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- Aug 6, 2016
President Abraham Lincoln approved the following action in the spring of 1864: Private William H Cole serving in the 109th New York Volunteer Infantry has been sentenced to ten years of hard labor at a penitentiary in New York for the crime of rape. Despite the punishment this subject is not over; it's only beginning and it gives an insight as to how sexual assaults in the military were handled during a time of war.
Laurel, Maryland - Private Cole had been drinking heavily and Lieutenant G.A. Matthews was looking for his soldier. Matthew hears Cole is at the home of Olivia Brown. Mrs. Brown is a woman somewhere between the ages of fifty to fifty-five. When Lieutenant Matthews arrives at the Brown home he discovers Olivia crying with "the skin knocked off one side of her face". {1}
It appears there are witnesses to Cole's attack, or at least parts of it. Her daughter will testify she saw Cole throw her mother to the floor while her mother was "screaming murder". She runs to get help. Two other witnesses will testify they saw Olivia's bleeding face. Another neighbor, who has known her for six years, will tell authorities "he had never heard anything bad about her." {1}
Mrs. Brown will testify she was raped. On the other hand, Cole will claim it was "battery not rape" Cole will argue that due to the fact Mrs. Brown had no injury to her private parts therefore there is no proof of rape. However the military court will find him guilty and the President will give his blessing to his sentence.
Boys will be Boys; Girls will be Blamed
Mrs. Brown runs a bawdy house, so "declared" four members of the 109th New York Infantry. Not only did she run a bawdy house, those living there were not moral citizens their statement would go on to say.
"We each of us further depose that we are satisfied that the said Alvisa and the said Ellen are lewd women and that the said Nicholas Brown is cognizant of the fact that they keep a bawdy house." {2}
The accusations didn't stop there when another letter was sent to President Lincoln regarding the nature of Mrs. Brown:
"the character of the woman if not absolutely bad, was such at least as was well calculated to invite the advances of a soldier. She is not a woman of fair reputation in her neighborhood and beyond question she encouraged soldiers to visit her house where she supplied them with whiskey & where her conversation and conduct were well calculated to influence and excite to violence the passions of a drunken man." {2}
It also included a request to release Cole at once for he has served enough time sufficient for his crime (after all how did you expect a young, drunk man to act around a loose and immoral woman). And furthermore, Cole was a soldier in good standing never having had a problem before this incident.
Then came this request:
"Your petitioners further represent that we have been acquainted with the said William H. Cole from his childhood and that he has been a peaceable and quiet citizen and that we have never heard any charge or complaint against him or anything against his character as a good citizen except that he was occasionally a little wild." {2}
This request was signed by thirty-five citizens from Nichols, New York. Private Cole was pardoned by President Lincoln when Congressman Giles Waldo Hotchkiss personally requested for his mercy. He returned to duty with the 109th New York. No record of whatever happened to Mrs. Olivia Brown, after all, she was asking for it.
This was the model case for how rape was handled. Some men when convicted would be rapidly pardoned another example of how a charge of rape was not taken seriously.
"A common defense seems to have been 'that women in or near military camps were sexually available and that sexual transgressions against women during were understandable, if not excusable when committee by otherwise valiant and honorable men who were spilling their blood for their country'." {3}
In May of 1864, Jennie Green was sexually assaulted while living near Fortress Monroe, Virginia. Attacked and raped by Andrew J. Smith a white officer in the 11th Pennsylvania Cavalry, Jennie a young black girl testified how she was dragged into an empty room, threw on the floor and threatened to be killed. She was forced to tell the court how he "did the same thing that married people do". With the corroboration by a Black Chaplain of the 4th U.S. Colored Troops as well as another young slave, Smith was found guilty of rape and conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, Smith was quickly pardoned and freed from serving another nine and one-half years of his sentence.
A "He said; She said" case is always difficult. Take the case of African American Grace Barnes in 1864. She was ganged rape by four soldiers from the 20th New York Cavalry. She suffered permanent disabilities after her attack, yet the soldiers insisted she wanted to engaged in a sexual act. She had been their laundress and admitted she stopped fighting their attack when one of the soldiers raised a stick over her head and said if she didn't stop yelling he would kill her. The military found all four men guilty however Brigadier General Foster Shepley (1819-1878) overturned their convictions claiming the only testimony that the woman who was raped was the only woman who claimed she never consented. I wonder if Shepley as the husband of two women in his life as well as three daughters would have believed their stories if they had been sexually assaulted as opposed to Grace Barnes.
From the earliest written laws found in "the Code of Hammurabi" rape has been recognized as some type of criminal act. Originally viewed as a crime of damaging ones property (usually a male in relationship to his wife or a father's virgin daughter), society was coming to the realization of how rape was a violent violation of a woman's body and could not be tolerated in a civilized society.
During the civil war it has been estimated some four hundred men were prosecuted for the crime of rape. The number is probably higher due to the hesitancy for a woman to come forward to report the crime. Bringing a man to justice was not an easy task to accomplish especially when many times if the woman happened to be working in the camp as cook or laundress she was unwilling to risk losing her employment.
Attitudes were slow to change. I found this quote from a Kentucky legislator written in 1895 proving that he certainly did not understand anything on the subject; "I regard the twelve-year-old girl as being capable of resisting the wiles of the seducer as any older woman." {5}
Sources
1. "I Had Rather Die: Rape in the Civil War", by Kim Murphy
2. https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1998/winter/union-court-martials
3. https://gettysburgcompiler.org/2015/10/05/finally-speaking-up-sexual-assault-in-the-civil-war-era/
4. "Afro-Virginian History and Culture", edited by John Saillant
5. https://ualr.edu/socialchange/2018/04/15/reflection-history-sexual-assault-laws-united-states/
Laurel, Maryland - Private Cole had been drinking heavily and Lieutenant G.A. Matthews was looking for his soldier. Matthew hears Cole is at the home of Olivia Brown. Mrs. Brown is a woman somewhere between the ages of fifty to fifty-five. When Lieutenant Matthews arrives at the Brown home he discovers Olivia crying with "the skin knocked off one side of her face". {1}
It appears there are witnesses to Cole's attack, or at least parts of it. Her daughter will testify she saw Cole throw her mother to the floor while her mother was "screaming murder". She runs to get help. Two other witnesses will testify they saw Olivia's bleeding face. Another neighbor, who has known her for six years, will tell authorities "he had never heard anything bad about her." {1}
Mrs. Brown will testify she was raped. On the other hand, Cole will claim it was "battery not rape" Cole will argue that due to the fact Mrs. Brown had no injury to her private parts therefore there is no proof of rape. However the military court will find him guilty and the President will give his blessing to his sentence.
Boys will be Boys; Girls will be Blamed
Mrs. Brown runs a bawdy house, so "declared" four members of the 109th New York Infantry. Not only did she run a bawdy house, those living there were not moral citizens their statement would go on to say.
"We each of us further depose that we are satisfied that the said Alvisa and the said Ellen are lewd women and that the said Nicholas Brown is cognizant of the fact that they keep a bawdy house." {2}
The accusations didn't stop there when another letter was sent to President Lincoln regarding the nature of Mrs. Brown:
"the character of the woman if not absolutely bad, was such at least as was well calculated to invite the advances of a soldier. She is not a woman of fair reputation in her neighborhood and beyond question she encouraged soldiers to visit her house where she supplied them with whiskey & where her conversation and conduct were well calculated to influence and excite to violence the passions of a drunken man." {2}
It also included a request to release Cole at once for he has served enough time sufficient for his crime (after all how did you expect a young, drunk man to act around a loose and immoral woman). And furthermore, Cole was a soldier in good standing never having had a problem before this incident.
Then came this request:
"Your petitioners further represent that we have been acquainted with the said William H. Cole from his childhood and that he has been a peaceable and quiet citizen and that we have never heard any charge or complaint against him or anything against his character as a good citizen except that he was occasionally a little wild." {2}
This request was signed by thirty-five citizens from Nichols, New York. Private Cole was pardoned by President Lincoln when Congressman Giles Waldo Hotchkiss personally requested for his mercy. He returned to duty with the 109th New York. No record of whatever happened to Mrs. Olivia Brown, after all, she was asking for it.
This was the model case for how rape was handled. Some men when convicted would be rapidly pardoned another example of how a charge of rape was not taken seriously.
"A common defense seems to have been 'that women in or near military camps were sexually available and that sexual transgressions against women during were understandable, if not excusable when committee by otherwise valiant and honorable men who were spilling their blood for their country'." {3}
In May of 1864, Jennie Green was sexually assaulted while living near Fortress Monroe, Virginia. Attacked and raped by Andrew J. Smith a white officer in the 11th Pennsylvania Cavalry, Jennie a young black girl testified how she was dragged into an empty room, threw on the floor and threatened to be killed. She was forced to tell the court how he "did the same thing that married people do". With the corroboration by a Black Chaplain of the 4th U.S. Colored Troops as well as another young slave, Smith was found guilty of rape and conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, Smith was quickly pardoned and freed from serving another nine and one-half years of his sentence.
A "He said; She said" case is always difficult. Take the case of African American Grace Barnes in 1864. She was ganged rape by four soldiers from the 20th New York Cavalry. She suffered permanent disabilities after her attack, yet the soldiers insisted she wanted to engaged in a sexual act. She had been their laundress and admitted she stopped fighting their attack when one of the soldiers raised a stick over her head and said if she didn't stop yelling he would kill her. The military found all four men guilty however Brigadier General Foster Shepley (1819-1878) overturned their convictions claiming the only testimony that the woman who was raped was the only woman who claimed she never consented. I wonder if Shepley as the husband of two women in his life as well as three daughters would have believed their stories if they had been sexually assaulted as opposed to Grace Barnes.
From the earliest written laws found in "the Code of Hammurabi" rape has been recognized as some type of criminal act. Originally viewed as a crime of damaging ones property (usually a male in relationship to his wife or a father's virgin daughter), society was coming to the realization of how rape was a violent violation of a woman's body and could not be tolerated in a civilized society.
During the civil war it has been estimated some four hundred men were prosecuted for the crime of rape. The number is probably higher due to the hesitancy for a woman to come forward to report the crime. Bringing a man to justice was not an easy task to accomplish especially when many times if the woman happened to be working in the camp as cook or laundress she was unwilling to risk losing her employment.
Attitudes were slow to change. I found this quote from a Kentucky legislator written in 1895 proving that he certainly did not understand anything on the subject; "I regard the twelve-year-old girl as being capable of resisting the wiles of the seducer as any older woman." {5}
Pity the poor woman or girl who had to endure a sexual assault and then be accused of causing her own rape.
Sources
1. "I Had Rather Die: Rape in the Civil War", by Kim Murphy
2. https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1998/winter/union-court-martials
3. https://gettysburgcompiler.org/2015/10/05/finally-speaking-up-sexual-assault-in-the-civil-war-era/
4. "Afro-Virginian History and Culture", edited by John Saillant
5. https://ualr.edu/socialchange/2018/04/15/reflection-history-sexual-assault-laws-united-states/
Bringing the