Thread by @pearkes

Y’all we need to have a conversation about how bonkers the Antebellum US really was. Today’s subject is Daniel Sickles, and man was this guy a piece of work.

Sickles rose to prominence after Fredericksburg, when he managed to avoid purges of the general staff of the Army of the Potomac by Fighting Joe Hooker in the wake of Burnsides’ departure.

Ultimately, Sickles will move without orders during Gettysburg and get his entire corps destroyed, losing a leg but inexplicably earning the Medal of Honor in the process. He spent most of the rest of his life trying to claim credit for Gettysburg.

That sort of move will make sense once we’ve looked at his early life. Born to well-off NYC parents, he studied at NYU, and worked in the office of Benjamin Butler. Eventually he became an NY Assemblyman, part of the Democratic machine in the city.

Okay this is where things go off the rails. In 1852, he married 15 y/o Teresa Bagioli (side note: she spoke 5 languages, impressive) against both families’ wishes. Not great. He’d start claiming to have been born in 1825 instead of 1819 to make it look less bad but...no.

So eventually everyone just sort of accepts this guy is a tool and they can’t do anything about the marriage and so be it. Sickles continues doing weird stuff and is eventually censured by the Assembly for escorting a lady of the evening into its Chambers.

He also brought said lady to the UK while Teresa was pregnant, as one does, introducing her to Queen Victoria no less.

So Teresa gets sick of Daniel and starts an affair with Phillip Barton Key II. His father was Francis Scott Key, yes THAT Francis Scott Key, the guy that wrote The Star Spangled Banner.

Daniel, reasonable fellow that he is, murders Phillip. This presents a problem because, y’know, murder. But not to fear. Daniel’s legal team devises a winner of a strategy: plead temporary insanity.

IT WORKS. Probably didn’t help that while in jail, President Buchanan sent him a note of sympathy. Edwin Stanton (later the Secretary of War) was his lawyer! Crazily enough, folks were more mad about him forgiving Teresa than they were about him getting away with murder!

Sickles not only went on to command huge troop formations in the war and sit high in the military command structure, but he was also the first case of a temporary insanity defense paying off in the US.

To summarize:
- NY assemblyman
- takes 15 y/o bride
- brazenly unfaithful
- she is too
- murders her lover, who was son of guy who wrote Star Spangled Banner
- pioneers temporary insanity defense
- gets off scot free
- ends up as a general
- gets corps destroyed
- Medal of Honor

Antebellum US, I’m telling you: totally INSANE.

Post-Script: @CptnJustc points out that the man donated his own damn leg to the Army Medical Museum. It came unannounced in a box with the note "With the compliments of Major General D.E.S." ayfkm
medicalmuseum.mil/index.cfm?p=ex…