• • •
It had been a long haul. There were business, legal, and engineering challenges. A big-city alternating-current plant might light up as many as ten thousand lights, but the World’s Fair was 160,000 lights, plus a good number of motors. All of this would be powered by twelve oil-fueled engines that had been installed only weeks earlier in Machinery Hall. No dirty coal smoke would rain down to stain the White City—the nickname given the main thoroughfare through the World’s Fair due to the white classical buildings that lined both sides of an immense reflecting pool.
As George Westinghouse stood on the bunted platform with other officiating guests, he fretted that it was all now out of his hands. President Grover Cleveland would press the gold and ivory telegraph key to light the World’s Columbian Exhibition, which celebrated the four-hundred-year anniversary of Columbus’s great voyage of discovery. Westinghouse would just stand there and smile.
Westinghouse didn’t realize he had been holding his breath until the lights came on with a roar from tens of thousands of spectators. It was magnificent. Fountains threw plumes of water a hundred feet into the air, flags unfurled, cannon and boat whistles assaulted the ears, and everybody yelled. The elegant White City instantaneously became the Bright City as it burst out of darkness. The gold dome of the Administration Building glowed; crowds on walkways and steps and lawns abruptly came into view; and the peristyle at the far end of the Great Basin seemed to glow from within. This entire spectacle came from Westinghouse lamps and motors powered by Westinghouse engines. All of it was made possible by the genius of Nikola Tesla and his alternating current.
Westinghouse felt himself smiling. It had all worked. The lamps, the motors, the engines, and the transmission lines. It was an entire electrical system fit for a city. Everywhere he looked there was glittering brightness and happy faces.
It was a new dawn, and a man-made one at that.
Coney Island, New York
Ten years later: January 4, 1903
In the decade since the founding of General Electric, Thomas Edison concentrated his talents on industries like mining and motion pictures. His own mines had not been profitable, but his patented techniques for things such as magnetic separation, blasting, conveying, and crushing had proven to be lucrative. His greatest enthusiasm, however, was for movies. He had watched their effect on audiences. One good film could alter the thinking of thousands of people.
The Edison Motion Picture Studio was making history by filming the first ever movie with a story. He was sure that film, The Great Train Robbery, would make money, but the movie he was about to make on Coney Island was far more important to him: It would be the first death ever captured on film.
Edison’s plan was to film an elephant being electrocuted with alternating current produced by a Westinghouse dynamo. The execution itself would be watched live by thousands of people at Luna Park, but the movie would have a much wider reach.
Edison knew that the war on currents was essentially finished. Even General Electric, the company he’d founded, had embraced alternating current. But he also knew that revenge was best when it was unexpected.
The elephant to be killed was a three-ton female named “Topsy,” who was reputed to have killed three people over the last few years. The latest was a cruel trainer who’d tried to feed her a lit cigarette. Her owners, believing she was too dangerous to keep, first attempted to poison her with cyanide. A thousand people gathered to watch the event, but Topsy didn’t budge.
With New York having abandoned hanging in favor of the electric chair, Topsy’s owners saw the potential for another live event.
So did Thomas Edison.
Sensing an opportunity to strike back against Westinghouse in dramatic fashion, Edison stepped forward to volunteer his electrical expertise on one condition. They’d have to let him film the entire event.
• • •
Edison checked in with his electrical technicians. They assured him that everything was ready. Then he checked in with his camera crew. They were set as well.
Edison waved and a circus trainer led the ill-fated elephant to the electrocution apparatus that he had designed. Edison glanced back and forth between Topsy and the cameraman. The death march was all being captured on film.
Edison directed the filming to stop once Topsy was in position. He did not want to film the long process of fitting Topsy with electrodes and the specially designed copper-lined sandals that would transmit the current.
The trained elephant dutifully raised each foot so the sandals could be slipped underneath. While the animal was being prepared, Edison checked the electrical equipment again and reminded the guards to hold the onlookers away from the camera. There would be only one take.
Finally, all was in place. Edison signaled and the cameraman started filming again.
He waited until he was certain the camera was fully operational, and then he signaled again. Then 6,600 volts pulsed through the sandals and into Topsy.
Smoke billowed from Topsy’s feet and she shuttered violently. She tried to shake one of the sandals loose, but quickly convulsed, then tumbled forward onto her head and rolled over to her side. Smoke continued to billow from her until the alternating current was turned off after a full ten seconds.
Topsy never moved again.
EPILOGUE
In 1893, the same year as the World’s Fair that had showcased alternating current, George Westinghouse won the Niagara Falls hydropower contract that cemented his company’s dominance. After a long and brutal financial battle, New York and Boston bankers gained control of Westinghouse Electric in 1909 and ousted Westinghouse as its chairman. He continued to successfully run his other businesses until his death five years later.
Thomas Edison built a ten-company motion picture trust that tried to monopolize the movie industry. Edison used the trust to limit the length of films to ten to twenty minutes because he believed that was the attention span of audiences. The trust also refused to identify actors by name to prevent them from demanding higher salaries. To escape the Edison Trust, independent producers fled New York for a town in California that was protected by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ distaste for patent infringement claims. The town was called Hollywood.
Alternating current won the war, but direct current has not disappeared completely. Batteries, solar power systems, and electronics with circuit boards still rely on it. However, one of the devices at the center of the Edison-Westinghouse War of Currents does not: the electric chair.
On January 16, 2013, Virginia death row inmate Robert Gleason chose to die from electrocution rather than lethal injection. He was executed with the same system of electricity now used safely in millions of homes around the world: alternating current.
6
The Battle of Wounded Knee: Medals of Dishonor
Grand River, South Dakota
December 12, 1890
“Rescue me from these traitors!” Sitting Bull shouted.
Lieutenant Bull Head was getting more concerned by the minute. What had started as a relatively simple mission to arrest this Indian chief for his involvement in a Sioux uprising was quickly getting out of hand.
The lieutenant, in response to orders from General Nelson A. Miles, had entered the camp at first light with forty-two other Indian police. They’d hoped to arrest the old chief quickly and quietly, before his hundreds of followers could react.
But that’s not at all what happened.
The lieutenant had entered Sitting Bull’s cabin and found the chief and his sons asleep. Sitting Bull had been nude and it took a few minutes for him to dress. He had been willing to come quietly at first, but Crow Foot, one of his sons, started to berate his father for not resisting. When the small party stepped outside, the lieutenant saw that armed Sioux had gathered in front of the cabin. Sitting Bull, incited by his son, began to order his people to kill Lieutenant Bull Head. “This man is the leader!” he shouted. “Kill him and the others will flee!”
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The lieutenant saw that his fellow policemen were holding back the angry Sioux in a wide arc, but they were surrounded and had no way to get to their horses. Damn the Ghost Dancers, he thought. The Sioux danced for days on end in a ritual meant to reunite the living and the dead and eliminate evil, including the white man, from the world. Hundreds of these crazed believers had made camp around Sitting Bull’s cabin, and it now seemed that they were all coming to their leader’s defense.
Bull Head hated these ignorant Ghost Dancers and what they were doing to the public’s perception of Indians. What they practiced, he believed, wasn’t a religion; it was wishful thinking. The buffalo weren’t coming back, and the white men weren’t going anywhere. The Sioux way of life had to change to fit the new reality.
Bull Head knew the Ghost Dancers hated him, as well. They thought he was a traitor to his people for joining the Indian Police. Nonsense. Yes, the Indian Police reported to the U.S. Indian agent in charge of the reservation, but they also kept the white men away from his people. After all, if his unit had not come to arrest Sitting Bull, it would have been a company of cavalrymen.
At this moment, however, that logic was irrelevant. He was holding the Sioux chief, who was still yelling to his Ghost Dancers to attack, by the elbow with one hand, and his army Colt in the other. He wished he could just knock him unconscious; Sitting Bull’s yelling was going to get them all killed.
The lieutenant saw motion out of the corner of his eye. He snapped his head around just in time to see a young warrior named Catch the Bear charging at him with a raised pistol. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. He saw smoke come from the pistol’s barrel but didn’t hear the gunfire. Then he felt a searing pain in his side. He heard his own scream of pain as the shot twisted him back in the direction of Sitting Bull.
As he fell to the ground, only one thought entered his head: kill Sitting Bull. He fired his Colt into the chief just before he saw another bullet shatter his head. Then everything went to black.
Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota
December 18, 1890
General Nelson A. Miles read the report on the Sitting Bull incident for a second time. The first time he’d read it to get a general overview of what happened. His second reading was a search for bias or obfuscation. He found neither. Major James McLaughlin, the Indian agent at the Standing Rock Reservation in northern South Dakota, appeared to have written a straightforward recitation of the facts as he saw them. Miles was pleased, but also somewhat surprised. He’d had difficulties with McLaughlin before.
Less than three weeks earlier, the general had asked William “Buffalo Bill” Cody to arrest Sitting Bull. The two men had worked together in Cody’s Wild West Show and Miles believed that their existing relationship would ensure a peaceful arrest. Cody traveled to South Dakota with two wagonloads of gifts for Sitting Bull, but McLaughlin went over Miles’s head and sent a telegram to Washington, pleading that the order be rescinded. The Bureau of Indian Affairs agreed and Buffalo Bill was sent back to Washington empty-handed.
General Miles thought about how much easier his life would be if he could order the Indian agents around in the same way he did his own soldiers. Unfortunately, his request that reservation duties be run by the military had been rebuffed. The Indian reservation agents remained civilian political appointees of the Office of Indian Affairs. Politicians viewed these positions as spoils and often appointed donors or their relatives to the jobs. Many were corrupt and made Miles’s job more difficult by cheating the Indians of food and materials for personal gain.
Agent Daniel F. Royer, the agent at the Pine Ridge Reservation on the Nebraska border, may or may not have been corrupt, but he was certainly, Miles thought, incompetent. Royer, who Miles knew was referred to by the Sioux as the “Young-man-afraid-of-Indians,” had sent numerous telegrams to Washington pleading for help with Ghost Dancers. One of them claimed that “Indians are dancing in the snow and are wild and crazy. We need protection and we need it now.” Royer’s hysteria had prompted the War Department to treat spiritual fervor as a major Sioux uprising.
In truth, Sitting Bull’s death was not all Royer’s fault. Settlers in the area had also persistently complained to Washington about the Ghost Dancers and newspapers around the country had panicked readers with strange stories about crazed Sioux dancing to bring about a messiah who would rid them of the white man.
The government’s response was swift and convincing. They mobilized the largest number of troops since the Civil War to head to Grand River, South Dakota. There, under the authority of General Miles, the Sioux were ordered back to their reservations. Those who complied were labeled “friendlies” and those who did not were called “hostiles.”
Once in Grand River, Miles had assumed that the legendary Chief Sitting Bull was one of those leading the Ghost Dancers. After the general’s attempt to have Buffalo Bill arrest the chief failed, McLaughlin sent a large squad of Indian police to take him into custody. That arrest had been terribly mishandled and ended with the police killing Sitting Bull and his two sons—one of whom was just twelve years old. In addition, six policemen, including their commander, Lieutenant Bull Head, were killed. The entire affair had raised the rage and indignation of both the army and the Sioux. South Dakota was now a tinderbox—and Miles was sitting right in the middle of it.
He tossed the report onto his desk just as he heard a knock at the door. “Come in.”
Major Samuel Whitside entered and Miles waved him into a chair. “Major, as you know, many of the hostile Sioux are hiding in the Badlands. For now, they appear content to stay concealed, but these hostiles may go on the warpath any day. It appears Chief Big Foot and his band are trying to join up with them.”
“That would make a large force, general,” Whitside said. “I don’t think that’s advisable.”
“Good, I’m glad you agree with me. Your orders are to take the Seventh Cavalry, find Big Foot, and escort him and his band back here to Pine Ridge. He’s broken his promises to come in before, so don’t allow him to make his own way here. You are to stay with him the whole way. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Dismissed.”
Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota
December 28, 1890
Major Samuel Whitside stood in his stirrups to get a better view.
Big Foot’s band was moving south, along Wounded Knee Creek toward Pine Ridge. Scouts had reported that the hostile Sioux were hiding to the north in the Badlands, meaning that the rumor about the groups joining forces was likely false. The first good news of the week, Whitside thought.
As he and his troops slowly closed in on Big Foot, three Sioux warriors came forward on their horses, a white flag held high by the one on the right. Whitside and two troopers spurred their own horses and galloped out to meet the three in open land between the soldiers and the rest of the Sioux.
When the horses came nose to nose, Whitside asked, “Where is Chief Big Foot?”
“Ill,” answered the warrior in the center.
“Bring him. I won’t negotiate with anyone else.” Whitside didn’t trust Big Foot. He had a history of duplicity, and Whitside knew that negotiating with anyone other than the chief was pointless.
After a silent standoff, the warrior spoke in Lakota to the man on his left, who then rode off to join the main party. The three cavalrymen faced the two Sioux in silence until a wagon pulled up carrying Big Foot.
Whitside peeked inside. The chief was indeed ill, very ill. He looked exhausted and pale and was coughing up blood, which made it difficult for him to speak. Whitside sent one of his soldiers for the surgeon, but it looked to him like Big Foot had pneumonia.
Big Foot’s informal party consisted of about 120 men and 250 women and children. Whitside realized immediately that this was not a war party. These Sioux were a pathetic collection of refugees.
While they waited for the surgeon, Big Foot had readily agreed to be escorted to the Pine Ridge R
eservation. Once the surgeon arrived, they moved slowly toward their destination, carrying Big Foot along in an army ambulance with a cot and medical supplies.
In the late afternoon, a scout reported an open swale at the intersection of several trails ahead. On inspection, Whitside found the location to be suitable to make camp for the night. He ordered army tents erected in five rows facing the Sioux tepees, which were lined up in an arc that followed the contours of a dry ravine. A small open field separated the two groups. Whitside then ordered troops placed on the backside of the ravine, on a couple knolls overlooking the camp, and along the side of the Sioux encampment.
“Sir, should we disarm them?” asked one of his officers.
Whitside thought about it for a moment. The surgeon had earlier confirmed that Big Foot indeed had pneumonia. “No. The Sioux are jumpy and suspicious after the Sitting Bull incident and their chief is ill. Let them see we mean them no harm and get comfortable with our presence. We’ll disarm them in the morning after breakfast and then continue on to Pine Ridge.”
Whitside ordered three hundred army rations distributed to the Sioux and a stove delivered to Big Foot’s tepee. Then he walked the perimeter of the two camps and was pleased, considering the circumstances, that the situation seemed to be under control.
A scout rode up and swung out of his saddle. After a crisp salute, he said, “Colonel Forsyth is just behind me with the Second Battalion. He should arrive about eight this evening to assume command.”
Major Whitside breathed a sigh of relief. This was no longer his problem.
Wounded Knee, South Dakota
December 29, 1890
Colonel James W. Forsyth had arrived the prior evening to take command of the combined force of five hundred cavalrymen, plus a company of scouts. Once he was settled, he called Major Whitside over. “Major, please explain to me why these Indians are not being properly guarded.”
“Colonel, given Big Foot’s illness, the distrust the Sioux have for us, and the fact that the band has peacefully and willingly followed us to this point, I thought it best to place troops only along the backside for now.” He swallowed hard.