Victoria the First

The Tracking Board’s 2016 Launch Pad Manuscript Competition

VICTORIA THE FIRST

SYNOPSIS

Victoria Claflin Woodhull was a woman too far ahead of her times, but her story is perfect for ours.

She grew up as a fortune teller and spiritual medium in a family of frontier rogues, and she rose to become the first woman stock broker on Wall Street, the first woman to address Congress, the first woman newspaper publisher, and the first woman to run for president (1870-72). She made intimates and enemies of some of the most powerful people of her time, including Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher.

She was regaled as “The Bewitching Broker” and later reviled as “Mrs. Satan”.

The story begins in 1843 in Homer, Ohio, where the 10-year-old Victoria lights the fire that destroys her father Buck’s grist mill. Buck thought he’d be able to cash in on his insurance policy, but the family gets run out of town instead. Victoria is sold into an ill-fated marriage to a drunkard. Two children later, she leaves him and forms a dynamic union with a legitimate war hero, Col. James Blood. She tires of the gypsy games and leads her clan to New York

Victoria and her younger sister Tennie charm Vanderbilt, then the richest man in the world, and an avowed spiritualist. He sets them up in a brokerage house, and they become celebrities after Victoria makes a huge fortune in the Panic of 1869, risking all she has on the Commodore’s advice. She gains the attention of the intellectual elite, who help her make the political connections that lead to her historic address to Congress, during which she argued that the 14th and 15th Amendments had already given women the vote. Important people start taking her seriously. She vaults to the forefront of the Suffrage Movement, which does not amuse some among the old guard, notably Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Her enemies are handed a powerful weapon, when a family quarrel spills into court, and Victoria’s past is made public. Her supporters and her fortune melt away. She tries to gain the advocacy of Rev. Beecher, the pre-eminent clergyman of his time. He spurns her, and he and his sister conspire to have Victoria tossed onto the streets. In desperation, Victoria uses her newspaper to expose the Beecher’s sexual escapades with a married woman in his congregation. She becomes the target of puritan crusader Anthony Comstock, who has her jailed, essentially for telling the truth about a prominent person.

The denouement comes when Victoria, knowing she’ll be arrested again, emerges from disguise at a packed lecture hall and delivers a spellbinding speech she called “The Naked Truth”. In an epilog, Victoria and Tennie take hush money from the Vanderbilt heirs, in return for leaving the country...another dangerous woman silenced.

CHAPTER 2

THE BURNING GIRL

Before I became an orator, I became an outlaw.

I had a proficient mentor and tutor in that regard – my father. Buck Claflin was a rogue’s rogue. He did what he needed to do to get what he wanted. If that meant breaking a law or two, or taking advantage of someone else’s greed or pride or gullibility, well, that was someone else’s problem. In the mid-1840s, the conventions of polite society had not reached the frontier, dirt-crossroads town of Homer, Ohio . Fair play was for fools, usually hungry fools. Buck never made an apology for himself, and I feel no need to defend or condemn him. I will note that he had a large family to feed, and he was a terribly inept farmer. There wasn’t an honest bone in his body, yet he was still my Daddy.

Buck certainly looked the part of a pirate. He nearly always wore a black patch over one eye. He said it was because that eye was “slow”, but he clearly relished the slightly sinister touch of the patch. He was tall, but he stooped his shoulders and often approached people in a sideways shuffle. He maintained a growth of gray whiskers. He seemed to like the stubble. It have him something to stroke while plotting. His stroked his beard frequently.

A better man than Buck might have been able to be an honest and respectable postmaster. For Buck, though, the job came with too many temptations. He was good about getting the mail set out in the proper slots in the back corner of the dry-goods store, which served as the Homer Post Office. He was even better at sorting through the mail before he set it out, so that he could open and intercept pieces of mail that contained anything worth diverting to his own pockets.

Charges were not pressed against Buck, but local suspicions were. Responding to some pointed suggestions of a delegation of townsfolk, he gave up his position as postmaster. Buck simply moved on to his next venture, the purchase of the town’s grist mill. People scratched their head over that deal. Had they known the front money had come in large part from Buck’s habit of helping himself to mailed valuables mail, they might have scratched his eyes out instead.

Even if they’d made the connection, Buck wouldn’t have been fazed a bit. He didn’t care, either, when some people laughed at his next move. He purchased what was widely considered an expensive oddity in those times, an insurance policy on the mill. What could possibly happen, the locals thought, to the grist mill? It was built of wood and stone and was perhaps the most solid structure in Homer, and it was barely 10 years old. All Buck would say was he felt a need to protect his investment.

My mother Roxana thought the purchase of the mill would also buy us some respect. The miller is an important person in a farm village. Surely, she thought, the other mothers would soon allow their children to play with hers, and, surely, the minister would allow us to attend his Sunday school. She had seriously overestimated both the capacity of the people of Homer for compassion toward the Claflins and the inclination of her husband to operate a legitimate business.

There was real, hard work connected with running a grist mill; that alone should have made mother wonder about Buck’s true intentions. The monstrous gear wheels had to be oiled routinely, and their teeth replaced whenever they broke. The mill race needed to be kept clear of muck and branches, so that the flow would be strong enough to turn the water wheel. In its first weeks of operation under Buck’s ownership, his lack of interest in performing the needed maintenance became obvious. Farmers complained that their grain wasn’t being ground properly.

One night, I came to understand why things at the mill were not going well. Buck came to my sleeping spot near the hearth, woke me gently and took me outside. It was chilly, but I didn’t mind. It was rare that Daddy would pay individual attention to any of us children. So, I felt somehow honored and special that I was being given a role in one of his schemes. As Buck whispered a dramatic plan to me, I gave not the slightest thought to its morality or legality or even its safety. I was 10 years old and Buck was my Daddy.

“I got something very important I need you to do for me, Vicky,” he said.

“What, Daddy?” I answered, as joyfully as if he’d just given me a birthday gift, which would have been another departure from his typical behavior.

“I’ll show you,” he said, and he and I took a late-night stroll to the mill. The big wooden door groaned ominously as we entered. In the daytime, I loved climbing around the big wheels and gears inside the mill. But at night, to my little girl’s mind, all the dark corners I enjoyed exploring could very well hide all sorts of wild animals or demons. I gripped Buck’s hand with all my strength. He led me to a two-foot- high pile of kindling stacked in a corner. There were some greasy rags mixed in the pile.

“Now, listen close,” he said. “If you do this right, Daddy’s gonna buy you a brand new dress. You like that?”

I would have done whatever he wanted just because he asked, but the promise of a new frock made it difficult to contain my glee. I squealed and clapped my hands. Buck hushed me with an angry look.

“Tomorrow, I’m leavin’ for Granville,” he said. “I’m telling people I’m going to buy some parts for the mill. I won’t make it back tomorrow night. I’m going to be in Coshocton when it happens.”

I stared at him, waiting to hear how I was to fit into the plan. “When what happens?”

Buck held up his hand, a signal for me to listen, not ask questions. “While I’m gone, late tomorrow night, I need for you to set this pile of wood to burning. Can you do that?”

“Yes, Daddy. But can I do it before supper? Mother doesn’t like for me to go out at night.”

“No. It’s got to be done late at night. And you can’t tell your Mama, or anyone else, or let anybody see you. This here is a secret, ‘bout the biggest secret anybody will ever ask you to keep,” he said.

I was thrilled, but I was also a bit unclear as to the particulars. “Mother doesn’t allow us to play with fire,” I reminded him.

“Girl! Forget your Mama!” he said, but quickly shifted to a softer tone. “It’s all right, Vicky darlin’.“ He embraced me when he saw that his anger had made me tremble. That night was many years ago, but I can still feel the comfort that came with that small hug from my father.

“All you have to do,” he said, “is take a taper from the niche in the hearth where I keep them. You know where that is, don’t you?” I shook my head in assent.

“Good girl. Then you light it, you carry it over here to the mill, and you just set it down in this here pile. Can you do that for me?”

“Yes, Daddy,” I smiled.

“That’s my brave Vicky,” he said. I fairly burst with pride that he’d trusted me, and I was sure he was proud of me, despite being vaguely terrified by my assignment.

“Now, this is very important. You have to wait till everybody is asleep before you do this. Can you stay awake so long?”

“I do it all the time,” I said. “I like it when the house is all quiet.”

As we left the mill, Buck had one more instruction for me. “This here’s the most important of all, Vicky,” he said, taking me by the shoulders and turning me toward him. “I don’t want you to even think about watching what happens. You just drop your lit taper onto this pile, and you turn right around and run home. Don’t worry yourself about what might happen next. You hear me?”

I nodded again, more vigorously this time. “All right, then.” He clasped my hand, like I was his true partner.

First thing the next morning, I started playing my role. When Buck rode off on our flatbed wagon, I waved to him and shouted, perhaps a bit more loudly than was necessary. “Bye, Daddy! See you tomorrow!”

The day passed painfully slowly. By the afternoon, I knew I needed a way to let off some of the energy that was making me feel like my insides were about to burst. So, I summoned the children to follow me to the Mount of Olives. A few complained that it was a Tuesday, not a Sunday. “The Lord has called me to speak, and the Lord don’t give a damn what day it is, when he puts out a call!” I shouted. My little congregation, perhaps six children, hushed appropriately and followed me up the mound.

“I’m going to give you all a taste of hell!” I bellowed. Fire and damnation were at the forefront of my thoughts on that day. “It’s a fire that never goes out but never burns you up. “ I gave them a moment to think on an eternity of pain. “You’ll be thirsty forever, and you’ll be able to see the good people splashin’ and playin’ in the cool streams up in heaven. But will you ever get a sip of their water? No! Hell no!”

Jimmy Shifflett started to bawl. “I don’t want to go to hell. I’m a good boy!” I pushed away the boy’s tears with my dirty thumb. “I know you’re a good boy, Jimmy,” I said. “ Don’t you worry. I’ll make sure you get to heaven. I promise.”

The little boy looked like I’d handed him a pot of gold. “Oh, please do, Victoria. I’ll be good, real good.” It hit me at that moment how powerful my gift was. One minute I could put someone in fear of the loss of his immortal soul, and the next I could be his salvation. There would be many times ahead when I would call on those powers, but first, I had a fire to set. I had to be about my father’s business.

That evening, I rushed through dinner and even washed my plate without my mother having to scold me. I don’t recall how long I pretended to be asleep on my pallet. It seemed like hours, but finally, the house was still.

I crept up to the niche in the hearth and got a taper. I held it against an ember in the hearth, until it glowed with its own light. The taper seemed as bright as a bonfire to me, but no one else stirred, either in the main room or in the sleeping loft. I softly pushed the door open with my elbow, slipped out and closed the door as noiselessly as I could.

It was even quieter outside. My anxieties amplified the regular cricket noise into an awful din. I made it to the middle of the road and started the impossibly long journey of perhaps one hundred yards to the mill. About halfway there, I stumbled when my foot hit a rut. I didn’t fall, but I reflexively closed my free hand, the one I’d been using to cup the flame of the taper.

All of a sudden, I was alone in total dark, with a smoldering taper and a burnt hand. I was close to panic, but I refused to cry. I also refused to fail. Don’t be a baby, I told myself. Just go back and start again. With no flame to protect, I ran home.

My second trip was flawless. When I got to the mill, though, I encountered another major obstacle. I was too small to open the rear door with one hand. After a couple of futile pushes, I turned around and butted the door with my boney little bottom. The door moved just enough for me to squeeze myself inside.

I went up to the kindling pile and held the taper out for a few longs seconds. What was going to happen when I dropped it? Well, I decided, I’d never find out until I did it, so I did. For an instant, I thought it might not catch on, but in the next instant, my little taper fairly exploded into a whooshing, sparking monster of flame, licking its way up the pile and then up the wall.

A small shower of sparks cracked me out of my trance. Just like Daddy told me, I turned and ran to the door. Before I escaped the now-roaring mill, I could not resist my impulse to turn back and take stock of my handiwork. I was impressed, awed actually. The fire had already raced to the ceiling, with angry red, yellow and blue bolts of flame. Had a gang of firefighters been standing in the room – and there were no firefighters in Homer – they would have had no chance of putting out the living version of Hell that I had created. I pushed away any thoughts of the grave consequences of what I’d done, and I ran out into the night.

I reached the house, but I was too excited to go back inside and pretend to be asleep. I went back to the side of the road and crouched behind a big elm tree. I was horrified and fascinated at the same time. Before I’d fully caught my breath, I could see the fire had burst through the walls of the mill and was lighting up the whole sky above Homer. Minutes later, the first few townsfolk rushed outside, panicked and helpless. They started yelling “FIRE!” and pounding on the doors of their neighbors. Their faces were lit an eerie yellow-orange by the fire.

A few men organized a bucket brigade, but they had to give up before they even started. It was far too hot to get close enough to tease the fire monster with even one small bucket of water. All they could do was to drop their buckets and watch the awesome spectacle. Soon, nearly everyone in town had come out to join the gallery.

When my mother ran out of the house, I followed her up to the knot of people watching our mill burn down. “Oh, dear God!” she moaned. “It can’t be!”

A man in the crowd was not sympathetic to her plight. “Where’s your no-good husband?”

Mother did not comprehend that the question was also an accusation. “Gone to Granville. Why?” she said. The man snorted in disbelief and turned away.

I was still enervated by this most fearsome and magnificent event. There was a tree stump near where we were standing. I hopped onto it and made it my stage. “I started to recite a poem I’d learned in my last term of school. I thought “The Burning Deck” was an appropriate choice for the moment.

As I recited the poem to no one in particular, I changed the gender of the poem’s subject. “The girl stood on the burning deck,” I recited calmly and firmly:

“The girl stood on the burning deck.

Whence all but she had fled.

The flame that lit the battle’s deck

Shone round her o’er the dead.”

By the time I’d reached the second verse, many in the crowd had turned away from the fire to listen to me. I could not have had more intense competition, yet I still managed to command their attention. “Remarkable,” I thought to myself. The most significant structure in their town was burning to the ground, yet the good people of Homer were listening to a little girl spouting poetry.

When Daddy finally got home the next day, the remains of the mill were reduced to smoking embers, but the anger of the town’s residents was white-hot. Buck registered a suitable expression of shock, when he saw what had happened. The locals were having none of it, however.

“What in blazes happened here?” Buck called out. “My mill’s gone!”

A man ran up to him and grabbed him by the shirt front. “You know good and well what happened, you miserable weasel,” the man shouted, spitting the words into Buck’s face.

Buck broke away, feigned hurt, and said, “Look, Frank, I just rode into town...”

Just then, a group of four grim-faced men walked up to Buck. One of them, the proprietor of the dry- goods store, set himself chest-to-chest with Buck and growled at him, “And you can ride right out again. You and your whole clan.”

“What?” Buck stammered.

“You heard me.” The man said, with a menacing tone that discouraged any further discussion. “We’ve loaded your belongings on your wagon,” the man said. “Just round up your urchins and get on out. Now.”

Buck scowled and surveyed his cowering progeny. I wondered whether he was trying to think of a way to leave a few of us behind. “Now, see here,” he said, trying to mount some form of counterattack. “I just come home and find my business burnt down. I done lost everything I had. And you fools are running me out of town? The devil, you say.”

“The devil you are, Buck Claflin,” said Millicent Carstairs, the wife of the store owner, as she glided into the center of the argument. Due to her Amazonian height, Mrs. Carstairs could, and did, look down her nose on Buck as she spoke.

“You say you’re ruined. Well, you’ve near ruined this whole town!” she said, her eyes glowing with cold fury. “You’re lucky I talked the men out of tar-and-feathering you.”

I elbowed my way to the fringe of the fight and flashed my father a look of triumph. Of course, he couldn’t acknowledge it just then, but he was proud of me, I was sure. I had certainly done what he asked, and done it well.

Just then, people turned in the direction of a wailing noise coming from the direction of my family group. It was my mother, on her knees and lost in a prayer of imprecation and damnation. With her eyes closed and her arms thrust skyward, she shrieked, “Harlan Hershberger, you lying fornicator! I know you’ve been ruttin’ with the widow Green every chance you get!

“Reverend Mr. Dillon, you preach about serving the poor, but you serve yourself with the best part of what comes into your poor box!

“And all you hypocrites of Homer! God in heaven will damn you to hell for casting us out!”

Millicent moved toward mother and gently touched her shoulder. “Enough, Roxana, enough,” Millicent said. She pulled mother up and tried to brush some of the muck from mother’s dress. She steered mother toward our wagon, which the men of the town quickly loaded with our belongings.

As she helped mother up onto the seat next to Buck, Millicent took a small can from within the folds of her dress and pressed it into mother’s hand. The can held a roll of money. “We’re not heartless people, Roxana. We know Buck had someone burn down the mill for him,” she said, with a quick, accusatory glance at me, “but we also know that you and the children must eat.”

“But,” mother stammered, “we had that insurance thing.”

“No, dear,” said Millicent. “Insurance doesn’t pay out, when you destroy what you insured.”

“But...Buck was in Granville,” mother pleaded.

“That’s right! You can go to Clark’s Inn and check,” Buck interjected.

“Oh, I’m sure you were there, and I’m sure you plotted with someone else to set the fire,” Millicent said, staring again at me. I turned away and pulled my five-year-old sister Tennie close.

“Oh no! Not my Victoria!” mother cried. She pulled me protectively onto the wagon. “She’s special. She’s named for the Queen, you know.”

Before mother could say anything more, Buck twisted her on the wagon seat, so that she faced ahead, looking down the road that led to who knew where. Before I climbed onto the back of the wagon, I pulled two white roses off a nearby bush – one for me, one for Tennie.

“Hush, woman,” Buck said, snapping the reins loudly and jolting the horses into step. “They ain’t crownin’ no Claflins in Homer today.” As we lurched out of town forever, Buck grabbed the can of money away from my mother.

CHAPTER 8

POLITICS AND POULTICES

When I first arrived in Ottawa, Illinois, on a fine hot day in August, 1858, I thought Buck had arranged for a spectacular welcome. The entire town was bedecked in bunting. On the green of the town square, two separate brass bands were practicing, the result being a disharmonious din. When I saw hawkers selling souvenirs for something they named “The Great Debate,” I figured out that the fuss was not for me.

I soon learned Ottawa was all astir over being the host city for a much-anticipated forensic contest between two candidates for the U. S. Senate, a Mr. Douglas and a Mr. Lincoln. Posters and handbills with likenesses of the two men were being tacked up and passed around all over town. My only observation was that Mr. Lincoln was, by far, the more homely of the two.

After spending a few minutes fighting through the crowd at the train station, we finally found Buck, Tennie and the two porters they’d engaged. Buck’s mood matched the surrounding festival.

“Big day tomorrow,” he said, once the porters had taken charge of our baggage and Tennie had taken the baby Zulu from me.

“So I see. Who do you support?”

“Support?” he replied, perplexed. Buck supported himself primarily, and his family only insofar as it profited him to do so. He didn’t spend any time trying to understand my foolish question, but it did register on him that I was talking about the debate. “Oh, that. Neither. I’m just happy there’s going to be a great crowd here tomorrow. Customers comin’ in from all over.”

Tennie took little Byron’s hand from me, to my relief, and gaily guided us through the crowd. She already had a woman’s body, though she was only 14; yet she retained her girlish freshness. She was, as the snake-oil label touted, amazing.

When we’d made our way about three or four blocks from the station, Buck stopped in front of a handsome, four-story brick edifice with a sign in front identifying it as The Old Fox House. What a perfectly-named place for Buck to set up headquarters, I thought to myself. My old fox of a father swept his arm in a gesture of pride and said, “It’s all ours, Vicky.”

I had to admit I was impressed that Buck had had enough cash to rent out an entire hotel. He led me through a grand, wide porch and straight into the hotel’s oak-paneled ballroom. “We pretty

much pack this place twice a week. The folks here can’t get enough of your little sister,” he said, with a wink at Tennie.

Just then, Mother rushed up and gave me a quick hug, then she gushed over her grandchildren. This was the first time she’d even seen Zulu Maude. She cried as she squeezed her, a bit too hard, I thought. “Oh Victoria, I’ve prayed so long that you would come back to us. How long can you stay this time?”

“I’m stayin’ for good, mother,” I replied.

“But...Dr. Woodhull?” she said, suddenly distressed.

“Is no longer of any consequence in my life,” I said, finishing her sentence for her. Mother reacted with a stunned, confused expression.

“He’s still your husband, ain’t he?” she asked.

I shrugged with disinterest. I didn’t wish to hurt my mother, but at the same time, I wasn’t interested in preserving her fantasies about my marriage either. “Yes, but only in the eyes of the law – and it’s a law I ain’t got much respect for.”

Mother didn’t know what to say to that, so she said nothing. Buck, however, brightened noticeably and put his arm around my shoulder. “That’s my girl!” he proclaimed.

He led me off to my rooms. I thought it curious that we passed by the second floor and went up to the third. I noticed that the doorway to the second-floor rooms was shut and asked him why. “Oh, that’s the infirmary,” he explained.

“The what?” I retorted.

“I’ll show you later,” he said, in a conspiratorially soft whisper. I was too tired at the moment to push him. I also was not sure I was ready for the answer.

The next morning, my inquiries about the second floor were not mentioned. Instead, Buck took me downtown. He and I spent the morning passing out handbills inviting one and all to come that night to the Old Fox House Hotel to see “Miss Tennessee Claflin, The Amazing Girl Clairvoyant”. For the men in town, when they held the handbills long enough to glance at the picture of Tennie, they usually stuck the papers into their pockets.

Towards noon, though, we had to stop. We still had some handbills left, but it simply became impossible to move through the crowd. Special trains had been arriving from Chicago nearly every 14 minutes. Thousands of people had packed themselves into every inch of space in the square surrounding the platform that had been constructed for the debate. Then, the bands began playing, and even more people packed in. Judging from the number of signs displayed, the crowd seemed equally divided between supporters of the two candidates – the incumbent, someone named Stephen Douglas, and the challenger, a lanky fellow named Abraham Lincoln. I hadn’t kept up with politics closely enough to know why so many people were so agitated about the 1858 contest for the post of Senator from Illinois. But there were at least five times more people in that square than the total number of permanent residents of Ottawa.

The people were ready for a show, and they showed little patience for the remarks of the dignitaries in attendance. While the preliminary speakers were being rudely shouted down, I nudged my way toward the platform. Often, the men in front of me were not happy about being nudged from behind, until they turned around and saw who was nudging them. They were surprisingly tolerant, when I smiled and squeezed in front of them.

However, one boy pushed a bit too hard. He practically fell onto my chest, but instead of apologizing, he gave me a lewd smile.

I wanted badly to slap him, but I just turned away instead. I could not breathe deeply, and I’d had nothing to drink since breakfast, but I had managed to reach a prime viewing spot. The gaslight post near the platform provided me a bit of relief from the crush of the crowd, plus it gave me something to lean against. I knew little or nothing about the issues to be debated; I just wanted to see some good oratory.

I was not disappointed. For two hours, Douglas and Lincoln went at it. To me, Douglas appeared the aggressor most of the time. He captured my attention, though in a negative way, when he berated Lincoln about something or other related to slavery.

“I am aware, sir,” Douglas bellowed, with no trace of respect, although he used a polite title in reference to Lincoln “that you and your liberal allies have conspired to undo the accepted formula, with respect to slavery in the western territories! Do you deny it, sir!” On this topic, Douglas turned dyspeptic, almost rabid. He literally, too literally for the people in the front row, spat his words out. He also lost points, as I judged, by the way his perspiration was progressively soaking his suit. His supporters in the crowd didn’t seem to mind his bombast in the least; in fact, they roared their approval.

Lincoln remained passive and seemingly undisturbed by the fury of the attack on him. I’d taken his side by this time. Not only did his opponent Douglas look and talk like an overheated preacher, he’d placed himself solidly in the pro-slavery camp. I thought of the runaway Horace and shivered, in spite of the heat.

“Now!” I coached Lincoln in silence. “Strike back and put the scoundrel in his place!” However, my new hero quickly disappointed me with what I thought was an entirely too defensive response.

“First of all, sir, you have no evidence to support your charge of a conspiracy, none whatsoever. And you cannot produce any, because no such conspiracy exists,” Lincoln said. His words were firm enough, but too constrained, I thought. “Secondly, if I am to be charged with opposing the forces that are striving so mightily to rend this great nation asunder, then I gladly plead guilty.”

This was much better, but still, Lincoln had managed to parry Douglas’ thrust without really saying where he stood on the slavery issue. He was careful not to give his opponent any reason to brand him an abolitionist. Perhaps that was the more politically astute maneuver, but I deducted some forensic points for evasiveness.

The issue that moved the crowd to frantic cheering or to angry taunting was the preservation of the Union. Douglas was clearly in favor of making any and all accommodations to the bellicose Southerners. Lincoln, by contrast, argued that the Union was paramount to any interests of its member

states. I had to award him the contest. I would have voted for him, too, had I been of the right gender to cast a ballot.

I was as uninformed as I was disenfranchised. I had no grasp of the gravity of the debate I’d witnessed. I even remember wondering what all the fuss was about, and why, on a hot late-summer day of 1858, so many people had bothered to attend a debate between two candidates for one of the Illinois seats in the U.S. Senate. I had no idea that the issues that divided these two men would soon drive the entire nation to war.

Nevertheless, I could recognize a cracking good speech contest when I heard one. Both of these men possessed remarkable abilities to use words to grab a person’s heart and soul. Douglas made the stronger appeal to the crowd’s passions, I thought. But Lincoln seemed to be able to call on something deeper, to use the power of his own will to reinforce the wills of those who listened to him. He must, however, find a suit that fits him better.

Both sides of supporters cheered their men lustily at the end of the event. Lincoln’s people carried him away on their shoulders. As the crowd started to move away, the boy bumped into me again, this time more purposefully. “Watch yourself, little boy!” I snarled. “What are you doing here, anyway? You’re not old enough to vote.”

“Maybe so,” he retorted defiantly. “But I’ll vote before too long. You never will!’

My answer was a shove that sent him headlong into a knot of passing men and then sprawling in the dust. He was still flailing when I bent down and said with mocking sweetness, “No man, and certainly no boy, tells me what I cannot do!”

Early that same evening, a tall, square-jawed man knocked on our door. He was a Pinkerton, a detective no less, according to the business card I was shown by the maid. I was more than a little disturbed, but I knew I could not show any fear. I went downstairs, flounced gaily into the parlor and said to him, “Well then, marshal, what are the charges?”

The man probably had many skills, but engaging in humorous banter was not among them. He stared at me, as if I’d spoken in some exotic language. Then he remembered his purpose in coming, and said, “Are you the lady who was passing out these handbills in the square today?” he asked, pulling one of our handbills out of his jacket pocket.

“Am I in trouble if I am?” I said, still thinking I might very well be.

“Hardly, ma’am,” the man said and now we both could relax. “I was sent here to give this note to the clairvoyant lady.” He handed me an envelope of thick, fine paper. Inside was a note that read, “Could you please accompany this gentleman to my quarters, The Chicagoan Hotel, Room 255? I require your services.” It was signed, “Mary Todd Lincoln.”

Before this very day, I would not have known who this woman was. Now, I assumed it was the wife of the man to whom I’d awarded the debate victory. So, I grabbed a shawl and went with the Pinkerton.

I was greeted somewhat furtively in the hotel room by a stubby woman with her hair pulled severely back from her face. She was much older than me – how much, I could not tell – slightly shorter

and nearly double my girth. As soon as we’d exchanged pleasantries, Mrs. Lincoln glanced around the room, as if to make sure no one else was around. Then she spoke, with her eyes still darting all around, saying, “I really believe in the spirit world, you know, but I avoid discussing it in public. They already think I’m crazy, you know.”

Small wonder, I thought. What I said was “The spirits are alive to me as well, ma’am,” I said.

“Good. Good. Just as I’d hoped. I’ve heard of you and your sister,” she said.

“Good things, I hope,” I said.

Mrs. Lincoln screwed up her face. It looked as if she was trying to say something, but she couldn’t quite force the words out. “May I?” I asked, then, without waiting for a response, I took her hands in mine.

I could feel the trembling in her hands lessen slightly, but she remained stiff and still. Then I saw a cascade of tears flow from her eyes. She’d been fighting the tears, but now she let them come. “It’s Edward...my boy.”

I was glad she’d given me a little information to operate with. Otherwise, I would have had to guess who Edward was. “I can tell you love him,” I said softly. “Is he in peril?’

“That’s what I need to find out,” she said. “He was taken off with the fever two years ago. Barely six years old, she said, breaking down in convulsive sobs now. “Can you please help me find him?”

“Of course I can,” I said, confident that I could, now that I knew she was a mother who’d lost a child. I guided her to a small table, where we sat. I clasped her hands again. After a few moments, I entered my trance state and called out in my best unearthly voice.

“Edward Lincoln. I seek Edward Lincoln! Can you hear me, Master Edward?”

Then I assumed the voice of a child and said, “Here I am! Here I am!”

Mrs. Lincoln broke from my grip and called out in near hysteria, “My baby boy! Is it you? Are you here?”

I reached out my hands, with my eyes still closed. She understood the gesture and joined hands again with me. When she sat down, I spoke in the child’s voice again. “Don’t cry, mother. I’m not sad. I’m happy.”

“Oh, my precious Edward, I miss you so terribly. Are you really happy?” she said.

“Very happy, mother,” I responded. “I have a puppy and there’s a creek where I can fish every day. I’ve been here a long time, it seems, but the puppy is still a puppy. But I like that.”

I opened one eye just enough to assure myself that Mrs. Lincoln’s tears had turned joyous.

“Can you stay with me awhile, dear?” Mrs. Lincoln asked.

“No, mother,” I answered as Edward. “But you can always keep me in your heart.”

I let my head slump to my chest for a moment, and then I brought my head back up, shook it a bit, and opened my eyes. “Did you find him, ma’am?” I asked.

“Yes, oh yes!” she said. After nearly bringing herself back to tears in her efforts to thank me, Mrs. Lincoln tried to press money into my hand. She did this three times, and I refused each one. It wasn’t that I had any scruples about running my game on the wife of a prominent man; I’d done that many times. I had done what I always did at my séances, but this woman was so filled with pain, I wanted to feel good about what I had done to help her.

“Well then, my dear,” she said, “if my husband wins this race, we’ll move to Washington. You must come see us there.”

“I’d love to see your husband make it to Washington, and I honestly believe I’ll get there as well,” I said. “If I may be so bold, could I offer a suggestion that might make his way easier?”

She looked somewhat surprised. I was clearly a stranger to the world of politics, but I did have a tip to pass along. “Get him out of that undertaker’s suit,” I said. “He’s a man of physical power, I can tell. I read in the pamphlet they were passing out today that he’s a man of the country, that he earned money for his education by splitting tree trunks for railroad ties. Use that. Tell him to leave his jacket and his silly hat on his chair when he goes to speak. The people need to see his strength.”

Mary Lincoln’s smile told me she had listened to me as closely as if I were her husband’s trusted advisor. “Do come see us, dear,” she said as we parted.

Years later, I was able to visit the nation’s capital. For me, it would be a time of personal triumph. My only regret was that Mrs. Lincoln’s kind offer was, by then, null and void.

But in 1858, war was only a distant rumble, and those rumblings turned out to be good business for the Claflins. As tensions escalated, people became more anxious and even desperate to find answers to their personal crises. Should I risk a marriage? Will my son survive the coming fight? How can I find a business advantage in the political situation?

The answers were all to be found in the ballroom séances at the Old Fox House Hotel. That is not to say that Tennie and I really knew the answers, but we each had the ability to make people think we did. Most people would tell us, just by the way they asked their questions, what direction they wanted to take. All they wanted was a pretty girl to hold their hands, reassure them, and lead them to the path they’d already chosen. It worked, perhaps a bit too well.

Tennie had developed a quite a reputation locally as a healer. People would come to her, she would place her hands on them, and, more often than not, they would proclaim themselves to be freed from their pain. And who’s to say they were not? They expected that Tennie would make them feel better, and so she did. If they chose to believe they’d been touched by an angel, well, Tennie certainly looked the part. She could make people believe she cared for them, and there was certainly a spiritual element to that gift. And she truly did care, I believe. When a bent-backed old woman would straighten up and take a few steps without pain, no one in the ballroom responded with more innocent joy than Tennie.

I, however, made no claim to healing powers. I didn’t want to play doctor, much less play God. As confident as I was of my powers as a spiritual medium, I was wary of letting anyone think I could cure real-world illnesses. In one sense, I found faith-healing distasteful; I preferred being as far away as possible from other people’s sores and disfigurements. It was also dangerous. The sick people who bought false hope, even from a pretty girl, would be highly likely to come back angry, when their illness returned.

Of course, Buck had no such qualms. After nearly two years in Ottawa, he had started looking for ways to expand. He began to see the sick folks not just as candidates for one-time “miracle” cures but as a new source of continuing revenue. When he encouraged people who’d been touched by Tennie to return for another healing, many of them did. Often, they purchased additional bottles of elixir. Why not, Buck calculated, provide a place where they could avail themselves of ongoing doses of Claflin care and Claflin medications?

He selected the wealthier customers for offers to move into the Old Fox House. They occupied the second-floor “infirmary” rooms that I’d wondered about when I arrived.

“Daddy!” I scolded, when I found out what was going on, “These people are sick. I mean, really sick.”

“I know that,” he responded blithely. “Sick people can still spend their money, you know.”

“But you’re letting them move in,” I protested.

“Best way to make sure they spend that money right here with us,” Buck countered.

I knew I was wasting my breath. The infirmary business was so brisk that Buck had conned himself into believing it could last. He even appropriated the title of “Doctor Buckman Claflin, King of Cancers” and insisted we all start referring to him as such. It was difficult to talk Buck out of any of his schemes, good or bad; this one was running very strong, so I stopped trying.

As long as the money flowed freely, it mattered little to Buck that the live-in patients became sicker and sicker. Rather than face this reality, Buck relied on testimonials from satisfied people who’d experienced dramatic, long-term healing from the therapies offered at the Old Fox House. The letters were printed in the local newspaper over the names of actual patients, but of course, Buck had written them himself. He never failed to give Tennie the lion’s share of the credit – it was her pretty face that drew the people in – but he also mentioned how his treatment regimens were what kept the people cured. Of course, no one was really cured. A few did improve for a time, and they typically went home. The ones who worsened were most often quietly shuttled back to their relatives; and if they had no relatives, well, nature took its course and Dr. Buck gallantly paid for their pine boxes.

As an insurance policy, Buck used some of the ample space in the hotel to create the Academy of Love. Actually, it was a house of ill repute, no more, no less. But I was tabbed to be the madam of the place, and I wanted to dress up its image a bit. I sent notices around town, advertising the academy as “dedicated to open and stimulating discussions of the science of human relationships.” We succeeded in attracting some of the leading lawyers, judges and police officials in town, who could then be easily persuaded to ignore the goings-on at the infirmary.

The Academy entrance was at the rear of the building. This way the clients would enter at a third-floor meeting room, thus avoiding any contact with the sick people. The “sessions” were always at night, and since we were part of the downtown commercial district, there were few neighbors to complain. Business flourished, and the outbreak of war in the East led to an exodus of young males from the region. The resultant surplus of females included enough young widows and women without the prospect of marriage to accommodate the growing clientele of the Academy.

The two-headed scam was too sweet to last. The inevitable downfall was precipitated by one of Buck’s testimonial letters. It was purportedly written by one Ida Walker, a nice old lady in residence at our infirmary. In the letter, she proclaimed herself in fine health and feeling better every day. In reality, Mrs. Walker was incapable of lifting a pen, much less writing any sort of letter. Buck had been able to get away with this sort of thing, partly due to his influence with the forces of the law but also due to the apathy of many of the patients’ relatives, who were more than content to allow their sick folks to come to our infirmary to worsen and die. Unfortunately for us, Mrs. Walker still had some kin who cared.

After reading the letter attesting to Mrs. Walker’s amazing progress, a devoted niece named Clarice Englemann came to see the miracle for herself. She even brought along some fresh flowers and a lovely chocolate cake. Polly ushered her into her aunt’s room, and I rushed in to join them a few moments later, after I heard the piercing shriek. I understood the niece’s shock, when I saw her aunt lying with her head at an odd angle, her face drained of all color, her mouth open and her eyes unseeing. The old lady’s breathing was barely detectable, and the smell was not pleasant.

“What sort of people are you?” Mrs. Englemann screamed, as she launched the cake at Polly, shattering the cut-glass platter against the wall. I didn’t know what to say, which was all right, since Mrs. Englemann ran screeching out of the hotel.

Early the next day, Mrs. Englemann returned with two local constables and two husky hired men. Buck, in his most professional manner, met them at the door.

“Delighted to see you again, Mrs. Englemann,” he said. “Your auntie was so hoping you’d come back.” He tried to make a welcoming gesture, but Mrs. Englemann blasted past him and led her party up the stairs. Buck ran after them.

Poor Mrs. Walker looked better, but only very slightly. She’d been cleaned up and had her cheeks rouged, but her condition could not be disguised. She was still semi-comatose and her lower jaw still hung away from the rest of her face. Through her open, toothless mouth, it was clear that she was sucking death in deeper with each breath she struggled to take.

“What have you done to her? Murderers! Murderers!” she shouted.

Buck tried to calm her down. “Now, now, ma’am. You oughtn’t raise your voice like that. It might upset Ida.”

I’m certain the woman would have struck Buck, if her arms weren’t filled with blankets. The time it took her to give the blankets to the two hired men allowed her to reconsider committing violence in front of the constables. Instead, she wheeled toward Buck and hissed at him through clenched teeth. “Shut up, you old fraud!”

Buck started to try one more time to appeal to the niece, but I grabbed his arm to stop him. Mrs. Englemann instructed the men to wrap up Ida. “Mind you don’t jostle her, and for God’s sake, leave those filthy sheets behind,” she ordered. Next, she barked at the two constables, “I wanted you both to see this yourselves. I’ll come down to the station to file complaints as soon as I get her safe.”

Only one of the hired men was needed to pick up Aunt Ida and carry her downstairs. Buck rushed ahead, so he could open the front door for them. The gesture was neither acknowledged nor appreciated.

Mrs. Englemann managed to fire a parting shot. “She’ll die in peace, but the troubles are just starting for you and that hussy daughter of yours. She steals people’s last hopes, and you steal their last nickels. You’re monsters!”

Having been called worse more than a few times, Buck did not display any fear or anger. Instead, he closed the door behind him and leaned back against it. He exhaled deeply, with an expression of resignation that told me another long run had come to an end. He wasn’t quite ready yet to step out of his role as a medical professional, however. “Don’t nobody trust their doctor no more,” he said sadly.

The bad news quickly got worse. Late the next night, I answered a knock on the Academy door and found Sheriff Ben Knowles on the landing, soaked from the rain. He reported that old Mrs. Walker died before they got her pillows fluffed up at the Englemann’s house.

“Thanks, Ben,” I said.

“There’s more, Vicky,” he said, craning his neck to look behind me. I turned to see Tennie standing there, with her robe wide open. She hadn’t bothered to tie the sash.

“Well, hello Miss Tennie!” the sheriff said with bulging eyes.

I reluctantly let the lawman into the mudroom, where he told us about the rest of the gloomy developments. As it happened, the niece was also the sister of the county solicitor. I knew the man as an off-and-on visitor to the Academy. He was apparently more fearful of his sister’s wrath than of any rumors we might start about his character flaws. They were going to bury the old lady in the morning, and then march down to the courthouse and summon a special grand jury. Ben guessed they’d go for manslaughter.

“I’m afraid they’re going to name you on the indictment, Miss Tennie,” Ben said. When Tennie burst into sobs, Ben quickly became her protector, valiantly offering his wet shoulder for her to cry on. I quickly pulled them apart.

“No farewell pokes tonight, Ben,” I said. “We’ve got too much to do.” When I saw his disappointment, I added, “But I do appreciate you comin’ here with the news. Not all lawmen stay bought when the pressure is on.”

“Professional pride, ma’am,” Ben said, tipping his hat as he turned, leaving me to put yet another Claflin getaway into motion.

CHAPTER 9

THE BEAUTIFUL MAN MADE FLESH

We next stopped in St. Louis, where I met the man who became my closest approximation of a true love. I spotted him in the back of a crowd of men at the newly re-established Academy of Love. Something about his bearing attracted me. Perhaps it was the sense of restlessness I detected in him. Surrounded by rowdiness and laughter in our gathering room, this man was quiet and aloof. I assumed he’d come for what all the other men had come for, but I also thought he might be resigned to leaving dissatisfied.

He made me curious, something men rarely evoked in me. I glanced at him several times, as I gave my standard welcoming speech.

“Welcome to all you runaway slaves!” I shouted in a voice loud enough to overcome the din of a dozen separate conversations. It worked, as it always did. The men stopped their chatter and turned toward me. Some were confused, some were slightly indignant, but I had the attention of them all.

“Oh,” I said with a laugh, “some of you do not consider yourself runaway slaves? Well, gentlemen, I humbly beg to differ.”

I glanced around and was pleased to see the intriguing man had allowed his face to soften into a slight smile. The smile made me reconsider my estimate of his age; perhaps he was younger than I thought. His face was marked by a scar that started beside his nose and then became hidden by his luxurious set of dark side whiskers. He started staring directly at me, and that unsettled me, though in a surprisingly pleasant way.

I was dressed modestly, in contrast to most of the women mixing with the men in the room. I was glad of it, too, because I could feel the heat of a flush spreading across my chest. I glanced down at my opaque bodice, just to reassure myself that no evidence of my condition showed through. I wondered if the white rose pinned to the bodice might turn pink.

“You are indeed slaves, good sirs,” I said forcefully. The man was still staring at me. I knew the flush was spreading to my face, but I also knew there was nothing I could do about it. “You are slaves to society’s conventions that bind you to marriages bereft of passion...”

“Bereft?” one of the men called out, sloshing whiskey out of his glass in the process. “That some kind of riverboat?”

The man I’d been watching leapt into the exchange. “I see your manners are as bad as your vocabulary, sir,” he said calmly. “’Bereft’ means lacking, without, much as your head is bereft of hair.”

An embarrassingly strong volley of hoarse laughs was directed at the bald man. He looked so pained, I felt I needed to rescue him.

“Fear not, sir. My ladies tell me a bald head is a sure sign of advanced virility,” I said. The bald man bowed to me, his dignity restored, and then glowered at those who’d been laughing at him. Seconds later, though, he was laughing with them.

“Now, I know none of you came here to be offended,” I continued, “but allow me to make my point. You are also slaves to the pious bleating of preachers who claim to be humble men of God but who also give

themselves the authority to brand as sinful all the pleasures God set out on earth.” The men made less frivolous sounds of assent at that remark.

“You are also slaves to a legal system that makes a crime of an honest commercial transaction between a man and a woman,” I said. Sensing they were hooked and ready to be reeled in, I said with a rowdy rasp to my voice, “Well, gentlemen, you don’t need to run no further tonight! Here at the Academy, I can promise you’ll find whatever you’re running after!”

“A ride in the black velvet saddle!” one man yelled out.

“That can be arranged, though you’ll have to take off your spurs,” I retorted, and the hooting started up again.

“Tonight you will find,” I said, “the very thing that any slave desires most desperately – You will be set free!” The men applauded, and I glided off, so that the pairing-off could begin.

I glanced back and saw that the man with whom I’d been playing eye games was not trying to cut a woman out of the herd for himself. Instead, he was walking purposefully toward me.

“Will you not partake of our ladies, sir?” I said to him, doing a job, I thought, of covering up my flustered state. “I’m sure any of them would be happy to set you free.”

“I’ve made my choice,” he said in a throaty but soft tone, making it obvious whom he’d chosen. I could feel streams of perspiration rolling down one side of my face and both sides of my rib cage.

I cleared my throat, arched my eyebrows and asked, “You assume I am available?”

“I assume nothing, ma’am, but I hope you’ll allow me to introduce myself,” he said. When I nodded in response, he extended his hand and grasped mine and said, “I am James Blood...and you are?”

“Victoria Woodhull,” I said quickly, and then corrected myself. “Mrs. Canning Woodhull, that is.”

I thought for a moment I should blunt his advances, but I quickly realized that I had no desire to do so. “But don’t let that deter you.”

“Oh, I won’t,” he said. “I’m as married as you are.” He flashed another of his ice-melting smiles.

I navigated away from the topic of marital status. “Are you a military man, Mr. Blood?”

“No. I serve as the city auditor here,” said.

“Strange,” I said. “I see scars on your face and in your eyes.”

He laughed softly. It delighted me that I could make his heart even the slightest bit lighter. “I forgot you are also billed as a clairvoyant.”

“I am not ‘billed’ as anything, sir. I am what I am,” I said, bristling.

He raised his hands in a gesture of truce. “Please. I meant no offense. I only meant to confirm the truth of the advertisements I’ve seen around town about you and your, uh, Academy...” He put his hand gently on my cheek. It was calloused. I wanted to kiss it.

“Mrs. Woodhull,” he said evenly. “I have nothing but the deepest respect for your spiritual powers. I am a devoted Spiritualist, and though I might have come here as a skeptic, I am no longer that. And I now also believe in your powers as an orator. That was a damned fine speech. By God, you had these men believing they’d done something noble by coming to a brothel. By the way, did you write it?”

“Yes,” I answered demurely. “Now, what was your rank?”

“They made me a colonel, but that was about the same time they sent me home,” he said.

I touched the scar on his face. “Because of your wounds?

He flinched, but he allowed my hand to remain. “You are richly gifted, ma’am,” he said.

“I have other assets,” I said. “Shall I show you?” I put my arm in his and we went up the stairs together.

Once we were alone, I decided to play the professional, rather than give him any hint of how much of my heart was invested in this encounter. I didn’t want to admit it to myself, either. I stood facing this fascinating man and started unfastening my bodice with as much speed and detachment as I could muster. This was the way I’d always handled the preliminaries, but this wasn’t just any man.

“Please,” he said, replacing my hands on the laces with his. “May I?”

All I could manage was an earthy grunt, trusting he’d interpret it as assent. He did, and after a few quick loops and pulls, I was naked, but in a new and different way. In fact, I’d never felt so naked with a man before. And I’d never been in a situation where I wanted a man to touch me more than he wanted to touch me, or to be touched himself.

From the breathless outset of our joining, Jim seemed heedless of his own sexual imperatives. In my prior experience, the man’s only interest was to thrust until he spurted. But this wonderful man was actually asking me how I felt, when he traced the skin between my breasts with his fingertips (tingly!), or when he hoisted my hips with one hand cupping my buttock (breathtaking!), or when he made a direct connection to my brain by stroking my foot (delightful!) . He even asked me what I wanted. I wanted it all.

Then he shocked me – how thrilling it was to discover that I could be shocked, and in such sweet fashion, by a man in bed – by spinning around and diving headfirst between my legs. I gasped in incoherent pleasure when he started ministering with his tongue, up, down and into my female parts. I shot through a stage of delirium and into a new dimension of experience. In contrast to all my previous trances, this time I was totally out of control.

I squealed, I roared, and when the spasms somewhere in my core subsided, I burst out in laughter. At this, Jim slid his way up my sweaty belly and pulled his face back from mine.

“Do I amuse you, dear?” he asked. It was, we both knew, a totally rhetorical question.

“No,” I said, finding the breath to speak only with some difficulty, “you amaze me. What a wonderful surprise you just gave me.”

“It’s called an orgasm, I believe; but I never imagined I could surprise you in bed,” he said, with a sly smile.

“And bed’s the last place I ever thought I’d get that sort of surprise,” I said.

“Well, I won’t surprise you by backing out of the deal,” he said. “I fully intend to pay whatever price you name.”

“Hell, I was thinkin’ about payin’ you!”

We both laughed, and Jim let his hands roam proprietarily along the curve of my hips. I not only let him, I enjoyed letting him. In this sexual encounter, I found no need to maintain the upper hand.

“You are a marvel,” he said, in a deep, dusky voice that resonated in the zone between my thighs – which was precisely where his hands were heading. “And I am in awe of your marvelous orifice of womanhood.”

“Come now, colonel,” I teased him. “A cunt’s a cunt.”

He twisted his head back toward my nether regions, as if he were giving me a gynecological exam. I was happy to let him play with me; after what he’d just done, I’d have let him do just about anything. “No, I’m afraid this one’s special, quite special.” Then he cupped my mound in his hand and pressed hard. I closed my eyes and moaned. “It’s beautiful, but it’s more than that. It is my path to the core of you. It is the portal to the divine.”

“Sweet words seem out of place in this bed,” I said, embarrassed by the lavishness of his pillow talk.

“Why? It’s an honest bed, and the woman in it is far more gifted in the use of words than I,” he said.

Now, I was getting really uncomfortable. Too many compliments, too much joy. So, I changed the subject by tracing the scar on his face with my fingers. “Why do you hide a beautiful scar in this tangle of whiskers?” I asked.

“Beautiful?”

“Scars tell stories, stories of what we’ve survived,” I said.

He caressed my cheek as I had his. “What do you know of scars? You’re flawless,” he said softly.

“Oh, I’ve got plenty of scars. You just can’t see ‘em,” I said.

“My dear, I’ve examined you thoroughly, and you have no scars. But wherever they may or may not be, I want you, scars and all, for as long as I amuse you,” he said.

“Whoa!” I said, sitting up straight. “You’re not asking me to marry you by any chance, are you?”

“Nothing as base as marriage, Victoria,” Jim said seriously. “I propose a true union of two spirits. Besides, I can’t marry you just now. I have a wife across town, you know.”

“Well, that’s just as well. I’ve got a husband...somewhere or other,” I laughed. I clasped my hands behind Jim’s head and pulled him down to the lower slopes of my belly. “Now, sir, if you would please do what you did before to my marvelous orifice of womanhood!”

We stayed less than four months in St. Louis. For a change, our departure was not precipitated by pressure from either lawmen or clergy. It was a simple matter of evaporating revenue streams. Before the war, St. Louis had boomed as a jumping-off point for westward-bound fortune seekers. Now that the war was at its bloody peak, the migration had diminished drastically. The money was back east, so we returned to the state of my birth.

Jim and I went ahead of the rest of the clan. He sent his wife what I thought was a very thoughtful letter, informing her of his decision to make a new life for himself and providing funds for her. The legal steps for a divorce would have to come later. We traveled in Buck’s old King of Cancer wagon, after repainting it. We were now Col. and Madame Harvey, Tellers of Fortunes, Seers, Mediums, and Guides for the Journey of Life.

The trip to Cincinnati took more than three weeks. It was a sort of working honeymoon. When we reached a town, Jim would pass out handbills promoting our services. “Come see the marvelous Madame Harvey,” he called out. “Your life will be changed for the better. I say this based on direct experience!”

His enthusiasm was genuine, not just good business practice. It pleased me greatly to think that I had lightened and animated the heart of this war-hardened soldier. And it was equally true that being with him had changed me. I had trained myself to treat men as nuisances with money. This man, though, was different. I reveled in my eagerness for him. I cast him smiles and winks, often in public and without caring a whit if someone thought me inappropriate. I didn’t always wait for him to reach for me; when I wanted sex, I grabbed for him. I’d had so little experience of love that I wasn’t entirely sure, but I reckoned this must be it.

One night, I took what I thought was the ultimate risk. I sought to engage my lover in an honest adult conversation between a woman and a man.

“Jim, can I tell you something?” I asked. “But first, promise me you won’t get angry.” The serious tone of my question startled him; I’d startled myself by asking it. I’d deliberately chosen a moment that I thought would be perfect to say something that came hard to me. We had pulled the wagon off the road somewhere in Southern Indiana. We made camp beside a clear-running stream, where we bathed, with a curtain of oak trees enclosing us in our private Eden.

“Of course,” he said, with some apprehension.

“I’m not satisfied,” I said.

He turned toward me on the blanket where we lay, and he touched my breast softly with his fingertips. “Well, my dear, I’m doing my best in that regard,” he said, teasing me with a false display of hurt feelings.

I pushed his hand away. “I didn’t mean that, and you know it! I didn’t even know I had the right to be satisfied that way till I met you.”

“What is it, then?” he said, allowing me to see that I had his attention.

“I just want more,” I said.

“More what?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know!” I said, beating my fist on the blanket. “I tell people things they want to hear. I pass along good will and good wishes from the spirit world, and they go away happy, and we make good money. It’s all so easy.”

“Do you think you’re getting a guilty conscience?” he asked.

“Oh Lord no!” I answered. “I leave worrying about right and wrong to the church folk. I just think I’m getting tired of the game.”

“Is that all?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “I’m dissatisfied because I think I can do more, do things that are more important. I’ve told you about the Beautiful Man who comes to me in visions. Well, I think he’s been tellin’ me not to be afraid to seek my destiny. Does that sound stupid?”

Jim pulled me into a breath-stealing embrace. “No. It sounds inspiring. Great God, Vicky, I love to hear you talk like this!”

“You do?”

“Of course I do,” he said with a sweet laugh. “Do you think I left my old life behind just because you’re a good fortune-teller? I’m here because I believe you are a woman of destiny.”

“Well then, what’s my destiny?” I asked.

“Damned if I know,” he said.

I punched him playfully and said, “Oh, you cad!”

“I may not know exactly where your destiny lies, Victoria, but I do know it’s something grand, and I will be honored to help you find it, embrace it and claim it as your own. Before you, I’d given up on the future; with you, I can’t wait for tomorrow.”

I smothered Jim with hungry kisses, and for that moment I was truly and deeply satisfied. I had two Beautiful Men, one in my dreams and one in my arms.

CHAPTER 12

VICTORIA AND VANDERBILT

Our arrival in New York in 1868 could legitimately be termed a Claflin invasion. There were 19 of us in the group – and that was just the first wave. Besides Tennie, Zulu Maud, Byron, Jim and I, there was

Buck and Roxana, my sisters Polly and Margaret Ann and Utica, and their assorted husbands and children, nine all tolled. They’d all gotten used to a rather comfortable living, mostly paid for by the efforts of Tennie and me.

We settled, more or less, into a commodious brownstone on Great Jones Street. I would claim in a later biographical pamphlet that I was guided to the place by my spiritual real estate agent Demosthenes. In truth, I picked it because the landlord was receptive to a sizeable cash bonus for renting this beautiful home to a pack of gypsies.

Jim quickly found what he’d come to New York for. Unfortunately, there was little market value in dabbling in radical politics. It never occurred to me, though, to discourage him from exploring the world of ideas in the city that was the world capital of radical thought. New York in 1868 was a mecca for people who sought to change the world, which certainly needed changing. The old order had nearly destroyed America with a ridiculous war; so, just about every facet of society recently freed from the scourge of slavery was a target for advocates of new freedoms – free thought, free love, currency freed from the gold standard, women freed from their status of near-slavery. Jim was free to indulge himself in all that intoxicating intellectual freedom by spending much of his time seeking out fellow apostles of newness.

That left it up to me and Tennie to pay the bills. Besides feeding and sheltering all our dependent relatives, there were servants to pay, not to mention appropriately fine furnishings to purchase. I had not come to New York to hide out, but, where to start? The messages I’d received from Demosthenes had not included any detailed instructions as to how I was to go about claiming, or financing, my quest for greatness.

“Where’s the big money?” growled a voice I’d not heard often in the past weeks. It was Buck, walking up behind me, while I was talking with Jim and Tennie about what to do next. Aside from muttering some complaints about coming to New York, Buck had spent much of his time pacing around the new house, holding unintelligible conversations with himself.

“Daddy! You startled me!” Tennie said.

“I ain’t dead yet, girl,” he said, with some of his trademark surliness. “Where’s the big money?”

“Well, there are people making fortunes all over the city,” Jim said.

“Who’s got the biggest pile?” Buck said.

“Probably Vanderbilt, Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt,” I said.

“Know anything about him?” Buck said.

“He’s a recent widower, he’s in his 70s but he still fancies the ladies, and he’s a devoted spiritualist,” Jim said. “I have friends who know him.”

Two days later, Tennie and I hired a hansom cab and enjoyed a delightful ride to the Commodore’s home at 10 Washington Place. A meeting with Vanderbilt might have caused many people to seize up

with anxiety, but I can honestly say I was relaxed and lighthearted. To me, he was just another needy man; and I’d had plenty of experience with that sort.

From the outside, the four-story stone house was more impressive in its size than its architectural merit. It was devoid of any frills or features that spoke to the wealth of the owner, but it was twice as big as any other house on the street. That was because the Commodore bought two lots, while his neighbors were restricted to one. The house was certainly far less spectacular than the mansions being built by city’s aristocracy along the northern reaches of 5th Avenue, up towards the wilds of the new Central Park. The Commodore was not one to follow trends; he was busy grasping control of the nation’s commerce. He preferred to dominate, rather than to inspire.

Inside, the place was also devoid of any of the excessive displays that were popular at the time. The servant who answered our knock at the door and accepted our fancy new calling cards had barely navigated us through a marble foyer that suggested a bank lobby, when a great hawk of a man swooped down on us. The Commodore’s hair and splendid side whiskers had had gone white, but that was the only concession his countenance had made to age. He had a thin, sharp nose and predator’s eyes. His bearing was so composed and erect that had he been a captain of a ship at sea, no storm could have prevailed against him.

“Ah, the famous sisters!” he exclaimed. “Whether or not you can see into the next world, you are both visions.”

“You flatter us, sir, but we can only assume who you are,” I said, thinking the old boy needed a bit of deflating.

“Yes, yes. Excuse me. I am terrible at introductions. I am Vanderbilt. The Vanderbilt,” he said.

“And I am The Woodhull. Victoria, if you please,” I said. That little riposte amused the Commodore, and he stifled a laugh as he kissed my hand. His eyes quickly turned to Tennie, and his look was well beyond cordial.

“And you, Madam, must be Tennessee,” the Commodore said to her.

“I prefer Miss, and I also prefer Tennie,” she said, sweetly.

“May I say, Miss Tennie, you make your portraits on the medicine bottle pale in comparison, like a paper rose to the true flower.”

“Please feel free, sir, to address me as a friend,” she said.

“Oh, I already consider you a friend, Tennie,” he said. The Commodore was not a man given to patient pursuit of something he wanted.

He ushered us into a sitting room that, in accordance with the design fashions of the day, was a cluttered mess. There was very little open space in the center of the room, since the perimeter was taken up by oversized chairs and divans and tables, all with elaborately carved legs and arms. Wherever there was a furniture gap, potted palms and ferns filled the space. I scanned the walls, which were almost entirely covered by oil paintings of various relatives and horse-racing scenes, as well as some depictions of thinly-draped female forms.

“Oh, the paintings,” the Commodore said, when he saw where I was looking. “It’s my son William’s hobby.”

“Collecting art?” I said.

“That’s what he calls it. I call it throwing away my money. Whatever you want to call it, he’s very good at it.,” the Commodore said.

At that, Tennie started to titter. I wasn’t sure at first whether to join in, but the Commodore dissolved my indecision by bursting into a hearty laugh. We had almost recovered, when a servant came in and placed an exquisite silver tea service on the table in front of us. The Commodore grabbed the filigreed handle of the teapot and muttered, “Hell, he probably bought this god-awful thing – and what he paid for it probably could have laid a railroad track across half of Kansas!”

This time the three of us convulsed into choking fits of laughter together. “May I say, Mr. Vanderbilt,” Tennie said once she’d recaptured my ability to breathe. “It’s such a delight to meet a man, particularly a man of your stature, who can laugh at himself.”

The Commodore laid his hand on Tennie’s arm; a minor informality, to be sure, but he did it so casually and Tennie received the gesture quite comfortably. “Miss Tennie,” he said, “be careful not to tell that to anyone. If my competitors find out I’m human, my empire could crumble.”

“I was sure you were human, but I wasn’t totally convinced you were real,” I said. “My goodness, they’re already putting up statues of you. We saw the one in St. John’s Park Depot. It was quite impressive, with the railroads under one of your feet, and steamboats under the other.”

“Excessive, perhaps, but the people who erected it know I’m not immune to adulation,” he said.

“Do you have any other weaknesses?” Tennie asked coyly.

“Indeed,” he said, openly leering at her. He checked himself and said more seriously, “Well, I do have a recurring sorrow, which is why I asked you to come here.”

“We know,” I said, sensing a significant shift in the mood. “Please accept our condolences on the passing of your wife.”

“It’s not simply Sophia’s passing that’s left me sad,” he said. “We had nearly 50 years together, and I’ll be the first to admit I was far from the best husband. Besides, she was quite ill towards the end. I’m past my grief, but still...”

The Commodore paused to collect his thoughts. Tennie put her soft hand on top of his bony one, silently bidding him to go on.

“It’s just that I left so many things unsaid. I wish I could have eased her heart before she passed over,” he said.

“And do you also wish that she could ease yours now?” I asked gently.

The great man nodded his assent.

“Well then, shall we?” I said crisply, as I rose and moved the tea service from the small table to a sideboard. The Commodore pulled his chair up to the table and stretched out one hand to each of us. Clearly, this was not his first séance.

I closed my eyes and let my head loll backwards. I searched my repertoire of voices of the dead for one approximating a wealthy woman in her late 60s. I was improvising; I’d had little contact with that variety of woman. I thought of Mother Ruth Woodhull, and I emitted a slightly nasal croak, saying, “Cornelius, are you there?”

“Sophia?” the Commodore responded eagerly. I cracked one eye open just enough to see traces of tears forming on the old boy’s cheeks. This was going to be easier than I thought. The most powerful man in the country was under the spell of the gypsy fortune teller from Homer, Ohio.

“Can I speak to her?” he asked.

“Of course you can,” Tennie answered quickly. She knew enough that it would be a bit awkward for me to try to hold simultaneous conversations in two different dimensions.

“Sophia, I need to tell you something,” he said plaintively.

“I know,” I answered, in Sophia’s voice. “But you need to say it anyway, dear.”

The Commodore bowed his head for a moment, and then raised it. “I’m sorry. I should never have sent you to that sanatorium,” he said, with genuine sorrow. “Can you forgive me?”

“I forgave you when I was still with you, even when you couldn’t bring yourself to ask,” I intoned. “Just as I forgave you for dallying with the maid.” I thought this was the proper time to toss in the bit of inside information Buck had scavenged. It worked.

“Oh, my good, dear wife!” the now penitent Commodore said. “I so wish you were still here.”

“I’m here now,” I answered.

“I need your advice. It’s the children. William’s a spendthrift, Corneil is a drunk and a gambler, and the girls don’t want anything to do with either of them. They’re all just waiting for me to join you, so they can carve up the carcass. I don’t know what to do about them.”

“You’re still the Commodore, dear,” I said. “Their problems are theirs, not yours. You still have plenty of life left. Live it!”

I figured that was a good note to end on, so I let my head slump onto my chest. After a moment, I looked up, blinking my eyes rapidly. “Was there contact?” I asked.

The Commodore grasped one of my hands with both of his. “Indeed there was!” he proclaimed fervently. As he assisted me to stand, he whispered in my ear, “Something amazing has happened.”

I shared the Commodore’s overall assessment. But for me, the amazing result of our brief session around that small table would change my life and the lives of most of my clan. I was a giant step closer to my destiny.

CHAPTER 14

THE BEWITCHING BROKERS

It takes a certain amount of brazenness to throw a party and call it an historic occasion. We were possessed of an abundance of that quality, but we were also correct in promoting the grand opening of Woodhull, Claflin & Co., on a cold January afternoon of 1870, as social and civic milestone. Besides, we were dead right in our presumption that the newspapers would be eager to send their reporters to a lavish, not to mention free, event celebrating the first entrance of female traders into the exclusively male province of legalized gambling on the stock market.

Even so, we never dreamed we would start a near-riot. Two hours before the advertised starting time, police had to be called out to control the crowd of more than a thousand men who turned out for our little afternoon soiree. They quickly closed Broad Street to all horse and vehicular traffic for the block that included the Hoffman House. I controlled the impulse to believe all these men had come to see Tennie and me, though I did allow myself to be flattered by the display of mass curiosity. I also knew many had come to curry favor with our illustrious silent partner, the Commodore’s involvement in our venture being one of the worst-kept secrets in New York. I’d played to big crowds before, but never to one like this.

Jim worked hard to limit the number of guests allowed beyond the waiting room. When he spotted an especially important banker or legislator or railroad president among the compressed mass, he grabbed the man’s elbow and pulled him inside. For a while, we served whiskey in the waiting room, thinking it might calm the boys down; but they only became more rowdy.

Buck dressed in a linen suit that suggested plantation aristocracy. He had grown a goatee to complement the look. However, the commotion left him a bit confused, and he did little more than stroll around and politely nod to the guests.

Conditions were only marginally less chaotic in our interior offices. The hired waiters were having a difficult time circulating with their trays of cigars, brandy and oysters. They soon gave up trying to clear the space and began tossing the oyster shells into the corners. The entire cursing, joking, wheezing crowd was enveloped in a dense cloud of cigar smoke. I reveled in it all.

Fortunately, we had alerted our special guests to use a side-street entrance to a stairway that led to the rear of our offices; and we stationed a guard there to control access. In this way, we were able to bring in the Commodore and others, including the Tammany kingpin William “Boss” Tweed, railroad magnate Jim Fisk.

Despite the chill outside, the closeness in our overfilled suite of office rooms had all these mighty men sweating profusely. Titans aren’t all that different from other males, I observed, with some satisfaction.

I was determined not to behave like the typical female, swooning or fanning or pleading for a chair. Of course, the perspiration was streaming down my rib cage, but my face beamed brightly as I was introduced to one after another of some of the most powerful men in the country. I slapped backs with the best of them, when they told their bawdy jokes, and I did not hesitate to throw a sharp elbow into a

fancy silk vest, when I wanted to move on to the next knot of gentlemen. They were certainly more refined than the crowds who’d come to our houses of dubious enterprises in other cities, but they were still men. The presence of two pretty young women as principals in a house of finance was a delightful novelty to most of them. Their minimal regard for me would only make them easier marks.

I wore a green silk gown, which had a modestly-cut bodice, adorned with my trademark white rose. The hem was just high enough to reveal a bit of ankle. The men stared openly. It was laughably easy to be scandalous in such matters.

Tennie was even more forward. The bodice of her wine-red dress was cut low enough and tightly enough to give a broad hint at what lay beneath. When she dabbed with a handkerchief at the perspiration on her upper chest, male eyes popped, jaws dropped and cigars fell. The carpet would be a total loss.

There was an awkward moment, while the Commodore was introducing Tennie to his fellow shapers of Capitalism, as if she were one of his stable of show horses. He grabbed Jessie Grant’s arm and said, “Grant, my good man, I want you to meet my protégé on the street, Miss Tennie Claflin.”

Jessie turned and said with a noticeable leer, “Oh, we’ve met, all right. How’s tricks, my little gypsy?” The two men exchanged hard glances, like stallions sniffing the same mare. Tennie quickly defused the situation, by linking one of her arms into those of the two men, and giving each of them a peck on the cheek. To Grant, she whispered, “Just fine, my tipsy mister.”

“Now, boys,” she purred, “today, you’re both our guests and our clients – and you’re both as handsome as you can be.” What a delight to see such powerful men blush vividly and simultaneously.

Neither I nor Tennie made the slightest mention of the Commodore’s role in the establishment of our business. We didn’t have to. The Commodore himself was making the connection obvious, in the way he squired us around the room. And just in case anyone failed to see our unspoken alliance, the message – that we two sisters were the Commodore’s men on The Street -- was conveyed loudly by a large portrait of the Commodore I’d hung in my office.

Within a few weeks of our opening, our waiting room quickly became a popular gathering spot for traders and bankers curious about the pretty sisters who’d dared to invade the male preserve of the stock market. That, in turn, attracted the newspaper chaps. Reporters from the supposedly reputable broadsheets trolled the waiting room for legitimate news tips; while the gossipmongers from publications such as Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly and the News of the Day found – or fabricated – abundant material to serve up to their reader’s insatiable appetite for titillation. The latter crew would typically bring along artists who would sketch Tennie and me mingling with our clients. We tolerated it, even though we knew that their etchings would depict us as marketing our sex more than our business acumen. In the scandal sheets, we were shown allowing our clients to touch us and, almost always, making a dangerous display of our ankles.

They made up silly but catchy names for us – “The Queens of Finance”, or, “The Bewitching Brokers”. All of the notoriety, good and bad, contributed to the success of our enterprise. And, perhaps we were, in some respects, adventuresses. Still, I was highly irritated that some of the reporters sought

to use our femininity against us, dismissing us as inconsequential women. In practically every article, whether in the establishment papers or the scandal rags, the reporters made note of the color of our dresses, as well as their length and their fit. Tennie was, no doubt, a curvaceous young woman; but I never saw the reporters mention the shape or comeliness of a man they were writing about. Many times, my eyes were described as piercing or luminous, as if my prettiness was more important than my powers of observation.

Wanted or unwanted, factual or farcical, all this publicity made us intensely popular. Established brokerage houses made it a practice to send their agents to our offices, partly to gawk at us and partly to gather intelligence from their competitors lolling about our waiting room. The attention followed us wherever we went. When Tennie and I went out together, men felt free to follow us as we strolled, boldly introducing themselves and scanning us thoroughly with their eyes as they handed us calling cards we had not requested. At our offices, we curtailed our practice of offering refreshments to the men in our waiting room, though that did not curtail the loitering. A few weeks after our grand opening, we put up a sign in the reception area: “Gentlemen Must State Their Business and Retire”.

CHAPTER 17

PRONUNCIAMENTO

I certainly could not expect anyone else to take my official declaration as a candidate for President seriously, if I did not do so myself. So I did.

I enlisted Jim and Dr. Andrew to help me draft a statement, assuring them that I would trust them to supply the words, as long as their words gave voice to my beliefs and priorities. Dr. Andrews quickly put my trust to the test, when he suggested titling the statement “First Pronunciamento”. I thought it more than a little fussy and very foreign-sounding. I acceded, but I insisted on inserting my own phrasing into the final text.

In the final document, I introduced myself as “the most prominent representative of the only unrepresented class in the Republic.” I insisted that I should be distinguished from the women who were known only for their efforts on behalf of the suffrage movement. “While others of my sex devoted themselves to a crusade against the laws that shackle the women of the country, I asserted my individual independence. While others prayed for the good times coming, I worked for it. While others argued the equality of woman with man, I proved it by successfully engaging in business. I therefore claim the right to speak for the disenfranchised women of the country, and believing as I do that the prejudices which still exist in the popular mind against women in public life will soon disappear, I now announce myself as a candidate for the Presidency.”

I wanted to tell people why this was the perfect time for a woman president: “This is an epoch of sudden changes and startling surprises. The blacks were cattle in 1860; a Negro now sits in Jeff Davis’ seat in the United States Senate.”

And I wanted everyone to understand that this declaration was not a stunt: “I anticipate criticism, but, however unfavorable the comment this letter may evoke, I trust that my sincerity will not

be called in question. Having the means, courage, energy and strength necessary for the race, I intend to contest it to the close.”

When we had finished, the two men shook each other’s hands and then mine. I hugged them both, and Dr. Andrews was a bit flustered, though clearly pleased, by the vigor of my embrace.

“Victoria, we haven’t won anything yet,” he said.

“Oh yes we have! Oh yes, indeed!” I chirped, tugging on his beard like a playful daughter. “Just by making this, this Pronunciamento, we are telling the world we will not be bound by unjust laws and ridiculous traditions.”

I grabbed up an afghan from the couch where I sat, jumped up and waved it around like a battle pennant. “I claim the right to lead the women of America, and I am proud to wave their banner.”

Dr. Andrews burst out laughing. “Oh my dear girl, it makes me feel young just to be around you!”

“You may laugh all you want, sir,” I said. “Just remember, this is no joke!”

Having the best penmanship among us, Dr. Andrews accepted the task of writing the Pronunciamento on the best paper we could find. I had the document hand-delivered to the Editor of The Herald, choosing that broadsheet because it had a middle-of-the-road editorial policy and an educated readership. Besides, Herald reporters had always been sweet to me and Tennie.

I worried about the nature of the response. Would my Pronunciamento be received with a barrage of criticism, or, worse, be dismissed with some snide comment? Or would it even be printed at all?

My distress was relieved that same day. The Herald sent a response back with my courier. Not only did they agree to publish my Pronunciamento, they invited further submissions to explain my political positions and goals more fully.

When I received the note, I felt as if I’d swallowed a whole bottle of Mother’s “Magnetic Elixir.”It was a quiet, private victory but by no means a small one. A woman, namely, Victoria Claflin Woodhull, had done something no other woman had ever dared to do – declare herself a candidate for President!

Early the next morning – April 2, 1870 -- Tennie and I rushed outside and fairly skipped at a very unladylike pace until we found a Herald newsboy on a corner a few blocks away. The boy was startled that we wanted to buy five copies of the paper, and even more so when we tipped him with a coin that would have bought five more. We opened one paper to the page where my Pronunciamento was printed. Then we squealed like schoolgirls and spun each other around in circles.

I allowed myself only that brief surge of joy. There was work to be done. Dr. Andrews and Jim set about producing a series of essays that would bolster my bona fides as a candidate with ideas and programs, not just a pretty woman seeking attention. Dr. Andrews seemed to tap into my energy; he agreed to stay longer with us. “I just might be a participant in making history,” he said to me.

I became a class of one, with Dr. Andrews as my teacher. He approached the task with enthusiasm that matched mine. I was not only his pupil and protégé’, I was his weapon of revolution. His ideas had never had the impact he’d hoped for; but now, with me to espouse them, he saw a chance to light the bonfires of progress. He made particularly sure that I would speak to women’s concerns as forcefully as to men’s. He invited female friends – midwives, artists, social activist – to come to meet with us and share their views. They were all fearless and formidable, so, naturally, I was attracted to them, as they were to me.

I would not simply study under Dr. Andrews; I insisted on being his collaborator on a series of essays on public policies he was preparing to be published under my name by The Herald. They gave detailed expositions on issues including universal government, workers’ rights, and divorce. I cannot say that I was the primary author of the series, which we titled “Tendencies of Government”, but I certainly made sure the articles reflected my thinking and evoked my voice.

I would have been happy enough just to have the essays published, but The Herald again exceeded my expectations. They stopped short of endorsing my candidacy, but they definitely gave the essays a glowing review. “It is evident,” The Herald stated in an editorial accompanying the last of the essays, “Mrs. Woodhull is imbued with at least one very sensible idea, that fitness is the first perquisite of qualification entitling the seeker to enjoy the position sought for. This is, doubtless, what has led her not only to study and perfect herself in the nature of the functions which she seeks to exercise, but also to give her opinions to the people, that they may judge of her ability and the correctness of her views.”

Unfortunately, the editorial writer did not stop there. He apparently could not resist closing on a sour note of male condescension, stating, “The public mind is not yet educated to the pitch of universal women’s rights. At present, man, in his affection for and kindness toward the weaker sex, is disposed to accord her any reasonable number of privileges. Beyond that stage, he pauses, because there seems to be something which is unnatural in permitting her to share the turmoil, the excitement, and the risks of competition for the glory of governing.”

As grateful as I was for The Herald giving space to my position papers and then commenting favorably on them, I was outraged by their spewing out such revolting platitudes. “’Weaker sex’!” I blurted out, as I read the paper, startling Tennie. “’Permit her to share!’ Who asked any man’s permission? And who said the ‘glory of governing’ is an unnatural act for a woman?”

“Vicky, what’s wrong? I thought you liked The Herald!” Tennie said.

“I guess I do, but I don’t like it when they pat me on the head in one breath, and tell me to go back to my room the next,” I pouted.

“Vicky,” she said, sounding more like an older sister than a younger one, “An important newspaper has stated it is impressed with your candidacy. And here you are, complaining that they didn’t write it just the way you wanted. Besides, you said we were going out to celebrate.”

I laughed in spite of myself. Tennie could always make me do that. “You’re right. Let’s go have some fun.”

Nothing less than a dinner at Delmonico’s would do, I decided. Jim and Dr. Andrews had gone off together somewhere, so the party would consist of Tennie and me. Our driver, Jackson, seemed a bit hesitant, as he pulled up to the restaurant. I couldn’t imagine why.

Another reason I chose Delmonico’s was the acute sense of masculinity that suffused the place. The décor was dark, the air thick with cigar smoke and the scent of sizzling meat.

“Ah, Mrs. Woodhull...Miss Claflin,” said Thompkins, the maître ‘d. “So good to see you again.”

“A table please, Thompkins,” I said.

“For how many?” he asked.

I paused for a moment, a trifle irritated. “For two. Do you see anyone else with us?”

“I suppose I assumed the Commodore, or someone else, would be joining you,” the officious man said. “I don’t have any reservations for you.”

“No, but you obviously have empty tables. We only require one of them,” I said.

Thompkins swallowed hard and pulled at his collar. “Perhaps if you just tell me that you anticipate the Commodore will be joining you?”

“I’ll say no such thing!” I said. “He will not be here, but we are.”

Tennie tried to play the peacemaker. “Victoria, I believe I did hear the Commodore saying he’d like to take us to dinner tonight.” She nudged me with her elbow, which I brushed away defiantly and turned to the maître‘d.

“Are you telling us that we cannot be seated unless we have a male companion?”

“Well,” Thompkins said, seeking to recapture his air of authority. “Our policy is that unescorted women are not seated at dinner.”

Tennie’s hunger was stronger than her sense of outrage. She smiled at Thompkins and said, “Does it have to be a particular gentleman, or will any old man do?”

“Well, I suppose any man would suffice,” he said.

Tennie glanced at me and then jerked her head to the window, where we could see the carriage drivers tied up. It took only a short moment to figure out what she was thinking – we were clairvoyants after all. I spun around and walked outside to our carriage. I practically had to pull Jackson back inside with me. I marched him up to the maitre ‘d and sniffed regally.

“Table for three, please!” I said.

With all his air of superiority deflated, Thompkins seated us. Jackson pleaded a lack of appetite, but Tennie and I eagerly devoured a pair of magnificent steaks

CHAPTER 22

LADY FRIENDS AND FEMALE PROBLEMS

Elizabeth Cady Stanton defended me and befriended me before she even met me. She was much older than me, and unlike me, she was fairly soaked in respectability. While she practically founded the Women’s Suffrage Movement decades earlier, she had also performed her womanly duty by producing a large family and, to all outward appearances, bringing honor to her husband. She may have even loved him. Yet she was drawn to me by my willingness to assault the social and moral order that she seemed to embody.

An unintended consequence of the notoriety that followed my memorial to the House Judiciary Committee was a deepening of the rift within the suffrage movement. The biddies of the Boston-based American Women’s Suffrage Association, led by Harriet Beecher Stowe, believed women had to be angels of purity and rectitude, while they prayed that the men would do the right thing and grant them the vote. By contrast, the members of the New York-based National Woman Suffrage Association, co- founded by Elizabeth and her protégé Susan B. Anthony, were more realistic. They knew they were locked in mortal combat.

Naturally, I appealed to the latter group. And when I succeeded where other women had failed, well, the women of morally-superior standing went into full-time backbiting mode. I was a loose woman, a harsh woman, a woman who dared to play, indeed to beat, the men at their own games. Even worse, I was divorced. Their gossip was echoed and embellished upon by the reactionary segment of the men in public life, that is, the large contingent of men who would be pleased to deny the vote to the resurrected Virgin Mary.

Elizabeth stood up for me, despite all that – or maybe because of all that. She wrote an essay in the journal of her association, castigating the men who sought to exploit the divisions among the women. “In regard to the gossip about Mrs. Woodhull, I have one answer for my gentlemen friends: If our good men will only trouble themselves to do as much about the virtue of their own sex as they do about ours, we shall have a nobler type of manhood and womanhood. We have had enough women sacrificed to this sentimental, hypocritical prating about purity.”

She did not spare the women, either. “The men create the public sentiment, build the gallows, and then make us the hangmen for our sex. Let us end this ignoble record and henceforth stand by womanhood. If Victoria Woodhull must be crucified, let men drive the spikes and place the crown of thorns.”

Elizabeth saw me as few others did. To her, my past was the source of my strength, not something shameful. She wrote of me to one of her influential friends in the movement, “Most women, who like some tender flower, perish in the first rude blast, think there must be some subtle poison in the hardy plant which grows stronger and more beautiful in poor earth and rough exposure, where they would fall faded, withered and bleeding to the ground.” It inspired me to know that I was her “hardy plant.” Her affection made me want to prove her right. I would bloom for her cause, and my fruit would have the sweet taste of victory.

I arranged to meet her as soon as her schedule allowed. “We’re more alike than you might think,” Elizabeth said to me, as she washed down a masculine-sized bite of a Delmonico steak with a gulp of red wine. I’d selected lunch for the meeting she requested; I had no need to make further tests of the restaurant’s escort policies.

“How so? You were born into privilege. I was an outlaw child,” I said.

“Had you and some of your sisters been boys, I warrant, your father might have been content to make farmhands of you; but you were girls, so he used you to make money in, uh, other ways,” she said.

“Surely you know nothing of that sort of labor,” I said.

“Well, I was certainly made to feel deficient because I was not born male,” she said. “Just in case I failed to recognize his disappointment, my father personally told me of it numerous times. And even though I was a highly capable student, I was denied a higher education and shunted off to finishing school. Oh, I was a dutiful wife and mother all right, but I know a little of what you know about the disparity of gender. I could be your elder sister.”

“You’re too kind, Mrs. Stanton...”

“Elizabeth. Please.”

“Some of the other women suffragists aren’t as understanding as you are, Elizabeth,” I said. “They say I bring discredit to the movement.”

At this comment, Elizabeth dropped her utensils and gave me a scolding look. “Don’t ever think you’re even the slightest bit inferior to any of them!”

“I don’t,” I said, “but...

“But nothing!” Elizabeth said, her face reddening noticeably. “Listen to me now! The very people who criticize your behavior or your morality are highly deficient in those areas themselves, and you can take that to the bank!”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that many of the bluest of the bluenoses who oppose the positions you defend publicly are, in secret, practitioners of those same doctrines,” she said. “For example, they howl in protest when you mention ‘Free Love’, no matter how reasonable it sounds when you explain your beliefs. Yet, their own loves, and lusts, are freer than the breezes of May.”

I leaned my head across the table toward her and said, “Really?”

She leaned toward me and spoke slightly above a whisper. “I know of a certain clique of Social Register couples who sample each other’s spouses and mistresses as if sex were a sandwich-and-boiled- egg buffet in a Bowery tavern.”

In my spasm of laughter, I knocked a water goblet over, and it tumbled noisily against my plate. The rush of three waiters to clean the spill only drew more attention from other diners. We composed ourselves, but Elizabeth remained in combat mode.

“I’m so sick of the hypocrisy, Victoria,” she said. “And some of the biggest hypocrites are your loudest opponents.”

Tears came to my eyes, and I wasn’t even trying to cry. I reached for her hand and said, “You really do believe in me, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. I believe you were sent to help lead us to the Promised Land of true equality,” she said. She squeezed my hand and then released it.

“May I tell you a story?” Elizabeth asked.

“Please do,” I said.

“It indirectly involves your most vociferous foe, Harriet Beecher Stowe,” she said.

“Now you must tell it,” I said eagerly.

“Let me start at the start,” she said. “Do you know of Horace Greeley, the newspaper editor?

“I’ve had the distinct displeasure of meeting the man,” I said.

“Well, the old buzzard has written himself a role in a lurid little sex farce starring, as the priapic preacher, none other than Harriet’s brother, Henry Ward Beecher!” she said, feigning shock.

I was desperate to hear about all this, but I spied a waiter coming to attend to us, so I held up my hand, signaling her to stop. I allowed him to clear the table, and then said to him, “That’s all for now, thank you.” Then I made a circling gesture with my fingers, so she’d continue.

“Greeley has this protégé, a dandified social climber, editor and would-be poet named Theodore Tilton.”

“Never heard that name,” I said.

“Pretty Teddy also happens to be a congregant and devotee of Pastor Beecher, who is in his own right the most popular and best-known churchman in the country,” Elizabeth said. “Henry’s also the most randy rooster in the churchyard, ministering to neglected wives as if they were his hens.”

“But how does Harriet tie in?”

“Well, it just so happens that Tilton’s wife Elizabeth is one of Henry’s hens. Tilton has discovered the infidelity, and he’s furious – never mind that he himself has flouted his marital vows at will,” Elizabeth said. I was still puzzled, so she went on. “Harriet is terrified that word of the affair will get out. Her dear brother’s eternal salvation is not her concern, though. It’s the family name that she’s worried about.”

“Details! Details!” I demanded.

“Apparently, Tilton had excused his own dalliances by insisting to his wife’s face that she was frigid,” she said. “That drove her to Pastor Henry for counseling. They soon discovered that female frigidity was not the problem. But after a while, Elizabeth became consumed with guilt.”

“She didn’t confess, did she?” I exclaimed.

“Everything, down to the way that Henry persuaded her to drop her petticoats by claiming that God was calling on him to cure her,” Elizabeth said. “Of course, Theodore instantly became the injured party; he threw a fit and banished her to her chambers. She’s been closeted there for three weeks now.”

“So, how does Greeley fit into this sorry little melodrama?” I asked.

“Not that this plot needed any thickening,” Elizabeth said rather playfully, “but Tilton sought the counsel of his mentor, Greeley. Can you imagine the stupidity of telling your most intimate secrets to a newspaperman?”

“I supposed Greeley has threatened to expose the whole lot of them,” I said.

“Hardly,” she said. “Greeley’s got no stomach for shaking the pillars of society; he thinks of himself as one of them. He advised Tilton to order his wife to write a confession letter, thinking its existence would guarantee everyone’s silence.”

“What?” I asked, stunned.

“Indeed,” she replied. “Theodore demanded that Elizabeth produce a detailed account of the affair. I hear it makes for torrid reading. Henry has learned of the letter, and he, of course, is deathly afraid it will somehow come to light. And if his affair with Elizabeth Tilton is exposed, what’s to prevent the rest of the henhouse from coming forward?”

“But I’ve heard Beecher preaches regularly on how the Christian God is a god of love,” I said.

“Yes, but it would ruin him if the world knew how diligently he practices what he preaches,” she said.

“What a hypocrite!” I fairly shouted, making heads turn again at other tables.

“Hypocrisy, my dear Victoria, is the foundation of our social order,” Elizabeth said ruefully. Then she raised her wine glass to me and said, “But you have been sent to us to change all that!”

At that moment, I did not realize how difficult it would be to achieve that mission. Instead, I was inspired and delighted that one of the most widely respected women in the United States could see me as the banner-carrier for her cause. I raised my glass and said, “Damn the hypocrites and damn the social order!”

Elizabeth smiled and stroked my cheek gently. “Bravo, my brave Victoria!” she said.

As we made our way out of the restaurant, Elizabeth slapped her forehead and said, “Oh my, I must have had too much wine. I nearly forgot.”

“Forgot what?” I said.

“Victoria, I wanted to meet with you so I could personally invite you to make the keynote address to our anniversary celebration of the NWSA, here in New York, in ten days’ time,” she said.

I was so startled I nearly stumbled. “Of course I will,” I said, after I’d grasped a pillar and steadied myself. “What an honor! But...”

“But what?”

“Won’t some of your members object?” I asked.

“A few, perhaps; but I am a co-founder of the NWSA and the board chair. I have been given the authority to invite any speaker I choose...and I choose you,” she said.

I started to voice another caution, but she wouldn’t hear it. “Don’t fret, Victoria.”

“You make too much of me, Elizabeth,” I said, feeling vaguely unworthy of her trust.

“No, I simply see the energy and spirit you can bring to our cause,” she said. “With you at the forefront, we’ll win the vote in a year – two at the most.”

“Now I know you’ve had too much wine,” I said.

“Don’t sell yourself short, Victoria,” she said. “Our time is at hand, and so is yours! You can be our Joan of Arc!”

I embraced her ardently. “If you believe in me,” I said, “I can be whoever you need me to be.”

I disengaged and gave a let’s-get-down-to-business sigh. “So. Shall I reprise my memorial to Congress?”

“Say whatever you want,” she said. “as long as you forget about being polite. We want the real Victoria!

CHAPTER 25

VICKY D’ARC

“We mean treason!” I shouted, shooting my fist into the air and spraying a heavy mist of my sweat out towards my audience of thousands of frenzied women. They roared in ecstasy, sounding more like a war party of Amazons than the overdressed, undereducated, and bitterly-alienated daughters of the upper classes that they actually were.

I paused, not only to mop my brow, but also to catch my breath from being stunned by a flash of realization of who I was, where I was, and where I had come from. Less than three years earlier, I’d been a star attraction for the mystical and lucrative games of an itinerant clan of frontier rogues. Now, on that stifling May night in 1871, I was playing, and winning, at the game of national politics – and I was preaching revolt, from the podium of Apollo Hall, one of the most prestigious lecture venues in the nation’s largest and most important city.

“We are plotting revolution!” I called out even louder, my words like shovel-loads of coal to the women’s already over-stoked spirits. “We mean secession, and on a thousand times grander scale than was that of the South.”

To me, the legal foundation of my argument for giving women the vote was plain old common sense, reinforced by the recently passed 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. To the women, reason was irrelevant.

“No more polite arguments from us,” I said. “No more begging for rights that should have been ours since the moment this nation was founded, but have recently been formally granted to us by the constitutional amendments which made full citizens of the Negroes. Well, it is only right and just that the Negroes are no longer slaves. But neither are we women!”

It took a few minutes for the eruption of chaos to subside enough for me to be heard again. “If the very next Congress refuses women all the legitimate rights of citizenship, we shall call a special convention of the National Woman Suffrage Association, at which we shall frame a new constitution and erect a new government. We will overthrow this bogus Republic and plant a government of righteousness and equality in its stead!”

Now the cheering could not be contained. Some of the women who’d squeezed into the space between the seats and the stage started to press toward me. The women closest to the podium had nowhere to move. The pressure from the human meat grinder and the heat in the oxygen-starved hall combined to induce two velvet-clad women in the front to drop like mossy stones.

This was already dangerous, and could easily become more so. I broke off my speech and moved to the edge of the stage. “Stop. Stop, please!” I yelled above the din. “Move back! Move back!”

Fortunately, the women listened. The crush eased, and each of the fallen women were hauled to fresh air by two-woman teams. I returned to the podium with mischief in mind.

“It is extremely hot, isn’t it?” I said, smiling. “But what is making us hot, besides the heat of our desire to be treated like human beings? Are we woozy because we cannot breathe?”

In answer to my own question, I started to loosen the stays on my corset. God, it felt good. I did not expose myself or my undergarments in any way. I simply allowed corset-induced hourglass figure to achieve a more natural shape. “We cannot breathe, because we have allowed ourselves to conform to the unnatural and male-dictated constrictions of fashion. Do you agree?”

The woman responded with a tumultuous “YES!”

“Well then, sisters, loosen those silly stays!” I said, with a laugh, of a level of hardiness I could not have reached a few minutes earlier. The women needed no further coaxing. Throughout the hall, they followed my lead, unharnessing and unhooking themselves. Those who could not reach the ties that bound them turned to their neighbors for help. All the while, they squealed in unrestrained glee.

“Are we free, ladies?” I shouted. They shouted back, “FREE! FREE! FREE!”

“Yes, indeed we are,” I said, raising my arms. I smiled at the thought of how far I had come, from a wild little girl growing up in a country crossroads town to the woman being cheered by some of the most influential women in the country. “We are free to claim our fair share of the American promise. Let no man doubt it, the women are in revolt!” After a long wave of cheering, I continued. “Do you want me to lead you to that promised land?”

“YES! YES!” they called out joyously.

“Well then,” I continued, “I shall be your Joan of Arc. I shall carry your torch of freedom, and with it, I shall light a fire that will scorch the very soul of this nation, a fire that will light the path that will lead me to become the first woman President of the United States of America!”

CHAPTER 40

EXTRA! EXTRA!

I wrote the headline first: “THE BEECHER-TILTON SCANDAL CASE”

I began with a preamble to explain why I was publishing such a sensational article. “Can anyone wonder, after the personal treatment we have been subjected to, if we strip the masks off the faces of our self-righteous foes and show them to be nothing less than rotten hypocrites?”

I informed the readers I possessed hundreds of embarrassing biographical details about publicly righteous leaders of society, where were, in fact, living privately in direct violation of the moral standards they professed and pressed so onerously upon others.

Then, I sucked in my breath and started to relate the naked truth about the Henry-Teddy- Elizabeth triangle. I started with a subhead: “The Detailed Statement of the Whole Matter by Mrs. Woodhull.”

I wrote the article in the form of an interview with an unnamed reporter, after my recent speech in Boston. There had been no such interview – the reporters avoided me after the speech, since they were deathly afraid they might have to write an article naming the sainted Reverend Beecher – but I thought it an appropriate device for enhancing the story’s credibility. The “reporter” began the “interview” by asking, “You speak like a weird prophetess, madam.”

I answered, taking the literary license of assuming the manner of Jesus before Pilate, “I am a prophetess. I am an evangel. I am a Savior, if you would but see it; but I come not to bring peace, but a sword.”

Having set a suitably militant tone, I proceeded to reveal the fact that one of America’s most admired men was, in reality and measured by his own standards, a sexual glutton and a cad. For good measure, I additionally labeled Beecher “a poltroon, a coward, and a sneak.”

I provided the salacious list of sins of all the major players in the scandal: the adulterous preacher, the shamefully weak cuckold, and the wandering wife. I told how the scandal was perpetuated, even after the affair was ended, that is, how Teddy, at the urging of his literary mentor and Democratic presidential nominee Horace Greeley, forced his wife to put her confession in the form of a humiliating written statement. I stated that after I learned of all this ugly business, I became the target of a coordinated campaign of persecution aimed at coercing me to keep silent. I named the leader of

this nefarious campaign as none other than the potent preacher’s famous sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe. I exposed her attempt to blackmail me, the woman who’d been publicly labeled a blackmailer.

I made it clear that I was telling this story for more important reasons than exposing a famous clergyman as having the sexual ethics of a barnyard rooster. I was condemning Beecher’s hypocrisy more than his extramarital escapades.

I pointed out his frequently-repeated description of marriage as the “graveyard of love” and how his views on the unfairness of the marital laws pretty much coincided with my own. Beecher and I both believe no man or woman should be chained to a loveless marriage.

But I had the forthrightness to speak out publicly for the laws to be erased, while Reverend Beecher was content to defy them in secret. It was only natural, I stated, for Beecher to seek the comfort of other women to meet his need for love, a need that is universal. What was unnatural was the extent to which he sought to hide his actions.

I did not publish the details of this scandal out of spite for Beecher, I wrote. “Rather, I hold the deepest respect for the immense physical potency of Mr. Beecher and the indomitable urgency of his great nature for the intimacy and the embraces of the whole and cultured women about him. Instead of being a bad thing, as the world thinks, it is one of the noblest and grandest endowments of this truly great representative man.”

I told of how I repeatedly offered Beecher the opportunity to stand with me in my crusade against the laws that make slaves of women, in the same way he spoke out so fearlessly against the slavery of the Negro. However, I wrote, he declined; and even worse, he acceded to the vicious efforts to discredit and destroy me. I did not relish exposing this folly and hypocrisy, but I was left with no choice.

“I can only hope,” I wrote, “the pain I know I am causing will be mitigated by the greater good of my cause. Whenever the old gives birth to the new, pain is involved. When the older social order is displaced by something new and better, some level of chaos can be expected in the short term. In the end, though, the end is justified by the beauty and justice of the new world.”

By God, I thought to myself after I’d finished the article, I’ve made my telling of the whole sordid mess sound somehow noble. It was even-handed, and it was true. I reckoned it would cause quite a stir; I did not anticipate what actually occurred – a near riot.

Initially, I thought Jim was being a bit ambitious when he ordered 2,000 copies of The Weekly to be printed. Hours later, I wished he’d ordered 20,000.

Jim brought back the load of papers to our Broad Street offices and summoned a gang of street urchins to hawk the paper to the people on the streets of the financial district. I wondered if any of them would part with a nickel to read about a preacher’s sex scandal.

The newsboys held nothing back in seeking to make their penny-a-copy commission. They stood on the street corners and called out, “EXTRA! EXTRA! SCANDAL! SCANDAL!” As soon as they started drawing crowds, they shouted out even more bawdy teases: “PREACHER DOES MORE THAN PRAY! PASSION IN THE PARSONAGE!”

The boys may or may not have comprehended the details of the story, but the men on the streets certainly did. They voraciously snatched and grabbed at the papers. Most of them stopped their journeys to read of the scandal. Some gave low whistles, some laughed lecherously, while others dropped their jaws in shocked silence.

After less than an hour, the newsboys were scrambling to get back to Jim for more papers, which they took out to the streets and started selling for 10 cents apiece, and then a quarter of a dollar. I clapped my hands in delight at their reports, and Jim rushed back to the printer to make an emergency re-order.

Raising the price only fueled the demand for The Weekly. The first buyers went back to their offices and regaled their co-workers with the sensational news. The rush of buyers grew quickly to a mob. The price of the paper went up quickly to a dollar – 20 times the price stated on the masthead – and still they came.

After only a few hours of street sales, nearly all the papers were sold. Jim called the newsboys back to our offices, where they hatched a plan for the sale of the few remaining copies. I followed one of the newsboys back to his corner to observe.

“What am I bid for this piece of history!” the boy shouted. “Who’ll give me ten dollars?” Amazingly to me, a half dozen men shot forward, waving ten-dollar bills. As the auction progressed, the bidding got even more feverish.

“Do I hear 20!” the boy called out, and still they paid. The last few copies brought in an astonishing $40 apiece – a month’s rent for an apartment in a good neighborhood. The newsboys made more from this issue of The Weekly than they’d clear from months of selling The Times. In less than a day, we’d cleared almost $8,000.

We’d been saved! Jim said he’d be ordering more copies the next day.

Jim and I got caught up in the heat of the moment. We took a handful of our cash and treated ourselves to a room at the kind of hotel that didn’t ordinarily cater to couples without baggage; but with the tip we proffered, the desk clerk was more than happy to bend the policy.

The moment we got inside the room, we tore at each other with a passion we hadn’t shared in months, perhaps even since we first made love.

“Is this heaven?” I moaned in my near-delirium.

“Close enough,” Jim chuckled. “It’s The Palace.”

We dressed and left the hotel, smiling at the raised eyebrows of the staff who’d seen us enter a few hours earlier.

That night, we entertained for the first time in months. Family grudges were forgotten. Zulu Maud sang for us, as pretty as any girl has ever sung. Friends who we thought had deserted us somehow found our new apartment and came to celebrate with us. I was too happy to let myself wonder where they’d been lately. Instead, I accepted their congratulations for striking a major blow against the hypocrisy that pervaded our society.

I heard one of our guests ask another how he had voted. Then I blurted out, “Oh my God! tomorrow is s election day!” This was to have been the day when I would have made history. Well, the day was nothing like what I had planned, but I had forced the people to look at the extent to which their most deeply-held moral certitudes had decayed. So, I suppose I’d made history after all.

On that night, though, there was little thought or discussion of history. Grant would certainly be re-elected by a humiliating margin over Greeley, but even that political mockery couldn’t darken our spirits. We sang. We danced. We drank too much champagne.

I pushed aside troubling thoughts about how I could possibly salvage my crusades or whether I wanted to salvage my marriage. In my celebratory haze, I believed this was the first day of my renewed quest to claim my destiny. As it turned out, it was the last truly happy time we’d have for years.

CHAPTER 43

THE NAKED TRUTH

Once I’d washed myself of the stink of the Ludlow Street Jail – more appropriately called The Tombs in later years -- I felt the need to exercise my new-found freedom. So, I went to New Jersey.

The occasion for the post-Christmas trip to Tenafly was a visit with Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She had sent me a lovely note, after learning of my release. She had been shocked at my arrest, she said, but had no idea I had been kept in jail for more than a month. Her word for my treatment was “monstrous.”

I wanted to discuss my plans for my next move with her, but I needed her affection as much as her advice.

“Can you ever forgive me, Victoria?” Elizabeth said as soon as he brought me inside her home. “I assumed you’d be released right away. I should have known. I should have done something.”

“But you didn’t know, and there was nothing you could have done, even if you did,” I said. “It’s over. Don’t fret. You’ve allowed me into your home; that means more to me than I can say.”

She went to a sideboard and poured out two generous snifters of brandy. She gave me mine and then raised hers, saying, “Confusion to the Beechers!”

I laughed, took a healthy gulp from my glass and said, “I underestimated them, Elizabeth. I had no idea they had the power to dispossess me and then have me tossed in jail, and then have the keys tossed away for a month!”

“Henry can preach about justice and equality, and Harriet can write books that move the nation to fight a war to free an oppressed race, but neither, it seems, knows much about living the values they profess,” she said, draining her glass and refilling both snifters. “You’ve made them afraid, Victoria, and that makes them dangerous. You know now they don’t fight fair. Perhaps a cease fire is the best tactic for now.”

“You’re probably right, but I will do nothing of the sort,” I said, causing her to fumble with her snifter and almost drop it. “It’s what they want me to do. But, Elizabeth, I have spent 34 nights sleeping on a mattress stuffed with rags, locked behind a set of iron bars. That has not disposed me to do what the people who sent me there want me to do.”

Elizabeth moved close to me and put her arm around my shoulders. I refused to let myself cry, so she cried silently for me.

“Don’t be so quick to embrace me,” I said, though I squeezed her arm in gratitude at the same time. “I’m poison now, you know.”

“Oh dear Victoria, you’re not poison. You’re the magic elixir that we are all too afraid to drink.” She dabbed at her cheeks and said, “What will you do?”

I turned my shoulders squarely to her and gave her my bravest smile and said, “I shall fight them with the weapon they cannot take from me – my voice.”

“That’s wonderful, dear,” she said. “Just what do you mean, though?”

“It’s all planned out!” I said excitedly. “But I need you. Are you still with me?”

“You know I am...but with you in what?”

I told Elizabeth I had booked Cooper Union Hall for a major speech for the night of January 9th, less than two weeks away. The money for the hall had come from funds George Train had advanced me. The strange but generous man had provided enough to re-start publication of The Weekly, so we could promote my speech.

“Will you stand for me, Elizabeth?” I asked. “Will you introduce me?”

She closed her eyes and nodded her head, but her voice was tinged with foreboding. “Of course I will, dear, but the truths you want to speak will only inflame your enemies further, I fear.”

Our promotional posters were meant to inflame:

“THE NAKED TRUTH”

“Victoria Woodhull will speak out against the tyrants who imprisoned her! None of the guilty will be spared! The powerful will be stripped of their cloaks of lies!”

“Cooper Union Hall. January 9”

We suspected Comstock might make a move on us, so on the afternoon of the speech, I went to join Elizabeth at the home of a friend of hers, not far from Cooper Union. He could read our posters, and he might well be inspired to try to stop me. The long afternoon faded slowly into the evening; the quiet made me even more nervous.

Just when I started to allow myself to think we might be able to proceed unimpeded, Tennie burst through the door, struggling to speak through her sobs.

“Oh Vicky! They’ve taken Jim!” she cried.

“What?” I said, nearly matching her alarm.

“Comstock and his goons,” she gasped. “They barged in and hauled him off like he was a horse thief!”

“Calm down, calm down,” I said. “Tell us what happened.” I took her into my arms, and I could feel how violently she was trembling.

“Jim was afraid they’d come for us, so he posted two boys as lookouts,” Tennie said, after she’d gained some measure of her composure. “We had a warning of a minute or two, and Jim used it to hide me. He put me under a washtub in the janitor’s closet and threw a pile of rags and mops and things over it. They were punching Jim, I could hear it. They wanted him to tell them where you were, but he wouldn’t, bless him. And they were after me, too! Oh Vicky, I can’t go back to that hole!”

“Did they hurt Jim?” Elizabeth asked.

“They sure did, but he was so brave!” Tennie said. “He told Comstock to his face that he was the lowest kind of coward for mistreating a woman. He said Comstock deserved a coward’s death, and he’d been under his command – though he doubted Comstock would ever let himself anywhere near a battlefield – he’d be happy to carry out the sentence himself.”

“What did Comstock say to that?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Tennie answered. “I could hear him slapping Jim, and I’m sure Jim was already in handcuffs!”

“Despicable!” Elizabeth said. “The man is a menace!”

“No, he’s just a pathetic little troll, drunk with the kind of power he’s never had before,” I said. “The real menaces are the people who gave him that power, the people I’m going to call to account tonight!”

“Oh no, they’ll arrest you for sure!” Tennie wailed.

“I’m afraid she’s right, Victoria,” Elizabeth said. “You’ve got to stay here, where you’re safe. I’ll go to Cooper Union and tell the people why you cannot speak. They’ll understand.”

I thought for a moment and then said to Elizabeth, “Yes, you’re right. And I’m terrified. I can’t bear the thought of spending another second in jail. Besides, they’ll never let me on that stage.” But in that moment of despondency, I was struck by a thunderbolt of hope. Perhaps I could send someone else.

That “someone else” was an old Quaker lady. By putting on a large bonnet and a thick old shawl, and walking with a stoop and a cane, I thought I played the part very well.

A few minutes before the scheduled start of the program, I went to Cooper Union. Outside the hall, tempers were short. Police were trying to discourage people from pushing into the hall, which looked to be already full. “No speech tonight!” they shouted, but most of the people ignored them and pushed ahead. Some of the people shouted back, “Get out of the way!”

I used the confusion to elbow past the outer ring of police, and work my way into a lobby so overfull that I could hardly breathe. People were buzzing, saying “Will she come?” Others answered, “Don’t know.” The prospect of conflict made them more eager to get into a hall where all the seats were already occupied. I shoved my way into the back of the hall. Every inch of standing room was crammed with volatile, edgy people. There were calls of “Woodhull!” from many in the crowd.

I could barely see Elizabeth at the podium, calling and gesturing for quiet. The noise level lowered slightly, and most of the people on the floor level took their seats. I saw some space open up and moved forward a little. The massive auditorium was packed with about 4,000 people, most of them angry.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please!” Elizabeth shouted out. “May I please have your attention for an important announcement!” The crowd settled down a bit more, and I popped through to an aisle and walked down toward the stage, nearly bent over in half.

“As you can see, there is a heavy police presence here tonight,” Elizabeth said, and the crowd responded with murmurs, and some jeers. “I can tell you for a fact that we did not invite them, nor did they purchase tickets, as you have.” The jeers got louder, but some laughter was mixed in. The police officers were not amused.

“The police are here, I am sad to tell you, to arrest the woman you came to hear,” she said, and loud calls of “No!” erupted from the crowd.

“I know, I know,” Elizabeth called out, signaling for quiet again. “I share your sentiments, but under these circumstances, Mrs. Woodhull cannot appear tonight.”

While the crowd booed and jeered loudly, Mrs. Woodhull was actually at the edge of the stage. My last obstacle was a cop standing at the base of the steps, no doubt on the lookout for me. The old Quaker lady tried to nudge the cop aside, and when he refused to budge, she jabbed him smartly in the foot with her cane. The cop yelped and then started to lunge for me, but he hesitated, not wanting to manhandle an old lady. I took advantage of his inaction to scoot past him and bound up the stairs.

Forsaking the bent-over walk, I strode to center stage, ripped off my bonnet and tossed away the shawl and cane. I planted my feet apart and stretched my arms out to my audience.

“You came here to hear the naked truth from Victoria Woodhull!” I proclaimed, “And, by God, you shall!”

After a moment of stunned silence, the crowd erupted with wild cheers and whistles and whoops. Elizabeth gave me a look of distress, and then she joined in the applause and made a sweeping gesture granting me the stage.

Two of the cops closest to the stage made moves to come after me. Men from the crowd moved quickly to form a human chain blocking them. The cops hesitated. I saw one of them look toward an

officer, who put up his hand in a stopping gesture. The police wanted me, not a riot. I had my chance to speak, and I seized it.

“As you can see,” I shouted. “I come before you as a fugitive from the law. But these officers are not to blame. Do not harm them. The ones who sent them are the real villains! They are the ones who are trying to prevent you from hearing the truth. These people have taken away my possessions, my freedom, and worst of all my good name – a good name that I earned by my own skills and labors, mind you – all for the crime of speaking the truth and daring to be a leader!”

I stretched out my arms to quell the angry cries coming from the crowd.

“What do I have left to fight them with?” I said. “I have only my voice, and your desire to hear it. Do you wish to hear me tonight?”

There came a huge roar of “YES!” from the crowd. The police moved back a few paces.

“Then I shall tell you the naked truth! It will be truth unhidden by the false morality of those who presume to call themselves ‘polite society.’ And it will come with names. All you villains, I shall call you by name!”

The cheers from the crowd told me they wanted it all. I fed on their fire and raised my arms to the heavens, making a silent call to Demosthenes for the fire of his spirit.

“Henry Ward Beecher – You are a hypocrite!” I called out loudly. A gasping noise came from the crowd. They weren’t used to hearing preachers called out in public. I had only started. “When I printed the truth about how you tom-catted around with the women of your church congregation, you lied by denying it, and then unleashed the forces of the government and religious fanatics against me. But when I practiced the Christian virtues you supposedly profess by taking in my dying former husband, you stood by while your lackeys called me a bigamist!”

As if I’d given them a cue, the audience booed lustily.

“Ulysses S. Grant, you are an incompetent hypocrite! When you rake in money from your corrupt gang of cronies, you call it campaign contributions. But when I solicit funds for my campaign to run you and your crew out of the White House, I am called a blackmailer!”

The crowds had fallen into the pace of my speech. Now the boos were mixed with laughs.

“Cornelius Vanderbilt, John Astor, J.P. Morgan and all you other barons of commerce and finance, you are pirates rigged out in business suits. You make your millions from the sweat of workers who toil for you in danger, misery and near poverty. But when I beat you at your own game and make a fortune playing your market games, you call me a shameless prostitute!”

The crowd roared and whistled even louder. They wanted more, and I was more than ready to give it to them.

“Harriet Beecher Stowe, you are the worst kind of hypocrite! You accept public acclaim for being a leader in the quest for social justice, yet when I step forward to advance that same cause, you scheme to discredit me. When I dare to advance the cause of women’s rights further than you were ever able to do, you conspire to have me depicted as ‘Mrs. Satan’!”

I debated for a moment whether I’d already gone too far, but the chorus of cheers told me to press on.

“Anthony Comstock, where are you, you skulking coward?” I searched the crowd, looking around the place where I’d seen Comstock when I first entered the hall, but he’d already removed himself. “Hiding, I see. How typical! You are a dangerous maniac! You drape yourself in the mantle of righteousness and claim to be God’s avenging angel. What you really are is the Devil’s toady. When I print God’s own truth, you call it obscenity, and you have me thrown into prison and held there on a murderer’s bail. And here you are again tonight, ready to pounce like a vulture on this small female carcass. Well, let me tell you sir, I am not dead yet!”

The cheering reached a frenzied level, and I had to pause for a minute or two until they calmed down slightly.

“Why am I making these charges? Why am I again inviting the wrath of my persecutors? I am not here simply to plead my individual case. I am here because I have been persecuted, in large measure, simply because I am a woman. So I am speaking now for all women!”

The cheers from the ladies in the audience were louder than those of the men, though they were cheering too.

“Hundreds of thousands of men have died to make this nation live up to its promise of equality. Their unspeakably brave sacrifice has made the slaves free, free to live as they choose, free to vote. But, I ask you, are the women free?”

The ladies in the crowd shouted “No!”

“I have dared to lead the way in proclaiming that our amended Constitution has already granted the vote to women, and many eminent voices in the fields of social reform and politics have echoed my call. Tonight, I make that call once again. How, I ask you my friends, can the men, black or white, be free, when the women, white and black, are denied their basic democratic rights? Did we really fight that terrible, bloody war so that half the population of the preserved Union would remain in shackles?

Now the men joined the women in shouting out “No!”

“This, I submit to you, is the real reason why I am persecuted so mercilessly. I am a woman who will not accept the world as men have made it. I refuse to accept male dictates that I must be frail and weak and subservient. I will not be compelled to be the pure and faithful wife, while my man is free to consort with any woman who’ll open her legs to him! I demand the right to leave a loveless marriage!”

I allowed the cheers to roll around the hall before continuing.

“I love men. I could not imagine living without a man’s love. But why, gentlemen, why are you so afraid of us? Yes, women like me want to change the world, but does the world not need changing? We seek a better world, for all men and for all women. And, be honest now, gentlemen, could a woman leader possibly handle power any worse than the men have in recent years?”

That remark brought about a noticeable change in the crowd. I had switched from inciting them to asking them to think. They settled back and listened to me with a bit less passion but more thoughtful

attention. The police seemed less anxious as well. So, I continued. For another hour or so, I spoke forthrightly about all the changes that needed to be made, all the good causes I wanted to advance.

Finally, there were no more dragons to slay, so I left them with a dream.

“Rising up out of false notions of propriety and purity, coming to know that everything is proper that enhances happiness and harms no one, and that everything whatsoever is pure that is healthful and natural, we shall prepare for the perfect and pure blessedness of the coming millennium of the absolute freedom of the human heart!”

I bowed to the audience, who came to their feet in one last, loving cheer. I unpinned the white rose pinned to my bodice and tossed it into the crowd. Then I nodded to the policemen nearest me and said, “You may take me now.”

Two policemen came onto the stage and led me away without touching me. I tossed my white rose into the audience, and they exploded in calls of “VICTORIA! VICTORIA! VICTORIA!”