap of a married man when the two were alone and letting him press her legs between his during a day’s journey by stage, Clous continued his examination of Grierson by brazenly eliciting a character reference for her, relying on the court to stifle any objection or pressing cross-examination. He asked his high-ranking witness, “What was the general demeanor and general behavior of Miss Lillie Orleman as to modesty while you have known her?” and received the gratifying answer,”It has always been very good indeed, very modest and well behaved.” Geddes did predictably object to the question as irrelevant, but as usual the court found for the judge advocate.

  One small anecdote that does not appear in Grierson’s testimony: Orleman makes a fleeting appearance in a letter that Grierson’s eleven-year-old son, Charlie, wrote to his mother from Fort Sill on November 5, 1872. A group of ladies had visited the encampment:

  The next day Major Schofield rigged a government wagon up with blankets and buffalo robes for them. Lt. Orlaman [sic] was drunk and he went to put Mrs. Myers into the wagon and he turned her heels up and her head down. Mrs. Myers said I’m afraid you can’t put me in. He said oh yes I put you in.15

  Charlie’s innocent narrative simply records the facts of the incident, the only thing that he remembered or wrote about the ladies’ visit. It isn’t much out of Orleman’s thirteen years of social interaction at frontier army posts. Still, it is suggestive. Here’s a man who assumes the stance of courteously aiding a lady and then, instead of following through, turns her upside down. An experienced army wife, Mrs. Myers was apparently equal to the contretemps. She didn’t shriek or exclaim; she made a polite response designed to extricate herself. But Orleman wasn’t willing to let her go. He was determined: “oh yes I put you in.”t

  Grierson also overlooked several matters that had already come before the court. When he pronounced Orleman completely free from trouble with fellow officers, he either dismissed as unimportant or was ignorant of Orleman’s difficulties with other officers who had already testified (ironically, as witnesses for the prosecution).

  Captain C. C. Hood of the Twenty-fourth Infantry was at Fort Duncan when Orleman was there and testified that he had heard “nothing negative” about him. But the following exchange occurred when Hood was cross-examined by the defense:

  Q: Did you ever express yourself to the effect that Lieutenant Orleman was a dishonorable man and that you had no respect for him? This while you were at Fort Duncan?

  A: I think it very likely I did.

  On re-cross Hood said that this pronouncement was the result of an altercation between himself and Orleman over the hiring of a servant.

  Another character witness for the prosecution also backfired. Captain Louis H. Carpenter of the Tenth Cavalry was a distinguished soldier who would be awarded a Medal of Honor for the already legendary rescue of Forsyth’s scouts from Beecher’s Island in September of 1868.16 Orleman had been one of two officers with him on that mission. Carpenter testified that Orleman had served seven years under him, and that he had never known a more affectionate father or known of any domestic trouble that he ever had: “He and his family lived together in perfect accord.” The very phrase “perfect accord” somehow rings false as a description of the life of a large family living on a lieutenant’s pay, or indeed, any family, but it was probably the result of an innocuous desire to make the testimonial more effective. A person accused of a monstrous act may need something more than ordinary goodness, as if the lurking shadow of the monster can be obliterated only by the creation of a saint. Under cross-examination a more shaded picture of Orleman emerged:

  Q: Did you not sometime during the year 1870 or 1871 at Leaven- worth, Kansas, say in effect and publicly that Lieutenant Orle man’s conduct was dishonorable and that he had intentionally lied, and that you would not believe him on oath or words to that effect—this in reference to Lieutenant Orleman’s conduct in the case of Captain Graham late of the Tenth Cavalry?u

  A: I was very much surprised and disappointed in this [that Orle man did not testify for the prosecution in the Graham case] and made some remarks against the conduct of Lieutenant Orleman in the matter, but I have never had a full explanation of the whole matter.

  Carpenter admitted that he had said that Orleman “had not spoken the truth in the matter.” He then remarked that “during the last five years he had seen them [the Orleman family] on a number of occasions,” adding disingenuously, “particularly Lieutenant Orleman and Miss Lillie, his daughter. I have seen them more frequently than his wife and the rest of the family.”

  This observation had the effect of strengthening the defense contention that Lillie and her father were isolated from the rest of the family—and thus free to have an unnatural relationship. When Geddes’s attorney wanted to drive the point home by asking for specifics of these encounters—a reasonable enough question—a member of the court intervened, complaining that Carpenter was being asked to join in “a game of quibbles.” The commenting member continued, “He has stated what he knows and should be excused from irritating and annoying questions.”

  Paschal was not indulging in a “game of quibbles” nor was he attempting to badger the witness. He wanted to make a point that clinical research on incest would make a hundred years later: that the separation of the father and daughter from the rest of the family was suspicious, a possible sign of an incestuous relationship.v

  In all instances during the trial the objection of a member of the court, always unidentified in the record, was sustained, perhaps because the other members did not want to rebuff one of their number.

  The parade of character witnesses for Orleman continued. J. C. De Gress, the mayor of Austin, testified to the good repute of the family there, although he admitted that they had lived in Austin only a year and a half. A teacher, Professor Jacob Bickler, also gave the family a good character, which mostly consisted of applying the rubric gentleman to Orleman twice in the same sentence and indicating that he had “always moved in the best of society, German as well as American.”

  ABDUCTION

  After the Orlemans’ testimony, several minor witnesses were called by the prosecution to confirm Geddes’s motive for abducting Lillie Orleman. If Geddes had made such a serious false accusation as incest against the Orlemans, he must have had some motive, hence the seduction-abduction plot the prosecution invoked.

  The first charge against Geddes consisted of two counts, the “endeavor to corrupt” Lillie Orleman and the
“attempt to abduct her from her home and family.” Evidence for the first was Lillie’s direct testimony about his advances and the hearsay testimony about Geddes’s reputation that Clous had introduced over defense objections. The correspondence between the two suggested more ardor on her part than on his. Two of her notes began “Darling Andrew.”

  The seduction portion of the case was classic “he said, she said.” Lillie’s testimony told of persistent attentions on the part of her next-door neighbor in the period following their initial encounter at the hop. But even in answering friendly questions, she did not deny allowing some of these attentions. Certainly if Geddes’s advances had been unwelcome, she need not have opened her door to the captain after the first occurrence of inappropriate behavior. Instead, she frankly confessed, she became infatuated with him. She believed he would get a divorce and marry her.

  Orleman’s testimony on his daughter’s departure from Fort Stockton began with Geddes informing him that he had heard that the cavalry would be sent into the field that summer. In that case, Orleman had replied, he would have to send Lillie home to Austin. At eighteen, Lillie was as old as many married women, yet, as an unmarried daughter, when her father went on field duty, she could not continue in his quarters alone. Geddes had volunteered that he was going to apply for a leave and would be willing to escort her away from the post. A concerned father would ordinarily welcome such an offer since it was inadvisable in that still unsettled country for a young woman to make a long stage trip alone. But Orleman said he demurred, preferring to send Lillie with the paymaster. A few days later, Geddes told Orleman that he had two stage passes and that Lillie could use one of them. Orleman still demurred. To Lillie he said that she could never travel with a man of Geddes’s dubious reputation. In Orleman’s version of events, he had consistently opposed Geddes’s accompanying Lillie in spite of the captain’s blandishments.