In 1859, Daniel Sickles was serving as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for the state of New York. On February 27 of that same year, he shot and killed Philip Barton Key II in broad daylight, in the middle of Lafayette Square, directly across from the White House. Yet Daniel Sickles was ultimately acquitted of the crime, thanks in part to being the first person in American history to argue “temporary insanity” as a defense.
Teresa Sickles and the murder of Philip Barton Key II
Philip Barton Key II was the son of the famous poet Francis Scott Key, who wrote the poem that would become “The Star-Spangled Banner”. In 1859, Key was serving as the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. He was also carrying on an affair with Teresa Bagioli Sickles, the wife of Daniel Sickles.
Coming from a wealthy New York family, Daniel Sickles had married Teresa in 1852, when he was 32 years old and she was only around 15 or 16. By that time, Sickles had already established himself as a member of the New York State Assembly with a bright career ahead of him, in spite of numerous scandals, including censure from the Assembly due to his association with the prostitute Fanny White—an association which continued after his marriage.
In 1853, Sickles traveled to England as the secretary to future president James Buchanan and White accompanied him, while his pregnant wife was left at home. Most sources agree that Sickles introduced White to Queen Victoria during a reception at Buckingham Palace, where he called her “Miss Bennett of New York,” possibly as a jab at one of his political enemies.
Sickles afforded no such leniency to his wife’s indiscretions, however, and when he discovered the affair between Teresa and Philip Key, he shot Key down in the street.
The first “temporary insanity” defense
As one might expect, the trial caused a sensation. “You are here to fix the price of the marriage bed!” Associate Defense Attorney John Graham apparently roared, in a speech so jammed with fiery rhetoric that it was later released as a book.
The trial had everything: political rivalries, scandals, infidelities, and a bold line of defense that had never before been tried in court. Sickles had turned himself in and confessed to the murder immediately after committing the deed, but in court he pleaded not guilty due to temporary insanity.
While insanity had been used as a defense in the halls of justice before, the idea that a person could be temporarily insane was a new tactic. “The defense drove home the idea that blind rage and jealousy had driven the congressman briefly mad when he shot Key,” reported the Library of Congress. As for the murder itself, Sickles showed no remorse, telling reporters, “He had dishonored me, and we two could no longer live on the same planet.”
The tactic was successful, and Sickles was ultimately acquitted, with the New York Herald reporting that the courtroom “erupted into cheers” at the verdict. Nor was the courtroom the only place where Sickles garnered public sympathy. Newspapers wrote editorials justifying Sickles’ actions and praising him for “saving all the ladies of Washington from this rogue named Key.”
Even before the trial, Sickles was treated less like a criminal than like a visiting dignitary. He was allowed to retain his own weapon while in jail and had so many visitors that he was given the use of the head jailer’s apartment to receive them. Among those who came to see Sickles during his incarceration were several fellow members of Congress and other members of Washington high society, and even President James Buchanan is said to have sent Sickles a personal letter.
Confession and aftermath
As part of the preparations for the trial, Sickles had forced Teresa to write a detailed confession of her infidelity, which was ultimately not admitted as evidence in court but was leaked to the press and published in full. She described the house where she and Key had met: “There is a bed in it, in the second story, to do what is usual for a wicked woman to do.” She also confessed that she and Key had used that bed to have “intimacy of an improper kind.”
Despite this, Sickles and his wife reconciled after his acquittal—a fact that, according to many accounts, caused more approbation than either his murder of Philip Barton Key II or his acquittal. “It was not a sin to kill your wife’s lover,” writes the Library of Congress, “but to take back a fallen woman was unconscionable.”
Teresa did not long survive the affair, dying of tuberculosis in 1867 at just 31 years old, still younger than her husband had been when she married him. None of these scandals seemed to trouble the political career of Daniel Sickles overmuch, however. The outbreak of the Civil War helped Sickles to rebuild his image, as he served in the Union Army.
He took on the role of U.S. Minister to Spain under President Ulysses S. Grant and was even re-elected to Congress in 1893. During his term from 1893 to 1895, he was instrumental in preserving the battlefield at Gettysburg as the Gettysburg National Military Park.
“Few veterans contributed as much to memorializing the battlefield as he did,” writes the American Battlefield Trust. During the battle itself, Sickles distinguished himself—for good or ill—as the “‘amateur’ general who disobeyed General George Meade’s orders” and advanced to the Peach Orchard instead of occupying Little Round Top.
Sickles would spend much of the remainder of his political career justifying his actions at Gettysburg and arguing against the performance of General Meade—so much so that his connection with Gettysburg may have overshadowed even his unlikely legacy as a man who gunned down a rival in broad daylight in the middle of Washington, and was subsequently acquitted thanks to an unorthodox courtroom defense.
