Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1914-05-04
SICKLES, LAST
OF CIVIL WARS
GENERALS, DIES
Wife, Estranged for Twenty.
nine Years, at Bedside When
End Comes.


brigade commanders of the Civil
War, would be buried with military
honors. He may be buried in Airing
ton beside the military leaders OF
the nation.
General Sickless end came peace
fully at ten minutes after nine last
night in his home at % Fifth avenue.
With him were his son stanton and
his wife. from whom he had been
estranged for twenty-nine years.
reconciliation was effected only last
Thursday and since then Mrs. Sickles
had been aursing the aged veteran.
General Sickles had not been in
good health for years. Last March
he suffered a hemorrhage which left
him partly paralyzed. The stroke
was soon after the death of his house.
keeper. Miss Eleanor Earle Wilmer
ding Twice last week the general
suffered from hemorrhages and fol-
lowing the last seizure, on Saturday
night, he lapsed into unconsciousness
and remained in that state except
for brief intervals until his death.
When conscious in his last hours,
however, he could not speak.
Cause Of General slckles's Death.
General Sickless death was due to
cerebral hemorrhages sand paralysis.
He had been in a comatose condition
since yesterday and an hour previous
to his death lapsed into unconscious
ness. Beside Mrs. Sicllles, their son
Stanton, and the generals negro
servant, Frazier Moseley, who had at
tended him for years, were at the
bedside.
General Sickles was baptized a
Catholic at Gettysburg after he had
been shot.
The generals last illness began
Thursday, April 3d. when he was
stricken with cerebral hemorrhage.
There was a recurrence of the attack
yesterday and Father Award, of st.
Joseph's Roman Catholic Church, was
celled and administered the last rites.
Yesterday the patient suffered a
third hemorrhage and sank steadily.
1t developed today that the recon-
ciliation between General Sickles and
his wife was effected more than a
week ago, and that last Sunday night
the general and Mrs. Sickles and
Mrs. Denman, his half-s ster, had
dinner together. On Thursday, when
the aged veteran was stricken, Mrs.
Sick'es and her son, Stanton, were
notified, fastened to his home and
remained there throughout his last
Illness.
1t was said that the funeral SER
vices would probably be held in St
Joseph's Church, with Father Award
officia ting The day for the services
has not been set.
Last of Civil War Generals.
General Daniel E. Siekles was the
last of that galaxy of corps COM
manders who made possible the
( achievement lof- Grant and brought
our great civil strife to triumph
ant close. Fighter. lawyer, politician
and d plomat his life was a crowded
one, and in his closing years he
looked back through vista of dec
ades in which strife and trouble were
mixed in greater proportion than tri-
emph.
Daniel Edgar Sickles was born in
New York city on October 20, 1928
His grandfather, who was of Knick-
erbocker stock, retained the name of
Van ckles, but the father of Cen
eral Sickles dropped the Dutch prefix.
Young Sickles was educated in the
Univel sity of New York. Though his
father was wealthy, the young man
preferred to strike out for himself
lie took UP che printers trade, at
which he worked for several years.
Then he entered the law office of
Benjamin f. Butler, who was at that
time attorney general in President
Van Burens cabinet. He was ad-
mitted to the bar in 1876. He served
IN Congress from 1857 to 1851, and
again in 1S93-94.
For several years he was men,
Der of the Tammany Hall general
committee. He was corporation cout-
sci for time, and in 1856 he went to
the State Senate. 1t was he who
obtained for the city its great Cen
trail Park.
Quick Military Promotion.
The life of a soldier appealed to
young Siclsles, and he joined the
Twelfth Regiment, National Guard,
in 1849, as private. In three years
he retired from the organization as
major He rose to be a major-gen-
eral i'll the United States army later.
In the fall of 1858 Sickles was
commissioned secretary of legation in
London, under Minister James Blu
chanan. After serving two years
abroad he returned to enter into the
bitter political fight that sent him into
the State Senate. Before his sena-
torial term was out Sickles was elect
ed to Congress.
II was during his stay in Washing
ton that an event occurred which be-
came the sensation of the day. His
ambition to fit himself for the dip
IOiliftllC SGINiGe ildu leu MN 10 take
the study of French and Italian, and
in this way he met Therese Bagioli,
daughter of an italian music teacher.
She was seventeen when he married
her. Their daughter, Laura, was born
in 1854, on the old Sickles estate at
Bloomingdale, while he was abroad
as secretary of legation. When her
husband went to Congress Mrs.
Sickles accompanied him. Philip Bar
ton Key, United States attorney for
the District of Columbia, son of Fran
els Scott Key, the author of ''The
Star-Spangled Banner" paid atten-
ton to Mrs. Sickles, and Sickles shot
and killed Key on the street in Wash
ington, ID. c., on February 27, 1853.
Acquitted of Murder Charge.
Sickles declared Key had misled
Mrs. Sickles. His trial, which lasted
twenty days, ended in the acquittal of
Sickles, the defense being. temporary
alteration of mind, and this was the
first case in which that plea was set
up as defense. After his acquittal
Sickles took his wife back.
Retiring from Congress in March,
1861 Sickles was one of the first to
anticipate need of soldiers At the
outbreak of the Civil War the young
politician, then thirty-eigilt years old,
went TO Lincoln to offer his services.
You have been a leader in New
York Democratic politics. said the
resident. If you kept your end up
at that game surely you'll do to take
command of men in the field"
The retired Congressman returned
to this city and organized the Ex-
celsior Brigade of Volunteers in New
York, and was commissioned colonel
of one of the five regiments He was
nominated brigadier- general in Sep
tember 1861 hut was not confirmed