1. Daniel Edgar Sickles was an American politician, soldier, and diplomat.
45 Facts About Daniel Sickles
1. 2.
Daniel Sickles was acquitted after using temporary insanity as a legal defense for the first time in United States history.
3.
Daniel Sickles was eventually awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions.
4.
Daniel Sickles served as US Minister to Spain under President Ulysses S Grant.
5.
Historians speculate that Daniel Sickles chose to appear younger when he married a woman half his age.
6.
Daniel Sickles was reported as sophisticated for her age, speaking five languages.
7.
In 1853 Daniel Sickles became corporation counsel of New York City, but resigned soon afterward when appointed as secretary of the US legation in London, under James Buchanan, by appointment of President Franklin Pierce.
8.
Daniel Sickles was censured by the New York State Assembly for escorting a known prostitute, Fanny White, into the Assembly's chambers.
9.
Daniel Sickles reportedly took her to England, while leaving his pregnant wife at home.
10.
Daniel Sickles presented White to Queen Victoria, using as her alias the surname of a New York political opponent.
11.
On February 27,1859, in Lafayette Square, across the street from the White House, Daniel Sickles shot and killed Philip Barton Key II, the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia and the son of Francis Scott Key.
12.
Daniel Sickles had discovered that Philip Key was having an affair with his wife, Teresa Bagioli Daniel Sickles.
13.
Daniel Sickles surrendered at Attorney General Jeremiah Black's house, a few blocks away on Franklin Square, and confessed to the murder.
14.
Daniel Sickles received numerous perquisites, including being allowed to retain his personal weapon, and receive numerous visitors.
15.
Daniel Sickles secured several leading politicians as defense attorneys, among them Edwin Stanton, later to become Secretary of War, and Chief Counsel James T Brady who, like Sickles, was associated with Tammany Hall.
16.
Daniel 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.
17.
Daniel Sickles publicly forgave Teresa, and "withdrew" briefly from public life, although he did not resign from Congress.
18.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Daniel Sickles worked to repair his public image by raising volunteer units in New York for the Union Army.
19.
Daniel Sickles was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers in September 1861, where he was notorious before beginning any fighting.
20.
Daniel Sickles lobbied his Washington political contacts and reclaimed both his rank and his command on May 24,1862, in time to rejoin the Army in the Peninsula Campaign.
21.
Daniel Sickles was absent for the Second Battle of Bull Run, having used his political influences to obtain leave to go to New York City to recruit new troops.
22.
Daniel Sickles missed the Battle of Antietam because the III Corps, to which he was assigned as a division commander, was stationed on the lower Potomac, protecting the capital.
23.
Daniel Sickles' division was in reserve at the Battle of Fredericksburg.
24.
Daniel Sickles aggressively recommended pursuing troops he saw in his sector on May 2,1863.
25.
Daniel Sickles vigorously opposed Hooker's orders moving him off good defensive terrain in Hazel Grove.
26.
Daniel Sickles was unhappy to see the "Peach Orchard," a slightly higher terrain feature, to his front.
27.
Meade refused Daniel Sickles' offer to withdraw because he realized it was too late and the Confederates would soon attack, putting a retreating force in even greater peril.
28.
Daniel Sickles was carried by a detail of soldiers to the shade of the Trostle farmhouse, where a saddle strap was applied as a tourniquet.
29.
Daniel Sickles insisted on being transported to Washington, DC, which he reached on July 4,1863.
30.
Daniel Sickles brought some of the first news of the great Union victory, and started a public relations campaign to defend his behavior in the conflict.
31.
Daniel Sickles felt that Meade had wronged him and that he deserved credit for winning the battle.
32.
Daniel Sickles's redeployment took Confederate commanders by surprise, and historians have argued about its ramifications ever since.
33.
Daniel Sickles eventually received the Medal of Honor for his actions, although it took him 34 years to get it.
34.
Daniel Sickles pursued Reconstruction on a basis of fair treatment for African-Americans and respect for the rights of employees.
35.
Daniel Sickles made the wages of farm laborers the first lien on crops.
36.
Daniel Sickles outlawed discrimination against African-Americans and banned the production of whisky.
37.
Daniel Sickles served as US Minister to Spain from 1869 to 1874, after the Senate failed to confirm Henry Shelton Sanford to the post, and took part in the negotiations growing out of the Virginius Affair.
38.
Daniel Sickles maintained his reputation as a ladies' man in the Spanish royal court and was rumored to have had an affair with the deposed Queen Isabella II.
39.
Daniel Sickles struck up a friendship with former opponent James Longstreet, one who was seeking to defend himself from attacks over his war performance.
40.
The New York Monuments Commission was formed in 1886 and Daniel Sickles was appointed honorary chairman.
41.
Daniel Sickles was forced out of the Commission in 1912 when $27,000 was found to have been embezzled.
42.
Daniel Sickles was appointed as chairman of the New York State Civil Service Commission from 1888 to 1889, and Sheriff of New York County in 1890.
43.
Daniel Sickles procured the original fencing used on East Cemetery Hill to mark the park's borders.
44.
Daniel Sickles lived out the remainder of his life in New York City, dying of a cerebral hemorrhage on May 3,1914, at the age of 94.
45.
Daniel Sickles's funeral was held at St Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan on May 8,1914.