A few weeks ago I wrote about Alice Pendleton, youngest daughter of Francis Scott Key. In passing I mentioned the murder of one of her older brothers, Philip Barton Key, by Daniel Sickles. There is a lot more to the story.
Daniel Sickles was a 32-year-old junior state assemblyman from New York City and notorious womanizer when he married Teresa Da Ponte Baglioli, a teenager half his age, in September 1852. The next year, President Franklin Pierce appointed Sickles to serve as secretary of the U. S. legation in London under the leadership of James Buchanan. He allegedly brought prostitute Fanny White with him, leaving his pregnant wife at home. He supposedly presented her to Queen Victoria with the alias of the family name of a political opponent instead of her own. Married just seven months Teresa gave birth to their only child, Laura Buchanan Sickles. After his return to the U. S. he was elected to the New York State Senate, which censured him for bringing Fanny White into its chambers. The Sickles moved to Washington in 1856 when he was elected to Congress as a Democratic representative for the 3rd district of New York.
In Washington, Teresa made the acquaintance of U. S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Philip Barton Key II and began an affair with him in 1858. A “friend” wrote Sickles of his wife’s infidelity, enraging him. He forced his wife to confess and put her confession to paper. Sickles saw Key sitting on a bench outside his home signaling to Teresa, apparently unaware they had been found out. Sickles ran out screaming, “Key, you scoundrel, you have dishonored my home, you must die.” He repeatedly shot the unarmed Key, killing him in Lafayette Park. Defended by Edwin Stanton, Sickles pled temporary insanity and was the first person in the United States to be acquitted using that defense. Newspapers declared Sickles a hero for saving women from Key.
Tom Benjey's Weblog 
