The Electric War Read online

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  For Shelby, A.J., and Savannah: My everything

  INTRODUCTION

  The Gilded Age. The time period of the late nineteenth century when innovation had become big business, the next colossal invention could belong to anyone, and society itself was the battleground. The United States had established itself as an industrial superpower, leading many to say the country was run more by the patent office than by the government.

  But with this boom in innovation, man was pitted against man, and a cutthroat race was on to create the newest and most profound advancements in civilization since the wheel, like the light bulb and electric current. Be the first, and fame and fortune were yours. Be the second, and nothing, just anonymity and wishful thinking. Sabotage, conspiracy, scandal, public execution … everything was fair play on the Gilded Age battlefield, which matched genius against genius, scholar against scholar. Winner takes all.

  With this as a backdrop, the key showdown found Thomas Edison and his firmly established direct current system of electricity pitted head-to-head against Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse and their innovative and experimental alternating current system. The stakes were as high as they could be, since both sides knew almost every new invention that came along would be powered by whichever system won the battle. And since everything was turning to electric power, whoever won this competition would virtually run the world.

  This is the story of three prominent men of the Gilded Age: Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and George Westinghouse. It’s about who they were as individuals, what they did to advance society, how they worked to hone and improve their inventions, and ultimately, what they did to try to best their competition and win the battle.

  With regard to the treatment of animals represented in this book, the depictions portrayed will understandably be disturbing to many readers. Today we have strict laws pertaining to the humane treatment of animals. During the Gilded Age, however, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) was still relatively young in its development, having only been established in 1866. The descriptions of animal abuse by Harold P. Brown and others in this book are an unfortunate reminder of two realities of the Gilded Age. First, it signified the dire need to strengthen the laws and regulations to help protect animals from abuse. Second, it showed the lengths these men would go to in the name of competition.

  While the narrative chronicles the forces that drove these titans to the height of their craft, there is much more to share than the formative experiences and upbringing of each inventor. After all, history sometimes shines the spotlight on one character, leaving others in the dark. As such, this book will shed light on the extreme measures taken by Thomas Edison to win the race at all costs, and it will also attempt to give credit where it is due: to Nikola Tesla, a misunderstood scientific genius who cared not as much about the bottom line as he did about sharing his creations with the world.

  1 THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

  August 4, 1890, 10:00 p.m.

  Auburn Prison, Upstate New York

  William Kemmler was a rat in a cage, trapped in an experiment he barely understood. He sat on his cot, staring into the small amount of space around him. A cell does not afford much freedom of movement nor allow a prisoner’s gaze to travel beyond the close walls that hold him tight. With bars on one side, brick and concrete on the other three, Kemmler chose brick over iron for his meditation, fixing his eyes on a stained portion of wall that was much like the rest.

  Guards appeared often, peering into his cell intently, though not expecting much. The convict had been placed on suicide watch, but he’d never shown any inclination to harm himself. The watch was a matter of routine and had become mandatory as the expected date of execution grew closer. How much closer, Kemmler didn’t know. He knew only that sometime between August 3 and August 9 he was to be put to death for the heinous crime he had committed.

  * * *

  March 29, 1889, 8:00 a.m.

  526 South Division Street, Buffalo, New York

  It was neighbor Mary Reid who received the first confession from a blood-drenched William Kemmler, a twenty-eight-year-old vegetable peddler. Staggering into Mrs. Reid’s kitchen, the drunk man exclaimed, “I’ve killed her!”

  Reid screamed hysterically, not sure how to take Kemmler’s claim. She, like other neighbors, had grown used to hearing violent arguments between William and his wife, Matilda “Tillie” Ziegler. Kemmler was drunk. This was no surprise, even at the early morning hour, but this time he was covered in blood.

  Kemmler rushed out of the kitchen and then reappeared moments later with his four-year-old daughter, Ella. The girl cried uncontrollably, splashes of blood on her clothing. Mrs. Reid knew it was true.

  A subdued William Kemmler did not resist when taken into custody less than an hour later.

  William Kemmler, the first man condemned to death by electricity, New York Herald

  The crime scene was gruesome. On the hay-covered kitchen floor, in a dark red puddle, was a small hatchet. Twenty-six gashes covered the woman’s skull. Five severe fractures highlighted the damage to the woman’s head, her right arm had five substantial cuts, and both shoulders had large gashes. Dr. Blackman, the unfortunate gentleman called to inspect the victim at the scene, said it was the worst case he had ever been asked to examine.

  At the police station the next day, a hungover William Kemmler was honest with the Buffalo police. “I wanted to kill her,” Kemmler admitted. “And I am ready to hang for it.”

  A moment later, with little more to add, he asked for a glass of whiskey. He was denied.

  Kemmler very well might have been ready to die for his crime, but he would not die by hanging. Instead, the only ties that would bind him would be ones that would hold him down. Restraints. Capital punishment had just been turned over to science, and the entire world was talking about this historic news. But Kemmler was illiterate and often intoxicated, so he’d had no clue of the momentous change. A victim of bad timing, William Kemmler—soon to be called a “hatchet fiend” by the press—would be the first to die in the new vehicle of capital punishment: the electric chair.

  * * *

  August 5, 1890, 1:00 a.m.

  Auburn Prison, Upstate New York

  Prison chaplain Horatio Yates and Reverend Dr. Houghton walked close together in the near-empty corridor, not a word uttered between them. They arrived at William Kemmler’s dark cell, where the prison guards had to shake the man from sleep.

  Kemmler had seen these two men more than a few times over the last several weeks, but a visit in the darkness of night could mean only one thing. The two holy men solemnly informed Kemmler, still prone on his cot, that the time of his execution had been set for 6:00 a.m. the following day, August 6, 1890. Kemmler nodded calmly, turned away, and stared at the brick wall.

  It had been a long time coming, and at least, finally, the man who would be the first to die in the e
lectric chair knew when it would all come to an end.

  In the morning he’d be set free by the hands of death. It was the most comforting thought he’d ever had. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.

  2 THE FIRST SPARK

  To start a fire, three crucial elements are needed. There’s heat, like a bolt of lightning that sparks upon contact and holds the potential for a flame. But a spark alone simply flitters and then harmlessly peters out. So fuel is needed to take the spark, hold it, and activate the heat, like cardboard or wood or some other material that—when it interacts and combines with heat—causes a reaction. Add a third element in the form of an oxidizing agent, usually oxygen, and the heat and fuel and oxygen mix and combust into a steady blaze.

  Fire.

  Remove any one of the three elements, and a fire can be avoided or extinguished, like applying water to lower the temperature and disperse the heat. This chain reaction, this fire, can continue to build if the three elements remain in place, as the heat will continue to expand as it comes into contact with more fuel—like a flame jumping from tree to tree in a forest—all the while surrounded by the oxygen in the air.

  William Kemmler had become fuel without his knowledge, just another object to feed a fire that had started long before, when three elements had combined to become a combustible force.

  * * *

  August 7, 1881, 10:00 p.m.

  Brush Electric Company, Ganson Street, Buffalo, New York

  George Lemuel Smith was the heat—the first spark that started the fire William Kemmler would help fuel nearly a decade later.

  A thirty-year-old dockworker in Buffalo, George L. Smith had just spent another night on the town. Smith was a known alcoholic, and the end of the workday and the setting of the sun usually triggered the call of the saloon for Smith and his buddies. By all accounts, he was a good husband and father, and a strong-bodied man, but prone to temptation and gambling with friends.

  Earlier that evening, Smith and three of his friends had reportedly visited the Brush Electric Company plant on Ganson Street. This was not odd; many people from near and far made the visit to Brush Electric.

  The plant had been open for a year, built to power the blinding arc lights around the area, which had helped Buffalo develop a reputation as a center of technology and progress. This structure was massive in scale, housing multiple dynamos and generators that held and distributed electric power, which the world wasn’t completely familiar—or comfortable—with at the time. To help ease the townsfolk’s minds and ensure that this was not a place to be feared, the plant was built with public relations in mind, and visitors were routinely welcomed inside to view the marvel of modern technology.

  Just inside the main door, a large generator had become a showpiece for the plant, with many visitors crowding around it during business hours to see the machine at work. As more and more people had come, word had spread that if you held on to the three-foot-high railing that surrounded the generator, you could feel a surge jump from generator to railing to your body. It was a harmless tickling sensation along the skin, one that elicited laughter and smiles in those who experimented with the little game.

  Brush Electric security guards and staff did not encourage or promote this activity, but groups of tourists would simply wait until the generator was left unattended. Then these eager visitors would hold hands, trailing the surge harmlessly from the person in contact with the railing to all the others, like an electrified human chain that snaked around the room.

  Smith and his three friends had kicked off their night on the town by visiting Brush Electric, holding the railing to experience the surge. But after hitting the saloon and spending hour upon hour downing drink after drink, Smith decided to head back to Brush Electric to “stop the generator,” as one of his friends later reported Smith had said.

  Smith made his way to the building, but his first attempt was thwarted when the manager of the plant, G. W. Chaffee, chased him off. And the following couple of attempts went much the same way, as other attendants forced him to vacate the premises. But the inebriated man was stubborn and stayed hidden in the darkness, watching and waiting for a final opportunity to make it to the generator.

  When Chaffee was forced to look after another generator inside the plant and the police officer and other attendants had walked away from the main door, Smith placed one hand on the side of the generator, expecting the tingling surge he’d felt many times before while holding the railing.

  Nothing.

  He lowered his other hand to the other side of the generator, sandwiching the powerful monster in a sort of drunken hug. His body went stiff upon contact—his hug giving way to a statuesque pose of an incredibly upright and well-postured man.

  The attendants saw Smith’s body stiff as a board and quickly rushed to his aid. They tried to pry his body away from the generator but found his hands stuck firmly to the machine, as if a magnetic force had taken hold. Soon after, they had the generator shut down, and Smith’s body slumped lifelessly to the ground.

  Chaffee and other witnesses claimed Smith had died instantly, no suffering and no cries of pain, and not so much as a small flame or burn left on his body.

  An autopsy by Dr. Joseph Fowler in the following days determined Smith had died upon contact with the generator, Fowler officially listing the cause of death as “paralysis of the nerves of respiration.” He confirmed there had been no burning skin or tissue damage, supporting witness accounts that no flame or spark had harmed the man’s body.

  * * *

  Alfred P. Southwick was the fuel—the first source to harness the heat from the spark created by George L. Smith’s death.

  A dentist by trade, Southwick would not have seemed the most logical person to invent a device that utilized the raw power of electricity. But given the time period, when life was changing quickly and technology advancing by the day, Southwick, like many people of the era, kept his finger on the pulse of the innovative boom around him.

  Southwick, a faculty member of the University of Buffalo Dental School, had turned to dentistry later than most, at the age of thirty-six, having been an engineer at the Great Lakes Steamboat Company and then the chief engineer at the Western Transit Company. He published a few scholarly articles on steam engine design and had participated in scientific discussion groups. His experience as an engineer allowed him to experiment with electricity for practical use, and his interest in the science of electrical current continued even after his change in occupation.

  As he turned to dentistry, Southwick displayed an inventive mind, designing an effective implant for a cleft palate. He also successfully employed a low-voltage electric current as a numbing agent during oral surgery. His recognition as a leader in the dental field grew.

  When Dr. Fowler had presented his findings to a group of amateur scientists in the days following Smith’s autopsy, it didn’t take long for the inquisitive dentist to get lost in a whirlwind of wonder after learning that George L. Smith had died instantly by way of the high-voltage exposure, without pain or suffering. Southwick’s mind went to work, and he settled on the idea of using electricity as a more humane mode of execution.

  The timing was right, as hanging had been attacked as inhumane, with bungled executions piling up and the news sprinkling over the public. New York governor David B. Hill felt the pressure and called on the scientific community to find a more modern method of execution, stating that “the present mode of executing criminals by hanging has come down to us from the dark ages.”

  Alfred P. Southwick knew he had a better method. But he was a dentist, not a scientist. What ground did he stand on to recommend the use of electricity to replace hanging? He had to be able to show proof that electricity was a more instant, painless, and civilized means of death.

  The dentist-turned-inventor soon teamed up with Buffalo physician George Fell in designing a device to euthanize animals, namely dogs. In 1887, the two entered into an agreement with the Buffalo SPCA to conduc
t experiments on stray dogs, which had begun to overwhelm the city of Buffalo to the point where there was a twenty-five-cent bounty on each stray turned in. Southwick and Fell, the SPCA hoped, could supply a humane method of getting rid of the many strays that had to be dealt with.

  Their crude design included a “box” filled with an inch of water, with wires from an arc light dipping down into the bottom. Dogs were led inside and, by all accounts, were killed instantly by the high-voltage charge. It wasn’t long before Southwick and Fell began designing a chair, modeled after a dentist’s chair, to help solve the problem of replacing the “primitive” method of hanging with a more “civilized” mode of execution.

  At the same time, Governor Hill was under fire more each day with the continued public fiascos that took place at the gallows. The public was looking to the governor for answers. Governor Hill, who had an eye for the new inventions popping up around the world, claimed science could provide a method that was “less barbarous” than hanging.

  Alfred P. Southwick heard Governor Hill’s call. He knew this was his opportunity, so he turned to his longtime friend and current state senator, Daniel McMillan. Southwick convinced McMillan to introduce a bill to investigate the “most humane and approved method” of execution. This bill was passed in 1886, and a commission was appointed, originally made up of three men: Alfred P. Southwick himself, Albany lawyer Matthew Hale, and the commodore of the New York Yacht Club, Elbridge T. Gerry. The group was dubbed the Gerry Commission, although it was more often referred to as the “Death Commission.”

  After studying the history of hanging as a means of execution, the Gerry Commission concluded that there was a definite need for a “speedier and more merciful” mode of execution. This commission listened to, experimented with, and considered many alternatives, at first leaning toward an overdose of morphine by injection as the top alternative. However, the contentions were that people reacted differently to poisons, with some dying instantly, while others endured a more prolonged death. Additionally, the hypodermic needle was a new device in medicine, and since it was being widely introduced in general practice, physicians did not want the public to develop a negative association for needles. In the end, the Gerry Commission concluded that death by electrocution was the best alternative, as it incorporated the symbol of modernization—electricity—with the need to maintain a civilized society.