Star Spangled Scandal
With the invention of the telegraph, Congressman Daniel Sickles's murder of his wife's lover, Barton Key, son of Francis Scott Key, became the first trial of the century, only we're talking about the 19th century.
The murder happened in 1859, just prior to the Civil War. A dead giveaway as to the result of the trial is that Major General Daniel Sickles fought at Gettysburg and is more famous today for what he did there than the murder and trial.
Barton Key seemed to be asking for it. He rented a house near where Sickles lived with his beautiful wife Teresa; it was almost across the street from
where the Sickles lived. This is where he carried on his affair with Mrs. Sickles. He would signal her by waving a handkerchief and she would signal back if she was there. Somehow Sickles never found out until he received a letter from an anonymous source. Almost simultaneously Key received one telling him Sickles knew about the affair. Sickles saw him passing his house and possibly signaling on the day he killed him.
A similarity with the trial of the 20th century, the OJ trial, was Sickles' dream defense. One of the lawyers on Sickles's team was Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War under Lincoln and several other famous lawyers of the day. They decided to claim Sickles was temporarily insane, that Keys had provoked him. They also used the Unwritten Law, that a man had the right to protect his marriage bed, which Sickles claimed when he was apprehended.
The trial went on for twenty days. Most of the witnesses claimed they'd seen Key wave the hanky. After a while it gets downright boring; they all seem to say the same thing. The judge didn't like it one bit. He didn't like the idea of adultery being put forward as a defense. The result was that every man and some woman caught up in the same situation claimed the Unwritten Law defense and they usually won, right up to the 1950's when women began to claim equal rights and weren't put on a pedestal.
The author seems to be a Sickles defender. The worst thing Sickles ever did, beyond the murder of Barton Key, was at Gettysburg, ordering an attack on Longstreet who was trying to flank the Union troops on Cemetery Hill, the high ground, disobeying General Meade's direct orders to hold his ground. According to the author, Sickles was driving Longstreet back when he was hit by a rolling cannon ball, ultimately losing a leg. I've read just about every book on Gettysburg that I could find and most historians side with General Meade. Luckily, for the Union forces, General Hancock saw the hole in the line and called up the First Minnesota who had to hold the line until more troops could be called up. They were cut to ribbons. Every man was either killed or wounded. DeRose claims Sickles was only one of two “political” generals who was a corps commander. That's the point. He never should've held that command in the first place.
Please excuse the diversion; what the trial ultimately did was create a market for trashy stories about the fallibility of the human character that carries to this day. Some people actually believe what they read in the NATIONAL ENQUIRER.
The murder happened in 1859, just prior to the Civil War. A dead giveaway as to the result of the trial is that Major General Daniel Sickles fought at Gettysburg and is more famous today for what he did there than the murder and trial.
Barton Key seemed to be asking for it. He rented a house near where Sickles lived with his beautiful wife Teresa; it was almost across the street from
where the Sickles lived. This is where he carried on his affair with Mrs. Sickles. He would signal her by waving a handkerchief and she would signal back if she was there. Somehow Sickles never found out until he received a letter from an anonymous source. Almost simultaneously Key received one telling him Sickles knew about the affair. Sickles saw him passing his house and possibly signaling on the day he killed him.
A similarity with the trial of the 20th century, the OJ trial, was Sickles' dream defense. One of the lawyers on Sickles's team was Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War under Lincoln and several other famous lawyers of the day. They decided to claim Sickles was temporarily insane, that Keys had provoked him. They also used the Unwritten Law, that a man had the right to protect his marriage bed, which Sickles claimed when he was apprehended.
The trial went on for twenty days. Most of the witnesses claimed they'd seen Key wave the hanky. After a while it gets downright boring; they all seem to say the same thing. The judge didn't like it one bit. He didn't like the idea of adultery being put forward as a defense. The result was that every man and some woman caught up in the same situation claimed the Unwritten Law defense and they usually won, right up to the 1950's when women began to claim equal rights and weren't put on a pedestal.
The author seems to be a Sickles defender. The worst thing Sickles ever did, beyond the murder of Barton Key, was at Gettysburg, ordering an attack on Longstreet who was trying to flank the Union troops on Cemetery Hill, the high ground, disobeying General Meade's direct orders to hold his ground. According to the author, Sickles was driving Longstreet back when he was hit by a rolling cannon ball, ultimately losing a leg. I've read just about every book on Gettysburg that I could find and most historians side with General Meade. Luckily, for the Union forces, General Hancock saw the hole in the line and called up the First Minnesota who had to hold the line until more troops could be called up. They were cut to ribbons. Every man was either killed or wounded. DeRose claims Sickles was only one of two “political” generals who was a corps commander. That's the point. He never should've held that command in the first place.
Please excuse the diversion; what the trial ultimately did was create a market for trashy stories about the fallibility of the human character that carries to this day. Some people actually believe what they read in the NATIONAL ENQUIRER.
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