The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 48, October, 1861

How or by whom the terrible spectacle in that chamber of death was first discovered we are not told. All we know, from the reports of the negroes, is, that Captain Wilde, who seemed stupefied at first, suddenly passed into a state of excitement little short of distraction,—now raving, as if to an imaginary listener, and then questioning and threatening those about him with incoherent violence. To these simple observers such conduct was entirely incomprehensible; but we may easily suppose that at this moment the unfortunate man first realized the fearful nature of the circumstances which surrounded him, and perceived the abyss which had yawned so suddenly at his feet. And no wonder that he shrank back from the prospect, overwhelmed for the moment with consternation and despair,—not the prospect of death, but of a degradation far worse to the proud spirit of the Kentucky gentleman, on whose good name even political hatred had never been able to fix a stain.

The terrified negroes carried the alarm to the nearest neighbors, and soon the report of this appalling occurrence was flying like lightning toward the utmost bounds of the county. The first stranger who reached the scene of death was Mr. Summers, formerly an intimate friend of Captain Wilde. When he entered the room, he found the poor gentleman on his knees beside the body of his child, with his face buried in the bed-clothes. At the sound of footsteps he raised his wild, tearless eyes, exclaiming, "My God! my God! Mr. Summers, my wife has been murdered here, in my own room, and it will be laid on me!" Shocked by the almost insane excitement of his old friend, and sensible of the imprudence of his words, Summers begged him to compose himself, pointing out the danger of such language. But the terrible thought had mastered his mind with a monomaniacal power, and to every effort at consolation from those who successively came in the only reply was, "Oh, my God, it will all be laid upon me!" Fortunately, those who heard these expressions were old friends, who, although they had been long unfamiliar, knew the native uprightness of the man, and still felt kindly toward one whose estrangement they knew was the effect of weak submission to the dictation of his wife, not the result of any change in his own feelings. They regarded his wild words as only the incoherent utterances of a mind bewildered by horror, and were anxious to put an end to the harrowing scene, and remove the stricken man as soon as possible from the observation of a mixed crowd that was now rapidly assembling from all directions, many of whom knew Captain Wilde only in his unpopular capacity of exciseman, and would therefore be apt to suspect a darker explanation of his strange behavior.

So shocking had been the sight presented to their eyes, on entering the room, that hitherto no one had had sufficient presence of mind to examine the bodies closely; but at last Mr. Summers, cooler than the rest, approached to raise that of Mrs. Wilde, and then, for the first time, perceived the bandage about her neck. It proved to be a white silk neckerchief, which Summers removed and began to examine. As he did so, his face was seen to grow suddenly pale as death. All pressed anxiously forward to see, and a silent, but fearfully significant look passed round the circle; for in one corner, embroidered in large letters, was the name of Cyril Wilde. As silently every eye sought the devoted man, and on many countenances the look of doubt settled at once into one of conviction, when they saw that he wore no cravat; and to many ears the heart-broken moan of the wretched husband and father, which a moment before seemed only the foreboding of over-sensitive innocence, now sounded like the voice of self-accusing guilt. So great is the power of imagination in modifying our beliefs!

After such a discovery an arrest followed as a matter of course; and a popular feeling adverse to the accused quickly manifested itself in the community. But it is pleasant to know, that, in spite of all appearances, many of Captain Wilde's old friends never lost faith in his innocence, or hesitated to renew in his hour of adversity the kindly relations that had existed before his marriage; while his own kindred stood by him and bravely fought his hopeless battle to the last,—employing as his advocate the celebrated John Breckenridge, who was then almost without a rival at the Kentucky bar. But, on the other hand, his wife's family pursued their unfortunate relative with a savageness of hatred hardly to be paralleled. Having hunted him to the very foot of the scaffold, their persevering malice seemed unsated even by the sight of their victim suspended as a felon before their very eyes; for it was reported, at the time, that two of the murdered woman's brothers were seen upon the ground during the execution.

And now it was that the unpopularity resulting from Captain Wilde's official employment manifested its most baleful effects. Had he possessed at this crisis the same general good-will he had enjoyed four years before, he might have bid defiance to the rage of his enemies, and have escaped, in spite of all the suspicious circumstances by which he stood environed. For the general drift of sentiment in the West has always been against capital penalties, and it is next to impossible to carry such penalties into effect against a popular favorite. In a country like this we might as soon expect to see the hands of a clock move in a direction contrary to the machinery by which it is governed, as a jury to run counter to plainly declared popular feelings. There may now and then be instances of their acquitting contrary to the general sentiment, where that sentiment is unimpassioned; but we much doubt whether there has ever occurred a single example of a jury convicting a person in whose favor the sympathy of a whole community was warmly and earnestly expressed. Of such sympathy Captain Wilde had none; for to the great majority he was known only as the exciseman, and as such was an object of hostility. Not that this hostility at any time took the form of insult and abuse,—for we are proud to say that outside of the large towns such disgraceful exhibitions of feeling are unknown,—but it left the minds of the general mass liable to be operated on by all the suspicious circumstances of the case, and by the slanders of the personal enemies of the accused.

On the 23d of November, an immense crowd of people, both men and women, were assembled in the court-house at – to witness a trial which was to fix a dark stain on the judicial annals of Kentucky, and in which, for the thousandth time, a court of justice was to be led fatally astray by the accursed thing called Circumstantial Evidence, and made the instrument of that most deplorable of all human tragedies, a formal, legalized murder. It is one of the most glaring inconsistencies of our law, that it admits, in a trial where the life of a citizen is at stake, a species of testimony which it regards as too inconclusive and too liable to misconstruction to be allowed in a civil suit involving, it may be, less than the value of a single dollar. True, it is a favorite maxim of prosecutors, that "circumstances will not lie"; but it requires little acquaintance with the history of criminal trials to prove that circumstantial evidence has murdered more innocent men than all the false witnesses and informers who ever disgraced courts of justice by their presence; and the slightest reflection will convince us that this shallow sophism contains even less practical truth than the general mass of proverbs and maxims, proverbially false though they be. For not only is the chance of falsehood, on the part of the witness who details the circumstances, greater,—since a false impression can be conveyed with far less risk of detection by distortion and exaggeration of a fact than by the invention of a direct lie,—but there is the additional danger of an honest misconception on his part; and every lawyer knows how hard it is for a dull witness to distinguish between the facts and his impressions of them, and how impossible it often is to make a witness detail the former without interpolating the latter. But the greatest risk of all is that the jury themselves may misconstrue the circumstances, and draw unwarranted conclusions therefrom. It is an awful assumption of responsibility to leap to conclusions in such cases, and the leap too often proves to have been made in the dark. God help the wretch who is arraigned on suspicious appearances before a jury who believe that "circumstances won't lie"! for the Justice that presides at such a trial is apt to prove as blind and capricious as Chance herself. In reviewing the present trial in particular, one may well feel puzzled to decide which of these deities presided over its conduct. A Greek or Roman would have said, Neither,—but a greater than either,—Fate; and we might almost adopt the old heathen notion, as we watch the downward course of the doomed gentleman from this point, and note how invariably every attempt to ward off destruction is defeated, as if by the persevering malice of some superior power. We shall soon see the most popular and influential attorney of the State driven from the case by an awkward misunderstanding; another, hardly inferior, expire almost in the very act of pleading it; and, finally, when the real criminal comes forward, at the last moment, to avert the ruin which she has involuntarily drawn down upon the head of her beloved master, and take his place upon the scaffold, we shall behold her heroic offer of self-sacrifice frustrated by influences the most unexpected,—political influences which—with shame be it told—were sufficient to induce a governor of Kentucky to withhold the exercise of executive clemency, the most glorious prerogative intrusted to our chief magistrates, and which it ought to have been a most pleasing privilege to grant: for, incredible as it may seem, Governor – knew, when he signed the death-warrant, that the man he was consigning to an ignominious grave was innocent of the crime for which he was to suffer.

The trial was opened in the presence of a crowded assembly, among whom it was easy to discern that general conviction of the prisoner's guilt so chilling to the spirits of a defendant and his counsel, and so much deprecated by the latter, because he knows too well how far it goes toward a prejudgment of his cause. Several of the most prominent members of the bar had been retained by the family of Mrs. Wilde to assist the State's attorney in the prosecution. In the defence John Breckenridge stood alone, needing no help; for all knew that whatever man could do in behalf of his client would be done by him. The prisoner himself, upon whom all eyes were turned, appeared dejected, but calm, like one who had resigned all hope. The ominous foreboding, which had so overcome him on the fatal morning of the murder, had never left him for a single moment. From that hour he had looked upon himself as doomed, and had yielded only a passive acquiescence in the measures of defence proposed by his friends, awaiting the fate which he regarded as inevitable with a patience almost apathetic. Adversity brought out in bold relief qualities that might have sustained a cause whose victories are martyrdoms, but how useless to one requiring active heroism!

All the damaging facts attending the discovery of the murder—the failure of any signs of a stranger's presence in the apartment, the peculiar behavior of the accused, the finding of his cravat on the neck of the corpse, his acknowledgment of having worn it on the previous day—were fully, but impartially, detailed by the witnesses for the Commonwealth. No one could deny that the circumstances were strongly against the prisoner: and these shadows, at best, and too often mere delusive mirages of truth, the law allows to be weighed against the life of a man. Against these shadows all the powers of Breckenridge were taxed to the uttermost; and he might have succeeded, for his eloquence was most persuasive, and his influence over the minds of the people nearly unlimited, had not a false witness appeared to add strength by deliberate perjuries to a case already strong. It was the ungrateful sister-in-law of the accused, who had owed to him a home and an asylum from the merited scorn of her family and the world, who now came forward to complete the picture of her own detestable character, and put the finishing hand to her unhallowed work, by swearing away that life which her arts had rendered scarcely worth defending, could death have come unaccompanied by disgrace. With a manner betraying suppressed, but ill-concealed eagerness, and in language prompt and fluent, as if reciting by rote a carefully kept journal, she went on to detail every fault or neglect or impatient act of her relative, not sparing exposure of the most delicate domestic events, at the same time carefully suppressing all mention of his provocations. In reply to the question, whether she had ever witnessed any violence that led her to fear personal danger to her sister, she replied, that, on one occasion, Captain Wilde, being displeased at something in relation to the preparation of a meal, seized a large carving-knife and flung it at his wife, who only escaped further outrage by flying from the house. On another occasion, she remembered, he became furiously angry because her sister wished him to see some guests, and, seizing her by the hair, dragged her to the door of his study, and cast her into the hall so violently that she lay senseless upon the floor until accidentally discovered,—her husband not even calling assistance. It is easy to imagine what an effect such exposures of the habitual brutality of the man, narrated by a near relation of the sufferer, and interrupted at proper intervals by sobs and tears, would have upon an impulsive jury, obliged to derive their knowledge of the case wholly from such a source, and already strongly impressed by the circumstantial details with a presumption unfavorable to the defendant. Now, since there were other persons in the court-house who had witnessed these two scenes of alleged maltreatment, it may seem strange that they were not brought forward to contradict this woman on those two points, which would at once have destroyed the effect of her entire testimony,—the maxim, Falsum in uno, falsum in omnibus, being always readily applied in such cases. Had this been done, a reaction of popular feeling would almost certainly have followed in favor of the accused, which might have borne him safely through, in spite of all the presumptive proof against him. For nothing is truer than Lord Clarendon's observation, that, "when a man is shown to be less guilty than he is charged, people are very apt to consider him more innocent than he may actually be." But in this case the falsehood was secured from exposure by its very magnitude, until it was too late for such exposure to be of any benefit to the prisoner. The persons who had beheld the scenes as they really occurred never thought of identifying them with brutal outrages, now narrated under oath, at which their hearts grew hard toward the unmanly perpetrator as they listened.

Against the strong array of facts and fictions presented by the prosecution the only circumstance that could be urged by the counsel for the prisoner was, that the child was murdered along with the mother; and this could only avail to strengthen a presumption of innocence, had innocence been otherwise rendered probable; but when a conviction of his guilt had been arrived at already, it merely served to increase the atrocity of his crime, and to insure the enforcement of its penalty.

After a two days' struggle, in which every resource of reason and eloquence was exhausted by the defendant's counsel, the judge proceeded to a summing up which left the jury scarcely an option, even had they been inclined to acquit. The latter withdrew in the midst of a deep and solemn silence, while the respectful demeanor of the spectators showed that at last a feeling of pity was beginning to steal into their hearts for the unhappy gentleman, who still sat, as he had done during those two long days of suspense, with his face buried in his hands, as motionless as a statue. A profound stillness reigned in the hall during the absence of the jury, broken only occasionally by a stifled sob from some of the ladies present. After an absence of less than an hour the jury returned and handed in a written verdict; and as the fatal word "Guilty" fell from the white lips of the agitated clerk, the calmest face in that whole vast assembly was that of him whom it doomed to the ignominious death of a felon. And calm he had been ever since the dreadful morning of his arrest; for the vial of wrath had then been broken upon his head, and he had tasted the whole bitterness of an agony which can be endured but a short while, and can never be felt a second time. For, as intense heat quickly destroys the vitality of the nerves on which it acts, and as flesh once deeply cauterized by fire is thenceforth insensible to impressions of pain, so the soul over which one of the fiery agonies of life has passed can never experience a repetition thereof. Besides, it is well known that the anticipation of an unjust accusation is far more agitating to a virtuous man than the reality, which is sure to arouse that strange martyr-spirit wherewith injustice always arms its victim, and supported by which alone even the most timid men have often suffered with fortitude, and the most unworthy died with dignity.

At that time the judicial arrangements of Kentucky allowed an appeal, in criminal cases, from the Circuit to the District Court; and it was determined to carry this cause before the latter tribunal, Mr. Breckenridge declaring that he believed he should be able to reverse the verdict. On what ground he founded this opinion we do not know: whether he felt convinced that the local prejudice against his client and the influence of his enemies in the County of – had mainly contributed to bring about the unfavorable result of the present hearing, and he hoped to escape these adverse agencies by a change of venue,—or whether he counted on a change of public feeling after the first burst of excitement had subsided, to bear him through,—or whether he had discovered the falsehood of the testimony of the sister-in-law,—or, finally, whether it was that he had obtained a clearer and more favorable insight into the case, and recognized grounds of hope therein,—it is impossible now to say. But it is certain, that to the defendant and his friends he declared his confidence of a final acquittal, if the cause were transferred to the appellate court; and John Breckenridge was not a man to boast emptily, or to hold out hopes which he knew could never be realized. But at this crisis occurred a strange misunderstanding, which drove from the support of the wretched victim of Fate the only man who thoroughly understood the case in all its minutest details, and would have been most likely to conduct it to a happy termination. When the preparations for the last struggle were almost completed, and the time set for the final trial drew near, Mr. McC–, who, as Captain Wilde's brother-in-law, had been most active and zealous in his behalf, was informed by some officious intermeddler that Breckenridge had said in confidential conversation among his friends, "that the case was entirely desperate, that he had no hope whatever of altering the verdict by an appeal, and the family would save money by letting the law take its course, there being no doubt of the justice of the sentence." Mr. McC–, believing that he might rely on the word of his informant, unfortunately, without making any inquiry as to the truth of the tale, and without assigning any reason, wrote to Mr. Breckenridge a curt letter of dismissal, and immediately employed George – to conduct the further defence. This gentleman, surpassed by no man in Kentucky as a logician, lawyer, and orator, was inferior to the discarded attorney in that great requisite of a jury-lawyer, personal popularity, besides laboring under the disadvantage of being new to the case, and having but a short time to make himself acquainted with its details. Personal pique and professional punctilio, of course, withheld his predecessor from affording any further assistance or advice in a business from which he had been so summarily dismissed. We cannot now measure accurately the effect of this change of counsel; we only know, that, at the time, it was considered most disastrous by those having the best opportunities of judging.

But if Mr. – went into the cause under this disadvantage, he was spurred on by the consideration that in his client he was defending a friend: for they had been friends in youth, and, though long separated, the tie had never been interrupted. Hence he threw himself into the case with an ardor which money could never have inspired, and in the course of the few remaining days had succeeded in mastering all its essential points.

The interest excited by this second trial was as deep and far more widely spread than by the first. Few proceedings of the kind in Kentucky ever called together a crowd at once so large and intelligent, a great proportion being lawyers, who had been induced to attend by the desire to witness what it was expected would be one of the most brilliant efforts of an eminent member of their fraternity.

The principal difference between the two trials was, that, on this occasion, the testimony of the sister-in-law was much damaged by the exposure both of her exaggerations and suppressions of important facts touching the incident at the breakfast-table. Having incautiously allowed herself to be drawn into particularizing so minutely as to fix the exact date, and so positively as to render retraction impossible, she was, to her own evident discomfiture, flatly contradicted by more than one of those present on that occasion, who described the scene as it actually occurred. Of course, after such a revelation of untruthfulness, her whole testimony became liable to suspicion, the more violent that the falsehood was plainly intentional. Moreover, the defendant was now provided with evidence of the constant and intolerable provocations to which he had been subjected during the whole of his married life. Of this, however, the most moderate and guarded use was to be made; because, while it was necessary, by exposing the true character and habitual violence of his wife, to relieve the prisoner of that load of public indignation which had been excited against him on account of his alleged brutality, it was even more important that no strong resentment should be supposed to have grown up on his part against his tormentor. This delicate task was managed by the attorney with such consummate skill, that, when the evidence on both sides was closed, public sympathy, if not public conviction, had undergone a very perceptible change. The prosecutors, aware of this, felt the success of their case endangered, and exerted themselves to the utmost to prevent the tide, now almost in equilibrium, from ebbing back with a violence proportionate to that of its flow. But the argument even of their ablest champion, John –, seemed almost puerile, in comparison with this, the last effort of George –,—an effort which was long remembered, even less on account of its melancholy termination than for its extraordinary eloquence. The Kentuckians of that day were accustomed to hear Breckenridge, Clay, Talbot, Allen, and Grundy, all men of singular oratorical fame,—but never, we have heard it affirmed, was a more moving appeal poured into the ears of a Kentucky jury. Availing himself of every resource of professional skill, he now demonstrated, to the full satisfaction of many, the utter inadequacy of the circumstantial evidence upon which so much stress had been laid to justify a conviction,—sifting and weighing carefully every fact and detail, and trying the conclusions that had been drawn therefrom by the most rigorous and searching logic,—and then, assailing the credibility of the testimony brought forward to prove the habitual cruelty of his client, he gave utterance to a withering torrent of invective and sarcasm, in which the character of the main hostile witness shrivelled and blackened like paper in a flame. Then—having been eight hours on his feet—he began to avail himself of that last dangerous resource which genius only may use,—the final arrow in the lawyer's quiver, which is so hard to handle rightly, and, failing, may prove worse than useless, but, sped by a strong hand and true aim, often tells decisively on a hesitating jury,—we mean a direct appeal to their feelings. Like a skilful leader who gathers all his exhausted squadrons when he sees the crisis of battle approaching, the great advocate seemed now to summon every overtaxed power of body and spirit to his aid, as he felt that the moment was come when he must wring an acquittal from the hearts of his hearers. Nor did either soul or intellect fail at the call. Higher and stronger surged the tide of passionate eloquence, until every one felt that the icy barrier was beginning to yield,—for tears were already seen on more than one of the faces now leaning breathlessly forward from the jury-box to listen,—when all at once a dead silence fell throughout the hall: the voice whose organ-tones had been filling its remotest nook suddenly died away in a strange gurgle. Several physicians present immediately divined what had happened; nor were the multitude near kept long in doubt; for all saw, at the next moment, a crimson stream welling forth from those lips just now so eloquent,—checking their eloquence, alas, forever! It was quickly reported through the assembly that the speaker had ruptured one of the larger blood-vessels in the lungs. The accident was too dangerous for delay, and George – was borne almost insensible from the scene of his struggles and his triumphs, to reënter, as it proved, no more. He lived but three days longer,—long enough, however, to learn that he had sacrificed his life in vain, the jury having, after a lengthened consideration, affirmed the former verdict against his friend and client.

The unfortunate man stood up to receive this second sentence with the same face of impassive misery with which he had listened to the first. To the solemn mockery, "If he had anything to urge why sentence of death should not be passed upon him," he shook his head wearily, and answered, "Nothing." It was evident that his mind was failing fast under the overwhelming weight of calamity. It was sad to see this high-born, but ill-fated gentleman thus bowing humbly to a felon's doom; and the remembrance of that scene must have been a life-long remorse to his judges, when the events of a few weeks revealed to them the terrible truth, that he was innocent of the crime for which they had condemned him.

We will not dwell upon the events alluded to; for even at the distance of nearly three-quarters of a century they are too painful and humiliating. Suffice it to say, that, when the murderess discovered that her beloved master was to suffer for her crime, and that no other chance of salvation remained, she made a full confession of the whole matter. But the sentence had been pronounced, and the power of suspending its execution rested with the Governor; and that dignitary—let his name, in charity, remain unsaid—was about to be a candidate for reelection to the office which he disgraced, while the family of the murdered lady was one of the most extensive and influential in the State, the whole of which influence was thrown into the scale against mercy and justice. With what result was seen, when, on the morning of the – of April, 17—, the prison-doors were opened for the last time for his passage, and Cyril Wilde was led forth to the execution of an iniquitous sentence, though, even while the sad cart was moving slowly, very slowly, through the crowded, strangely silent street, some of the very men who had pronounced it were imploring the Governor almost on their knees that it might be stayed. The prisoner alone seemed impatient to hasten the reluctant march, and meet the final catastrophe. He knew of the efforts that were making to save him, and the confession on which they were founded. He had listened to hopeful words and confident predictions; but no expression of hope had thereby been kindled for an instant on his pale, dejected face. The ominous premonition which had come upon him at the moment of that first overpowering realization of his danger continued to gain strength with every successive stroke of untoward Fate, until it had become the ruling idea of his mind, in which there grew up the sort of desperate impatience with which we long for any end we know to be inevitable. The waters of his life had been so mingled with gall, and the bitter draught so long pressed to his lips, that now he seemed only eager to drain at once the last dregs, and cast the hated cup from him forever,—impatient to find peace and rest in the grave, even if it were the grave of a felon, and at the foot of the gallows.

Here let the curtain fall upon the sad closing scene. We will only remark, in conclusion, that the name and family of this ill-fated victim of false and circumstantial evidence have long since disappeared from the land where they had known such disgrace; and but few persons are now living who can recall the foregoing details of the once celebrated "Wilde Tragedy."