Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1874-09-19
TILTON'S NEW STATEMENT.
n POWERFUL DOCUMENT.
FRESH FACTS, LETTERS, AND DARGU
MENrS.
The Two Confessions Detailed.

to the public, and covering twenty-fonr columns
of printed matter. He commences by complain
ing of the injustice done to him by the Plymouth
church committee, and says that his former
statement was intended for them alone, and not
for the public. The committee did not summon
the witnesses who could have proved his case,
or else their testimony WAS set aside. Many OF
the letters now published have been in print in
former statements, but Mr.. Tilton uses them
again as necessary to his narrative, which will,
he says, correct and counteract the untrue
denials of Mr.. Beecher and Mrs. Tilton, and the
unjust deductions of the committee.
TILTON 8 RELATIONS WITH BKRCHBR.
Mr.. Tilton commences by quoting numerous
letters of love and confidence that passed
between him and Beecher prior TO July, 1870,
and says:
s'These evidences disprove Mrs. Tilton's ex-
traordinaIy and fictitious charge, wherein
speaking of what she calls " the last ten years, {"
"whose stings and pains she daily schooled her
self to bury and forgive,"-she said that one of
these stings and palms, was the fact that her
husband made an g almost daily threat that he
lived TO crush out Mr.. Beecher; that be (Mr. T.
had always been Mr.. Beeeher's superior, and
that all that lay in his path-wife, children and
reputation if need be-should fall before this
purI ose." This charge by Mrs. Tilton of NAL
ice Tn my part towards Mr.. Beecher was pure
invention. She might with equal truth have
accused me of entertaining during that same
period secret and daily hostility towards
Horace Greeley or Charles Sumner. The com
mittee, accepting Mrs. Tilton's false statement
incorporated 1t into their verdict, and thereby
Beecher what they call "a heated and malicious
mind," an accusation which has never been
true OF me towards any human being, and
me towards the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. In
so far, therefore, as the committees verdict
bases itself on this supposed fact-which is not
fact but a falsehood-the report for lack of
foundation falls to the ground"
TILToN AND MRS TlLToN.
Mr. f1lton next rephes to the charge that he
treated his wife with brutality, snd to show the
fa1G nF fhann nof.a
letters that passed between them during Mr.
Tilton's absence on lecturiug tours, from April
ls66, to april, 1870, embracing the period dur
ing which Mrs. Tilton charged her husband
with cruel treatment
THE CONFESSIONS.
Tilton next quotes his wife's letters and let
domestic relations which existed in his home
and then passes on TO Mrs. TIltOn's confession,
which he naTrates as follows:
"DuTing several weeks previous to ,July g.
1870, Mrs. Triton had been in the country, hsy'
ing gone thither in spirit of alienation. had
recently detected in her, 10 my grief, a tend
ency to deceit and falsehOod foreign to her
normal and pure nature. Accordingly a cloud
was on her spirit at parting. But | neither
knew nor suspected that her depression had its
root In her relations with Mr. Beecher.
During her absence l wrote to her that she
would forfeit my respect the moment she ceased
to tel the truth-a letter which she afterwards
reminded me of, saying that lit had pierced her
very soul!
After her absence had been prolonged for
several weeks, during which only q slight cor
respondence passed between US, she came un-
expectedly TO Brooklyn, reaching home about 9
O'Clock in the evening of July 8. 1 expressed
my surprise at seeing her, greeted her with cor
dtslity, and marked her improved health and
rosy look.
Within an hour after her arrival, sitting in her
favorite chamber, wherein her infant son Paul
had died two years before, she made tender
allusion TO his death, and then said that she had
come TO tell me secret which she had long
kept in her heart in connection with that event
"a secret which she had several months before,
while on a sick bed, resolved to tell me, hut
lacked the courage. Since then the tone of her
mind, she said, had improved with her health,
and, having prayed for strength TO tell me the
truth without fear, she had now come on Iur-
pose to clear her mind OF burden which, if
longer concealed, she felt would by and by grow
too great for her to bear.
What the secret was which she was about to
disclose could not conjecture.
Before disclosing il she exacted from me a
solemn pledge that would not injure the per-
son Of whom she was about to speak, nor COM
municate TO him the fact of her making such a
revelation, for she wanted to inform him in her
own way that she had divulged to me the facts
in the case.
After exacting these conditions, to which 1
pledged myself, she narrated with modesty aud
diffidence, yet without shsmefacedness or sense
OF guilt, detailed history OF her long acquain-
tance with MIR. Beecher-of growing friend
ship between them-of a passionate fondness
which he at length began to exhibit towards her
of the insdequacy of his home life and bis
consequent need that some other woman than
Mrs. Beecher should act the part of a wife to
him-of the great treasure which he found in
Mrs. Tilton's sweet and tender affection-of his
protestati0n Of greater homage for her than for
any other woman-of her duty TO minister to bis
mind and body-and Of the many specious argu-
ments by which he commended these views to
her, In order to overcome her Puritan repug-
nance to them; and she said that finally in an
interview Between herself and Mr.. Beecher at
his house, not long after her little Paul's death
and as reeompense for the sympathy which
her pastor had shown her during that bereaye-
ment, she then and there yielded her person to
his sexual embrace.
This event, she stated, occurred October 10th,
1865, during my absence in New England, and
she showed me a memOr randum in her diary
marked at that date with the words, ga day
memorable"
She further said that on the next SATURDAY.
evening (while was still absent) Mr.. Beecher
visited her at her home in Livingston street and
consummated with her another act OF sexual
intimacy.
the ensuing fall and winter, and in the spring
following, she repeated with him certain acts
OF criminal intercourse, yielding to him seldom
though solicited often.
Furthermcre with great parliculsrity, she
mentioned the several places of these inter-
views, which cannot bring myself to chronicle
here.
This confession was made By Mrs Tilton vol
UNFAIRLY, and not in response TO any accusation
by me, for had never accused her of guilt
either with Mr.. Beecher or with any other per-
son, nsr had ever suspected her of such wrong
doing. Neither was her confession made in
sickness, but in unusual health. 1t was the free
act OF a sound mind under an accumulating
pressure of conscience no longer to be resisted
her sin, as she described Ii to me, consisting not
30 much Of her adultery as of the deceit which
she was thereby compelled to practise towards
her husband.
In Mrs. Tilton's published statement of July
"a, 1874, she admits that she made to me in
July, 1870, q confession" She says:
A Hke confession Iciih hers (namely, Catherine
Gaupt's) had made to Mr.. Tiitoa In telling of my
love to my FREUD and pastor one year before.
So, too, the committees report comedies that
Mrs. Tilton made q confession" The report
says:
II now appears that Mrs. Tilton became strongly
attached to Mr.. Beeeher, and IN Jsiy, 1870, con-
JeSSed 30 her hhS5dad an orerShdd0ctHg affection
tor her pastor.
The above Acknowledgements first by
Mrs. TAton and the second by the committee
are true as far as they 60. Mrs. Tilton did con-
fess her love for her friend and pastor but she
also confessed not only her love for him, but his
love for her and still further she confessed land
this was the chief burden Of her Confession that
this love resulted in q sexual intimacy extend
ing during fifteen or sixteen months.
This confession, stripped OF Its details but In
cludiDg its principal fact, was made BY Mrs
Tilton, not only to me, but to several other per-
sons, including MIR. Moulton and his wife; and
similar confession was made by Mr.. Beecher,
orlx- tr& AT