Daniel Sickles

(Daniel Edgar Sickles)

Born: October 20, 1819 in New York, New York
Died: May 3, 1914 in New York, New York
Military Rank (USA): Major General

• He married Teresa Bagioli when he was 33 and she was about 15-16.
• He had a longtime affair with well-known prostitute Fanny White, even bringing her to London instead of his wife when he went as U.S. secretary of legation under James Buchanan.
• He shot and killed Philip Barton Key II, who was the district attorney of Washington, D.C. and son of Francis Scott Key, because Sickles discovered that Key was having an affair with his wife Teresa.
• At the murder trial, he pled insanity. This was the first time in U.S. history that someone used a temporary insanity defense. He was acquitted.
• He represented New York in the House of Representatives from 1857-1861.
• He recruited many soldiers for the Union and commanded the “Excelsior Brigade” in the Battle of Seven Pines and the Seven Days Battles.
• He disobeyed Meade at the Battle of Gettysburg, but wasn’t court-marshaled for insubordination because he was wounded.
• His right leg was mangled by a cannonball and subsequently amputated. He donated his leg to the newly founded Army Medical Museum in Washington, D.C. It is still on display in what is now called the National Museum of Health and Medicine.
• He was the United States Minister to Spain from 1869-1874.
• He represented New York in the House of Representatives again from 1893-1895.