The Scarlet Sisters (59 page)

13.
because we publish a paper:
TC,
WCW
, Nov. 2, 1872.

14.
Will you lend me your aid:
Ibid.

15.
if it brings trouble:
Tilton-Beecher trial records in Marshall,
The True History
.

16.
“persecution she was to suffer.”:
The Beecher Trial: A Review of the Evidence
. Reprinted from the
New York Times
, July 3, 1875, with some revisions and additions (New York: 1875), p. 332.

17.
“my own circle of friends.”:
WCW
, Nov. 2, 1872.

18.
denunciatory, fiery and scandalous:
Hibben,
Henry Ward Beecher
, p. 99;
WCW
, Nov. 2, 1872; and
Memphis Appeal
, Nov. 6, 1872.

Chapter Sixteen: Unmasking Beecher and a Masked Ball Rape

1.
“a poltroon, a coward and a sneak.”:
WCW
, Nov. 2, 1872.

2.
the fruit of my wife’s infidelity:
Ibid. Richard Fox in his painstaking
Trials of Intimacy
dismisses VW’s version as highly fabricated. However, I feel her source for such embellishment was Tilton, who was capable of histrionically exclaiming that Beecher had impregnated his wife; particularly if Elizabeth Tilton’s tales of his jealous fits were true. Her inclusion of “orgies” in front of the Tilton children is, of course, far-fetched and has the stamp of her recklessness, but Tilton may have been capable of spreading that. Other writers have incorrectly used Woodhull’s story to manufacture an abortion, which she never claimed, and that Lib carried a six-month-old fetus; Woodhull was guilty of peddling that second rumor, claiming suffragist sources, who then denied they told her. However, the
central
story of adultery charges, backed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton as “substantially” true and probably embellished by Tilton in talks with VW, remains solid. Fox analysis pp. 159, 300–5.

3.
hasten a social regeneration:
Ibid., pp. 10–11.

4.
this harlequin and absurd way:
Ibid.

5.
inquiry into her sexual morality:
Ibid. It remains staggering that sexual attitudes toward rape and abuse continue in this century, 150 years later, with defense attorneys badgering victims in trials and questioning their dress, sexual conduct, and character.

6.
the men who inflict them:
TC in
WCW
, Nov. 2, 1872.

7.
with liquor and its own beastliness:
(NY) World
, Dec. 24, 1869. Does this not conjure up the 1991 Tailhook scandal, more than a century later, when eighty-three women charged that they were forced to run the gauntlet of drunken servicemen in hotel corridors at the U.S. Navy and Marine Las Vegas convention? In the aftermath, protest demonstrations, outrage, and investigations resulted in the scuttled careers for three hundred aviation officers and fourteen admirals. Women in the armed services reported sexual harassment still in 2013. (See
The Invisible War
, the 2012 award-winning documentary on women in the military.)

8.
debauch these young girls:
WCW
, Nov. 2, 1872.

9.
make her debut as Portia:
Ibid.

10.
like buttered hot cakes:
Chicago Times
, July 9, 1874. There remains a problem regarding the veracity of this reporter’s account; it was published two years after the fact. He states the sisters were dwelling in a “first-class, English basement, four-story private house, well-furnished… on the eve of their arrest.” However, they were destitute and boarding with a sister at a different address. VW letter to
Brooklyn Eagle
, March 27, 1875, p. 3.

11.
as much as forty dollars:
WCW
, Dec. 28, 1872, p. 10.

12.
an arrest warrant for the sisters:
Heywood Broun and Margaret Leech,
Anthony Comstock: Roundsman of the Lord
(New York: Boni, 1927).

13.
the damning issue of the
Weekly
:
New York Times
, Nov. 3, 1872, p. 1.

Chapter Seventeen: Jailbirds and the Naked Truth

1.
flushed like a rose:
Brooklyn Eagle
, Nov. 5, 1872, p. 8.

2.
she could look commonplace:
Tilton, “Victoria C. Woodhull”; and the
New York Herald
, Nov. 4, 1872, p. 8.

3.
a newly chopped onion:
Cait N. Murphy,
Scoundrels in Law: The Trials of Howe and Hummel, Lawyers to the Gangsters, Cops, Starlets, and Rakes Who Made the Gilded Age
, 1st ed. (Washington, DC: Smithsonian, 2010).

4.
indecent and obscene publications:
New York Herald
, Nov. 4, 1872.

5.
inmates refrained from smoking:
Ibid.

6.
severely tempted by Satan:
Quotes and background on Comstock, unless otherwise noted, are from Broun and Leech,
Anthony Comstock
.

7.
steals away the elastic step:
Ibid.

8.
gave birth to a naked baby!:
Ibid.

9.
untrue in every particular:
The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony
: vol. 3, 1873–1880 (2003, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey) Nov. 6, 1872, p. 14; her remark was sent out nationwide. ECS let it stand until January 1873.

10.
He is foolish—but young:
Goldsmith,
Other Powers
, p. 348.

11.
They did not flinch:
New-York Daily Tribune
, Nov. 9, 1872, p. 2.

12.
Jeering laughter filled the room:
New York Herald
, Nov. 10, 1872, pp. 10 and 11.

13.
her father’s damaging testimony:
Ibid.

14.
particulars of the “terrible debauchery,”:
New-York Daily Tribune
, Nov. 9, 1872, p. 2.

15.
judge ruled that he was complicit:
New York Times
, Nov. 20, 1872.

16.
she swore that Jesus had visited:
WCW
, May 1873.

17.
“those vile jailbirds”:
Goldsmith,
Other Powers
, p. 363.

18.
he had collected the twelve copies:
Broun and Leech,
Anthony Comstock
.

19.
the passengers would be safe:
(NY) Sun
, Jan. 9, 1873.

20.
her hair tumbling down:
WCW
, Feb. 8, 1873.

21.
a cell in the American Bastille:
From “Moral Cowardice and Modern Hypocrisy—the Naked Truth—Thirty Days in the Ludlow Street Jail,” speech in Carpenter, ed.,
Selected Writings
.

22.
torrent of burning, glowing words:
WCW
, Feb. 8, 1873.

23.
they could not give bail:
(NY) Sun
, Jan. 22, 1873, p. 1.

24.
pile of bastard Egyptian:
Charles Dickens,
American Notes
, 1842.

25.
recently arrested Boss Tweed:
New York Times
, Jan. 23, 1873, p. 8.

26.
“Yes, even so,” said Comstock:
This portion of the trial is from Murphy,
Scoundrels in Law
.

27.
a law more narrow and oppressive:
Brooklyn Eagle
, Nov. 7, 1872.

28.
let the suit be pressed:
(NY) Commercial Advertiser
, Jan. 14, 1873.

29.
a living skunk with a dead lion:
WCW
, Feb. 8, 1873.

Chapter Eighteen: Life and Death

1.
Woodhull’s face was ashen:
(NY) Sun
, June 7, 1873.

2.
DEATH OF THE GREAT REFORMER:
Chicago Tribune
, June 7, 1873.

3.
sat beside her throughout the night:
(NY) Sun
, June 7, 1873.

4.
it is very much regretted:
WCW
, June 21, 1873, p. 3.

5.
hoax to garner sympathy:
Chicago Tribune
, June 7, 1873.

6.
signed a tripartite covenant:
New York Times
, May 30, 1873, p. 5.

7.
nearly like ravishment:
Marshall,
The True History
, p. 314;
Daily Graphic
, Sept. 11, 1874.

8.
denied that he had violently assaulted:
Ibid. When the Proctor story appeared in the newspaper the
Daily Graphic
, Bowen sued the editor, and Proctor vociferously denied the whole thing and sued attorney Frank Moulton for raising the tale during testimony.

9.
he shared Tilton’s ideas:
Applegate,
The Most Famous Man
, p. 364.

10.
loveless marriages should be dissolved:
Ibid., p. 400.

11.
“an obscene newspaper.”:
New York Times
, May 30, 1873, p. 4.

12.
she might cooperate with him:
This entire account of Bowen and the sisters is found in the
Brooklyn Eagle
, June 26, 1873.

13.
an “Inglorious Failure.”:
Brooklyn Eagle
, June 27, 1873, p. 4.

14.
the “Irish smut dealer.”:
Broun and Leech,
Anthony Comstock
, p. 17.

15.
“stories and rumors” are “utterly false,”:
Beecher letter to the editor,
Brooklyn Eagle
, June 30, 1873.

16.
affect the public against me:
New York Times
, July 1, 1873, p. 5.

17.
she was a raving maniac:
New York Herald
, July 11, 1873.

18.
Cut off at thirty-one:
WCW
, July 26, 1873, p. 9.

19.
“a nobler man never lived.”:
Ibid., p. 10.

20.
rotten with sexual disease:
Ibid.

21.
plain hearse and four carriages:
(NY) Sun
, July 14, 1873.

22.
they are going to the bad:
Gabriel,
Notorious Victoria
, p. 214.

23.
“Birthplace of Modern Spiritualism.”:
WCW
, Nov. 22, 1873, p. 16.

24.
the charms of the sex:
Chicago Daily Tribune
, Sept. 17, 1873, p. 5.

25.
Address by the Presiding Genius:
Ibid.

26.
I have braved the penitentiary:
WCW
, Oct. 15, 1873, pp. 5–6.

27.
submit sexually for money:
Ibid.

28.
insure that no such exigency:
Ibid.

29.
going to help yourselves?:
Chicago Daily Tribune
, Sept. 19, 1873.

30.
of a character to be published:
Ibid., p. 5.

Chapter Nineteen: Panic and Victory

1.
the country’s leading banker:
John M. Lubetkin,
Jay Cooke’s Gamble: The Northern Pacific Railroad, the Sioux, and the Panic of 1873
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2006), p. 3.

2.
caused a “veritable paralysis”:
James Ford Rhodes,
History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896
, vol. 7 (New York: Macmillan, 1920), p. 110. Now on openlibrary.org http://archive.org/stream/histusacomp07rhodrich#page/n5/mode/2up.

3.
done on credit:
(NY) Sun
, Sept. 19, 1873.

4.
And in America!:
New York Herald
. Reprinted in
WCW
, Nov. 29, 1873, p. 13.

5.
Friday evening, October 17:
WCW
, Oct. 23, 1873. Publishing date was October 23, but the issue was on the street before their October 17 speech.

6.
Applause and hisses followed:
(NY) Sun
and the
New York Herald
, Oct. 18, 1873.

7.
“Queen of the Rostrum”:
Frisken,
Victoria Woodhull’s Sexual Revolution
.