Teresa Bagioli was a stunningly beautiful woman who was preparing to be a wife in mid-19th century high society. Bagioli attended Manhattanville Convent of the Sacred Heart, where New York’s Catholic elite sent their daughters at the time. She was in that class of young ladies that was described as “privileged American wholesomeness.”[i]
Bagioli was taken with a charming and handsome young lawyer who was a friend of the family. Daniel Sickles proposed to the fifteen year-old Teresa, and they quickly had a civil ceremony in the fall of 1852, followed by a church service in early 1853. By then, Sickles had been appointed to the influential office of corporate attorney for New York City, where some credit him with the initiative that created Central Park.[ii]
In 1856, Sickles was elected to Congress, representing much of Manhattan. Daniel, Teresa, and their infant daughter relocated to Washington, DC. Rather than live in a boarding house or hotel, which was the norm for many members of Congress, Sickles leased a stately home called Stockton Mansion on Lafayette Square. The White House could be seen from the top floor windows.[iii] Sickles requested his newfound friend, Philip Barton Key II, take care of the paperwork for him. The pair met and became fast friends after an all-night card game.[iv]
Philip Barton Key II was from a pedigreed family. One ancestor was John Key, who served as England’s first poet laureate in the seventeenth century. His grandfather, John Ross Key, served with Maryland troops during the Revolutionary War, while his great-uncle and namesake, Philip Barton Key, served in the British Army. After the war, great-uncle Philip moved to England for a number of years, then returned to America and was eventually elected to Congress. A twentieth-century descendant was Francis Scott Fitzgerald, better known as writer F. Scott Fitzgerald.[v]
The most famous of Philip Barton Key’s relatives was his father, Francis Scott Key. It was Francis Scott who composed the lyrics to “The Star-Spangled Banner” after witnessing the British bombardment of Fort McHenry in 1814.
Before they became fast friends, Sickles had met Key on an earlier trip to Washington, DC. Key was the US attorney for Washington, DC, a prominent position that put him in the same social circles as the Sickles.
Daniel was often away tending to his affairs as a congressman from New York. Teresa spent her days attending social engagements around Washington, DC. Key attended many of the same events. Some of the women noticed Key coincidentally attending many of the same functions as Teresa Sickles.[vi]
Key was a widowed father of four children, the oldest being twelve. They lived under the care of a relative in one section of DC, while he lived alone in Georgetown. Key’s bachelor lifestyle enabled him to serve as Mrs. Sickles’s escort whenever her husband was unavailable.
By early 1858, there was an increasing number of Philip Barton Key and Teresa Sickles sightings on unexpected occasions. Apparently, Key wasn’t just escorting Sickles to social receptions, but was spending considerable time alone with her when Daniel Sickles was away.
In February 1859, Daniel Sickles received an anonymous letter informing him that his young wife and Key had been secretly meeting. An outraged Sickles confronted his wife, who confessed to an affair that began in spring 1858. She confessed the pair had been engaging in intimate relations at various locations, including in their own home. Sickles became inconsolable. Compounding matters, Sickles was certain that all of fashionable Washington knew of the affair between his wife and Key.
Then an opportunity to exact revenge presented itself. On February 28, 1859, Key was wandering aimlessly around Lafayette Park waving a white handkerchief, easily in sight of Stockton Mansion. Signaling with a handkerchief was the manner in which Key communicated with Teresa regarding a rendezvous.[vii] The Sickles’s house servants saw him, as did a houseguest—as did Daniel Sickles. Sickles realized Key was waving the handkerchief to attract his wife’s attention.
Sickles left his home and walked hurriedly toward Key. As he approached the federal prosecutor, he yelled, “Key, you scoundrel, you have dishonored my house—you must die!” With that, he pulled a pistol from his coat pocket and fired several times, striking Key twice.[viii] Key swiftly died from his wounds.
Sickles was charged with murder. The shooting “had all of the scandalous elements expected to thrill the American reading public: adultery, politics, celebrity, and a handsome corpse.” As such, it became front-page news in both large and small cities.[ix]
A three-week trial took place in April 1859. The prosecution and defense teams called more than seventy witnesses. It was the defense strategy that was the most remarkable. Sickles employed eight high-powered attorneys. Their strategy was to portray Sickles’s actions as the result of a temporary insanity caused by the pain, anguish, and humiliation of his wife’s betrayal. It was the first-known instance of the temporary insanity defense in an American criminal trial.[x] It apparently worked. It took the jury about an hour to deliver a not-guilty verdict.
After the fatal altercation with Key, the notable accomplishments of Daniel Sickles began to accumulate. Sickles joined the Union Army in the run-up to the Civil War. He attained the rank of major general and commanded the Third Army (III) Corps (March 13, 1862–March 24, 1864) that fought at Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville.
The most famous clash with the enemy was the battle at Gettysburg. It was here that Sickles was struck by an artillery shell, causing him to lose his right leg. He survived the amputation and quickly became a hero to the public. His actions at the battle earned him a Medal of Honor.
Years later, Sickles served as an ambassador to Spain.
Mark Hyman is an Emmy award-winning investigative journalist. Follow him on Twitter, Gettr, Parler, Post, and Mastodon.world at @markhyman, and on Truth Social at @markhyman81.
His books Washington Babylon: From George Washington to Donald Trump, Scandals That Rocked the Nation and Pardongate: How Bill and Hillary Clinton and their Brothers Profited from Pardons are on sale now (here and here).
[i] Thomas Keneally, American Scoundrel: The Life of the Notorious Civil War General Dan Sickles, (New York: Doubleday, 2002), 18.
[ii] Ibid, 23-24.
[iii] Ibid, 75.
[iv] Nat Brandt, The Congressman Who Got Away with Murder, (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1991), 11.
[v] Ibid, 12-13.
[vi] Keneally, American Scoundrel, 82.
[vii] James A. Hessler, Sickles at Gettysburg, (New York: Savas Beatie, 2015), 9.
[viii] Keneally, American Scoundrel, 124-129.
[ix] Hessler, Sickles at Gettysburg, 12.
[x] Ibid, 13-16.