page_title: Daniel Sickles
section_title: Trial
hierarchical_section_title: Daniel Sickles / Early life and politics / Trial
caption_attribution_description: English: Harper's Weekly engraving of the Dan Sickles murder trial in Washington, D.C., 1859.
context_page_description: Daniel Edgar Sickles was an American politician, soldier, and diplomat.
  Born to a wealthy family in New York City, Sickles was involved in a number of scandals, most notably the public slaying of his wife's lover, Philip Barton Key II, a U.S. Attorney and son of Francis Scott Key, whom Sickles gunned down in broad daylight in Lafayette Square, across the street from the White House. He was acquitted after using temporary insanity as a legal defense for the first time in United States history. This became a defense associated with 'crimes of passion'.
  Upon the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, Sickles became one of the war's most prominent political generals, recruiting the New York regiments that became known as the Excelsior Brigade in the Army of the Potomac. Despite his lack of military experience, he served as a brigade, division, and corps commander in some of the early Eastern campaigns. His military career ended at the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, after he moved his III Corps to an untenable position where his Corps was decimated, yet slowed General Longstreet flanking maneuver. He was wounded by cannon fire and had to have his leg amputated.
context_section_description: Sickles surrendered at Attorney General Jeremiah Black's house, a few blocks away on Franklin Square, and confessed to the murder. After a visit to his home, accompanied by a constable, Sickles was taken to jail.  He received numerous perquisites, including being allowed to retain his personal weapon, and receive numerous visitors.  So many visitors came that he was granted the use of the head jailer's apartment to receive them. They included many congressmen,  senators, and other leading members of Washington society. President James Buchanan sent Sickles a personal note.
  Harper's Magazine reported that the visits of his wife's mother and her clergyman were painful for Sickles. Both told him that Teresa was distracted with grief, shame, and sorrow, and that the loss of her wedding ring (which Sickles had taken on visiting his home) was more than Teresa could bear.
  Sickles was charged with murder. He secured several leading politicians as defense attorneys, among them Edwin M. Stanton, later to become Secretary of War, and Chief Counsel James T. Brady who, like Sickles, was associated with Tammany Hall. Sickles pleaded temporary insanity—the first use of this defense in the United States. Before the jury, Stanton argued that Sickles had been driven insane by his wife's infidelity, and thus was out of his mind when he shot Key. The papers soon trumpeted that Sickles was a hero for "saving all the ladies of Washington from this rogue named Key".
  Sickles had obtained a graphic confession from Teresa; it was ruled inadmissible in court, but, was leaked by him to the press and printed in the newspapers in full. The defense strategy ensured that the trial was the main topic of conversations in Washington for weeks, and the extensive coverage of national papers was sympathetic to Sickles. In the courtroom, the strategy brought drama, controversy, and, ultimately, an acquittal for Sickles.
  Sickles publicly forgave Teresa, and "withdrew" briefly from public life, although he did not resign from Congress. The public was apparently more outraged by Sickles's forgiveness and reconciliation with his wife than by the murder and his unorthodox acquittal.
caption: The trial of Sickles. Engraving from Harper's.
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