The lawyers mobilize. They launch additional suits and countersuits. They record depositions and file affidavits. They probe the political connections of judges in search of sympathetic venues. They furnish reporters with information damaging to their opponents and seek to limit the harm done by their opponents’ releases.
The Fisk side produces a statement by Richard King, the servant lately of Josie’s, who declares that he has overheard Josie, Ned Stokes, and Marietta Williams, Josie’s cousin and housemate, discussing a plan for selling Fisk’s letters to Josie to the newspapers or, alternatively, blackmailing Fisk to prevent the publication. “They said that they could get a large amount of money out of Mr. Fisk in that way,” King testifies. He goes on to quote Josie as saying to Stokes: “I have the letters, and I will give them to you and let you use them to your best advantage and make all you can out of Mr. Fisk.”
Fisk sues Josie and Stokes for blackmail, citing the King statement, and applies for an injunction to bar publication. A judge who owes his position to Bill Tweed grants Fisk the injunction.
Josie retaliates with a libel suit against Fisk. “Each and every one of said conversations are false and untrue,” she swears. Her lawyers publish an affidavit from another servant, Maggie Ward, who claims that Fisk offered her inducements to say what King had said: that Josie and Stokes were trying to blackmail him. “I told Fisk that I would not swear to anything of the kind for the whole Erie Railroad,” Miss Ward says, “as it would be wholly false, wicked and untrue, and he knew it.” She adds that Fisk asked her what she thought of King’s affidavit. “I told him I thought it was awful, and he ought to be ashamed of himself for getting King to make such an affidavit. Fisk then told me I had better tell Miss Mansfield, if I were a friend of hers, to stop making affidavits or drawing papers against him or she would get into great trouble.”
In filing their lawsuit, Josie’s lawyers have chosen their venue wisely. Judge Butler Bixby, presiding over the Yorkville Police Court on the Upper East Side, is a foe of Tweed and Tammany. He signs out an arrest warrant against Fisk and sets bail at $35,000.
The Yorkville arrest clerk carries the warrant to the Opera House. The business of the Erie has gotten Fisk and Gould arrested numerous times; they keep a bail bondsman on staff. Fisk glances at Josie’s warrant and hands it to the bondsman, who prepares the bond for Fisk’s signature. The transaction—arrest, bond, bail—takes but minutes.
The suit goes to trial in November 1871. A large and rowdy audience fills Judge Bixby’s Yorkville court. The demeanor of many of the visitors and the tone of their responses to the testimony suggest a connection to the Erie Railroad, and reporters soon ascertain that Fisk has granted a paid holiday to workers who report this morning to the courthouse instead of the roundhouse.
Josie arrives on time, with Marietta Williams. Fisk comes late, resplendent in his military uniform. He is accompanied by his attorneys, William Beach and Charles Spencer. Josie’s counsel, John McKeon, sits beside Assistant District Attorney John Fellows, who has joined Josie’s lawsuit on grounds that libel is a crime and Fisk needs to be convicted of something.
McKeon opens for Josie’s side with what will prove a theme of the trial: the assertion that Fisk, far from being the fun-loving, even clownish Prince of Erie, is really a dangerous man. Anyone who crosses him, man or woman, does so at hazard to health and limb. “I know the risk a man runs by opposing Mr. Fisk,” McKeon says. “A man’s life is in danger.” But Fisk has finally met his match. “I mean to tell him, and he may sneer at it, the day may come when some developments may be made which will shock this community. Mr. Fisk will find at least one man that cannot be intimidated.”
As the court and the audience ponder the meaning of this statement—who is the man that will not be intimidated?—Josie is summoned to the witness stand. She relates how Richard King was stolen away from her. “He left my employment without giving any notice whatever. I returned home one afternoon and found he had left.”
District Attorney Fellows reads King’s affidavit alleging the blackmail conspiracy. “Now, Miss Mansfield, will you state whether the conversations here alluded to ever took place?” Fellows asks.
“Never in this world,” Josie replies.
Was there anything true in King’s allegations, or were they entirely false?
“False in every particular.”
Fellows thanks the witness and turns her over to Fisk’s attorney for cross-examination.
Charles Spencer asks her how old she is.
“I will be twenty-four years of age on the 15th of December next, and have resided in this city since 1867. I resided immediately previous in Philadelphia.”
“Are you a married lady?”
“I was married in San Francisco, in 1864, to Mr. Frank Lawlor. I had not been previously married. I only resided in San Francisco a few months. I married in September, and left on the 11th of January following.”
“Have you any recollection, Miss Mansfield, while you were in San Francisco, of Mr. Lawlor’s placing a pistol to a man’s head?”
The question takes Josie by surprise, and the audience as well. She looks plaintively to the judge, who offers no assistance. “Never to my knowledge,” she says hesitantly.
“Have you any recollection of a pistol being placed at a man’s head in your presence?”
She appears pained but determined. “Well,” she says, “I can’t tell unless you tell me by whom, because I don’t remember.”
District Attorney Fellows objects to this line of questioning as irrelevant.
Spencer responds that he is testing the credibility of the witness. In a case of alleged blackmail, he says, he ought to be able to question the general truthfulness of the plaintiff.
Fellows rejoins that the plaintiff’s past personal life has nothing to do with the case at hand. Her marriage, her divorce, and anything pertaining to those, he says, should be excluded.
Spencer reiterates that the credibility of the witness is crucial to her charge of blackmail, as it is a matter of her word against Fisk’s—and King’s.
Judge Bixby accepts Spencer’s arguments and lets the questioning proceed.
“Can you not tell me whether in San Francisco a pistol was pointed in your presence at a man’s head?” Spencer asks again.
“There was a circumstance of that kind,” Josie answers.
“Was it a man by the name of D. W. Pearly?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Was it pointed at him by a person of the name of Warren?”
“Yes.”
“Where was Pearly at the time?”
“In the parlor of my mother’s house.”
“Did he sign a check before he went out?”
“Yes.”
“For how much?”
“I have not the remotest idea.”
“Did you hear the amount mentioned?”
“No.”
“Was there any relation subsisting at the time between yourself and the person called Warren?”
“He married my mother.”
“Any between yourself and Mr. Pearly?”
“None whatever.”
“When Warren called and found Pearly inside, what did he say?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Do you recollect Warren coming into the room and charging Pearly with being criminally intimate with you, and telling him he must either be shot or pay?”
The audience is hanging on every word. Stories of Josie’s past have made the rounds in New York; these have included tales of her work as an “actress” in San Francisco and of an abusive stepfather. But those in attendance today suddenly surmise that Josie’s stepfather pimped her out and threatened at least one of her clients with blackmail.
Josie is obviously distressed and flustered. “Nothing of that kind passed at all,” she insists. But then she contradicts herself. “I don’t remember anything about a check. Warren did not shoot Pearly. Pearly left through the door.”
Spencer takes advantage of her discomfiture. “Did he have anything on him except his shirt?”
“He was fully dressed.”
Spencer gives her a skeptical look. He lets the image of Josie and her john and her stepfather-pimp, with the gun of the stepfather leveled at the john, who pays his tab before fleeing the scene of the illegal liaison, sans pants, linger in the courtroom for several moments.
Spencer then asks Josie to explain where she got her divorce.
“I got divorced from my husband in New York state,” she answers. “The divorce was signed by Judge Barnard. My husband was served with notice of the divorce in this city.”
Spencer asks how Josie met Fisk.
“I first saw him in the house of Annie Wood, in Thirty-fourth Street. She was an actress, and an acquaintance of my husband.”
“When you became acquainted with Fisk, had you any property?”
“A little.”
“How much personal property had you, outside of your personal ornaments?”
“I might not have had a bank book, but I certainly was not poverty stricken. I have always been well cared for.”
“You appear to be,” Spencer says, nodding knowingly. Some in the audience laugh. “How much personal property did you have at this time?”
Josie’s lawyers object, and the question is excluded.
Spencer ascertains that Josie lived at the America Clubhouse after meeting Fisk. “During the time you resided at this clubhouse, did Fisk pay your board?” he asks.
“No, sir, not to my knowledge, nor did he make me any presents individually.”
“Did he directly or indirectly furnish means for you while you were at the clubhouse?”
Josie turns to Judge Bixby. “Am I obliged to answer that question?”
The judge responds that she is not required to say anything that will incriminate or disgrace her.
“Did he, directly or indirectly, furnish means for you while you were at the clubhouse?” Spencer repeats.
“He did not personally contribute to my support, but it was through him I made some money, through some speculations. I don’t, of course, think that he supported me. I did not understand it so. It was not done with that intention at all.”
The audience listens closely and, by the dubious looks on many faces, disbelievingly as the kept woman denies her keeping.
Spencer articulates the room’s doubts. “Do I understand you to say that when you were at this clubhouse you were supported through money received from stock operations conducted on your behalf by Colonel Fisk?”
“Yes, it was to that effect.”
“What were these stock operations?”
“They were some entered into by a mutual friend of ours—Mr. Marston.”
“Who furnished Marston money for the operation?”
“I don’t know who furnished him with the money. I suppose it was his own.”
“Did you ever receive money from Marston or Fisk as the proceeds of that stock operation?”
“Yes, sir, two or three hundred dollars a month.”
Heads in the audience wag.
Spencer pursues the narrative. “Where did I understand you to say you moved from the clubhouse?”
“To Jersey City.”
The audience stirs with anticipation at this reference to the notorious flight of the Erie directors.
“And you mentioned you were there with Fisk for nine weeks?”
“Yes.”
“Did he not support and maintain you during that time?”
“I don’t think so, directly. The money, I suppose, came from the Erie Railway. I went to Jersey on that occasion with the officers of the Erie company, and the railroad paid all the expense.”
“Where were you staying in Jersey City?”
“Taylor’s Hotel, where I occupied a suite of rooms.”
“Did anybody occupy them with you?”
“All the time, do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Mr. Fisk did, sometimes.”
“Anybody else?”
“During the day it was used as a sort of rendezvous by the officers.”
“During the night only by yourself and Colonel Fisk?”
“Yes.”
Spencer lets this picture—of Josie and Fisk on the lam in Taylor’s Hotel—sink in. He then asks for details about the stock operations from which Josie received her income. “Did you see any of them?”
“It was not necessary for me to see them personally.”
“Then the money you supposed came from these operations came to you from Fisk personally?”
“Yes.”
Spencer asks about Josie’s house. “You changed your residence to your present dwelling at what time?”
“1868, I think.”
“Where did you get the means to purchase the house?”
“Out of my stock speculations.”
“And through the same process and in the same way you describe?”
“Not exactly.”
“What was the difference?”
“From the money I made out of the stock speculations I bought government bonds and held these some time.”
“Who got these bonds?”
“I think Mr. Fisk’s clerk bought them for me.”
“Who furnished money to buy these bonds?”
“It was furnished out of these stock speculations.”
“Did you get the money personally and give it for these bonds, or did not Mr. Fisk furnish all these moneys?”
“He did not. I held the money given for the bonds in my hands before the bonds were bought.”
“Where did you get that money?”
“From Fisk.”
Spencer nods as if to underline these words: “From Fisk.” He consults his papers. He walks across the courtroom and back.
He asks about the letters Fisk has written her. Did she ever give the letters to anyone else?
“I never did.”
“Did you supply them to Mr. Stokes?”
The audience buzzes. Josie realizes she has stumbled. She answers slowly: “I gave them to him, to the number of about seventy-five.”
“They were the original letters that Colonel Fisk had written to you during your intimacy with him?”
“Yes.”
“And you gave them to Mr. Stokes for what purpose?”
“Because he told me it would benefit him in the case that was pending between him and Mr. Fisk at the time.”
“You furnished these letters to Mr. Stokes at his request, he saying to you that they would be a benefit to him in this litigation?”
“I did.” She doesn’t like how this sounds. “I did not mean it would be a benefit so much as an explanation.”
“Did he ever return them to you?”
“No, to my surprise.”
“Have you seen any of these letters since?”
“Never.”
“You don’t personally know what became of them?”
“Not personally.”
“Did you furnish these letters to any person in the employ of the Herald office?”
“Never.”
“You furnished them to Mr. Stokes?”
“Yes.”
“To be used against Fisk?”
“Yes.”
Another pause from Spencer, to let the court, the jury, and the audience appreciate the implications for blackmail of this admission.
Spencer brings Bill Tweed and Tammany Hall into the conversation. “Did you go to Albany about the matter?” he asks Josie.
“Yes.”
“To whom?”
“To Mr. Tweed.”
For what purpose?
“I thought there would be a good deal of publicity about this matter, and I wanted to avoid it.”
It has been a long session, but the injection of Tweed into the tale ends it with a wicked twist, one that is potentially damning to Josie. Spencer sits down and lets all present ponder Josie’s shameless treachery in working her feminine wiles on Tweed to further her blackmail scheme against Tweed’s friend and ally and her erstwhile lover, Jim Fisk.