Victorian-era scandal still resonates
#MeToo has roots in 1893 trial
Before Roy Moore, before Harvey Weinstein and before Brett Kavanaugh, there was William Campbell Preston Breckinridge. In 1893, the 56-year-old scion of a politically powerful Southern family found himself embroiled in a sexual scandal that enthralled the entire country and sparked furious debate. Like his 21st-century counterparts, Breckinridge had much at stake: his marriage, the respect of his children, his career as a Democratic congressman serving Kentucky’s 7th District and, not least, his reputation as an upstanding Christian — one who warned young women against “useless hand-shaking, promiscuous kissing, needless touches and all exposures.” Breckinridge himself did not adhere to such rigorous standards and never expected his paramour to expose their affair: Why would a woman risk divulging the very behavior that would — rightfully, in his view — bring her ruin and shame? Surely the public wasn’t prepared to liberate women from the strict moral code it seldom demanded of men?
These are the questions at the heart of Patricia Miller’s tantalizing and beautifully researched book, “Bringing Down the Colonel” (“the Colonel” being Breckinridge’s nickname, a reference to his service in the Confederate army during the Civil War). Breckinridge’s victim — or accuser, depending on one’s view — was Madeline Pollard, a woman with none of Breckinridge’s influence but double his cunning. Pollard, nearly 30 years younger than the colonel, was born in Frankfort, Ky., the daughter of a saddler whose shop also offered an array of newspapers and highbrow magazines like Harper’s. She read avidly, mastering Latin and memorizing Shakespeare, and dreamed of becoming a writer. When her father died and left the family on the brink of starvation, Pollard went to live with an aunt in Lexington, where she met a family friend named James Rhodes. He offered her a deal: If he paid for Pollard to attend Wesleyan Female College in Cincinnati, she had to agree to marry him after graduation.
Desperate for an education and eager to amass a cultured circle of friends, Pollard suppressed her loathing for Rhodes and accepted the deal. Months into her Faustian bargain, she happened to meet Breckinridge on a train. Since he had been her father’s political idol, she recognized him immediately, and they shared a brief conversation. Thus began a relationship that would span almost a decade and result in two children (both sent to infant asylums, where they died). Eventually, Breckinridge promised, they would marry.
But unbeknownst to Pollard, Breckinridge was also courting Louise Scott Wing, a 48-year-old doyenne of Washington society. When he married Wing, Pollard