by Chris DeRose
The next day, with the jury considering the first case, Key began another prosecution against Drayton for transporting William Upperman’s slaves. Late in the afternoon, the jury in the first case reached their verdict—guilty. Four jurors in favor of acquittal had been told it would not be “consistent with their personal safety and business interest to persist in disappointing the slave-holding public.” But they couldn’t intimidate everyone. The first two trials against Drayton’s co-conspirator ended in acquittals, the first after a half-hour’s deliberation, the second after ten minutes.
Drayton’s convictions were reversed on appeal. Key hired another lawyer, Richard Cox, at an additional cost to taxpayers, and retried him. The juries instantly acquitted Drayton on both charges. Key was ready to bargain. He would drop the transportation charges if Drayton pled guilty to larceny. Drayton had little choice. Judge Thomas Crawford fined him $10,060 and sentenced him to jail until it was paid. He spent years there, suffering abuse at the hands of the pro-slavery marshal, until Millard Fillmore pardoned him.
No amount of shilling for the slave power could save Key when the Whigs won the White House. He was forced to hang out a shingle on C Street and advertise his services in “the Courts of this district,” adjourning counties, and to anyone with claims before congress or the executive branch.12
Pierce restored him as US Attorney four years later. The newspapers reported that he was the “son of Mr. Francis S. Key, author of ‘Star Spangled Banner.’ ” As if anyone needed reminding.13
Two years later, Ellen Key fell sick. She and Key were having a conversation when Ellen put her hand to her breast and complained of a sudden pain. “What’s that?” she asked. Key watched helplessly as she uttered her final words. He saw her for the last time at the Green Street Presbyterian burial ground, surrounded by their four children and their extended family. He had loved her like no woman on earth and doubted he could be that happy with another. 14
Chapter Six
A Violent Year
On May 5, 1856, hundreds of armed pro-slavery men surrounded Lawrence, Kansas. The capital of the antislavery movement surrendered peacefully. Their homes and businesses were looted and burned and the presses of their newspapers were thrown in the river.
Charles Sumner of Massachusetts took the senate floor two weeks later. It was ninety degrees in the crowded chamber. Sumner condemned “the crime against Kansas” at length and in vivid tones. Two days later, Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina, nephew of a senator who had been criticized by Sumner, crossed the Capitol and ambushed Sumner at his desk. Brooks hit him repeatedly over the head with his solid wooden cane until it shattered. Sumner suffered permanent injury to his nervous system, and it would take years before he returned to the Senate.
Barton Key, who had sought 110 indictments against Captain Drayton, charged Brooks with simple assault and battery. Brooks was allowed to make a long speech defending himself at trial. Key made no objection and did not otherwise put on much of a case. Judge Crawford sentenced Brooks to a $300 fine, and he walked out of the courtroom. Brooks resigned his seat in Congress and was overwhelmingly returned in a special election. Canes flooded in through the mail to replace the one he had broken over Sumner’s skull.1
Buchanan’s forces, meanwhile, were huddled in Washington. John Forney, the original tie between Buchanan and Sickles, would serve as campaign manager with Sickles as his top lieutenant. Together they traveled to the convention in Cincinnati. Buchanan maintained a strong lead over fifteen ballots, with Pierce sinking and Douglas far behind. The convention adjourned for the night. When it reconvened in the morning, Pierce’s name was withdrawn. Instead of being the first president since Jackson to win re-election, he became the only elected president refused re-nomination by his own party.2
Two weeks later, Key tried his second high-profile case of the summer. Philemon Herbert was a gambler, a violent drunk, and, incidentally, a congressman from California. After a late night out, he showed up at the Willard Hotel demanding breakfast, more than a half hour after the last breakfast was served.
“Go get us some breakfast or go away from here, you damned Irish son of a bitch,” said Herbert, throwing a plate at a waiter, Thomas Keating. Keating threw a chair at Herbert. The waiter and the congressman scuffled. Another waiter swung a chair at Herbert, hitting Keating by mistake. Keating took another chair to the head when one of Herbert’s friends intervened. Keating lost his grip on Herbert, who pulled out a Derringer, placed it to his chest, and fired. Keating asked for a priest with his dying words. Herbert turned himself in and was bailed out. That night, he had dinner with Barton Key, who would be prosecuting his case.3
A formidable legal team assembled to protect Herbert. Despite this, Key refused the assistance of co-counsel until just before trial. The Dutch ambassador to the United States was a witness and willing to testify. There were diplomatic hurdles that had to be cleared, and Key ensured that the trial would start before this could happen. Herbert was a Democratic congressman and voted with the president. Also, the 1856 presidential election was a three-way contest: ex-president Millard Fillmore running on the Know Nothing ticket, in addition to John C. Fremont as the first Republican nominee, and Buchanan for the Democrats. If no one received a majority of Electoral Votes, the House would decide, and Herbert’s vote would be desperately needed. What was the life of an Irish waiter next to all this?
The New York Times wrote that the trial had been politicized “by those whose only duty was to administer stern justice, regardless of all personal or party consequences.” Judge Crawford effectively instructed the jury that Herbert had acted in self-defense. Despite this, they deadlocked. A second trial was quickly put together. Three fourths of the jury were made up of anti-Catholic, anti-Irish Know Nothings, a number so far out of their proportion in the District that they were clearly selected for that purpose. A friend of Herbert was placed on the jury by Judge Crawford despite his admission that he was biased in his favor. Every witness agreed that Herbert was the aggressor. Crawford instructed the jury that if Herbert was in danger when he fired the shot, he acted in self-defense. The jury was ordered to disregard the fact that Herbert had struck the first blow and that any danger was entirely of his own making. The Washington Reporter said that Key’s prosecution was “unworthy of a public officer.”4
What was the point, the Tribune wondered, after Brooks’s slap on the wrist and Herbert’s acquittal, “of calling congressmen to legal account for ruffianly and sanguinary acts of violence.”5
The newspapers had run rumors all summer that Sickles intended to run for Congress. They were skeptical, considering the rewards awaiting him should Buchanan win. But they misjudged Sickles, who would rather be his own man. Sickles was nominated for Congress by a Democratic convention on October 10. The Herald predicted he would be “gloriously beaten.” Sickles and his supporters flooded the district, down Houston, Hammersley and Broadway, with handbills touting him as the “true, tried and personal friend” of James Buchanan.6
Tammany Hall was “well filled” on election night, the “yelps and yells and hoorays” interrupted only to hear more good news. Sickles was going to Congress, winning with 5,897 votes, more than 3,760 over his closest opponent.7
On November 6, James Buchanan addressed a group that had come to his estate to congratulate him: “It is my sober and solemn conviction that” if “the Northern sectional party [Republicans] should succeed, it would lead inevitably to the destruction of this beautiful fabric reared by our forefathers, cemented by their blood, and bequeathed to us as a priceless inheritance.”
This had been essentially the Democratic platform in 1856. They may have criminally mismanaged the country, but the alternative was civil war. The economy was doing well, and just enough Americans were willing to keep the status quo to put Buchanan in the White House.
But the writing was on the wall: Republicans had swept New England and won New York, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio. If t
hey could find a candidate who could carry Pennsylvania and either Indiana or Illinois, they would prevail without a single vote in the south.
Nevertheless, Sickles was on his way to Washington. Before he was even sworn in, the Democrats in the state legislature nominated him for the US Senate. They were badly outnumbered by Republicans, and he lost, 77 to 38.8 But it was a tremendous vote of confidence and a sign of bigger things ahead.9
Congressman Daniel Sickles.
The new title fit like the top hat and frock coat he wore in the Inaugural Parade. The Marine Band serenaded the cheering thousands, a harmony of pageantry and military might saluting the peaceful transition of power and the dawn of a new presidency. Even the sun came out and paid its respects.10
The general optimism that pervaded the day was not shared by Barton Key. He rode in the parade at the head of the Montgomery Guard, a 100-man militia unit he commanded. Dressed sharply in his green and gold uniform with feathered cap, atop his grey horse, Lucifer, he looked like a modern-day knight.11
Watching his uncle, Chief Justice Taney, swear in the new president, Key wondered how he could keep his job. Buchanan and Pierce were both Democrats, but they had fought for control of the party. Buchanan won and would be well within his rights to send Pierce appointees packing.
Buchanan’s inaugural ball was the grandest in the history of Washington. Six thousand attendees paid ten dollars apiece to enter a specially built hall in Judiciary Square near the courthouse and jail. Dan and Teresa Sickles loomed large: the energetic, well-dressed Manhattan congressman and the twenty-year-old graceful Italian beauty, both intimates of the new president.
The Sickles visited with Tammany friends like Samuel Butterworth, a Democratic stalwart who had served as Van Buren’s US Attorney for Mississippi and who hoped to fare even better under Buchanan. Butterworth’s fine suit was accessorized by a bandage around his leg. He and another Tammany man, in their excitement to collect the spoils of office, had overdone their celebration on the train from New York, resulting in a dropped firearm and an unfortunate injury. But damned if he was going to miss the party!12
Washington was a foreign world to the Sickles. There were unfamiliar faces to recognize, names to learn, and motives to uncover. It was a sea of narrow top hats and wide dresses, filled with elected officials, lobbyists, clerks, reporters, job seekers, society ladies, and peripheral hangers-on. But on that day, their new environs seemed to present more possibilities than threats.
There were new friends to make, like Jeremiah Black, the attorney general; Senators John Slidell and Stephen Douglas; and a host of other luminaries who paid their respects to the Sickles. And their new city seemed to know how to put on a party. There was $3,000 worth of wine, 400 gallons of oysters, and 1,200 quarts of ice cream. The president and his niece Harriet joined the party near 11:00 p.m. as the orchestra played “Hail to the Chief.” Buchanan led the room in a cotillion.13
While in town for the inauguration, the Sickles were the guests of Jonah Hoover, US Marshal for the District of Columbia. Presidents came and went in Washington. But people like Hoover stayed. He was popular, “remarkably pleasant in his manners, generous almost to a fault, and a Democrat dyed in the wool.” He was a member of the Democratic National Committee, “Well known in political circles throughout the country,” and “an influential man at the White House” whenever a Democrat was in residence. When Hoover was awarded the post of marshal, it was written: “No office will pay him for his invaluable services to the party.” He was only thirty-six.14
People like Hoover thrived on knowing just the right person to contact in any situation. He introduced Barton Key to Daniel Sickles. Key, he explained, was his “most intimate friend.” He hoped to remain as US Attorney. Would Sickles be willing to intercede with the president on his behalf? Sickles agreed, gladly.15
Shortly after, Hoover had a card playing party at his home—gentlemen only. Sickles told Key that he had made his case to Buchanan and “believed the President would reappoint.”
“Thank you for your intercession,” said Key. “I hope you will persist in urging my claims.”16
Neither could have imagined that in two years’ time, at the courthouse where Key worked every day, their meeting and friendship would be the subject of a speech by John Graham, a bear-like lawyer from the city of New York, defending Sickles for his life:
“Now what were the relations of Mr. Key to Mr. Sickles? We shall show you what those relations were. So far as Mr. Sickles was concerned they were those of sincere friendship. So far as Mr. Key was concerned they were those of professed or avowed friendship. It has been said by the Psalmist, ‘for it was not an enemy that reproached me, then could I have borne it. Neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me. Then I would have hid myself from him. But it was thou—a man mine equal, my guide and my acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked into the house of God in company.’ The wrong of a stranger may be borne with patience, but the perfidy of a friend becomes intolerable.”
Chapter Seven
The President’s Park
The Sickles had breathed in an intoxicating preview of life in Washington. But the thirty-fifth Congress would not meet until December, nine months away. When they returned, they would need a place to live.
Lafayette Square was the most prestigious address you could have without winning the White House. It was the home of vice presidents, cabinet members, senators, and emissaries of great foreign powers. To list its former residents was to call the roll of prominent Americans: James Madison, Martin Van Buren, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun. Dolly Madison, America’s last living link to the Founders, had stayed there until her death, eight years earlier.
Washington was the ninth capital of a young nation. During most of that time, Lafayette Square had been a sleepy graveyard with apple trees. Its first above-ground residents were the laborers who built the White House, living in mud huts among brick kilns and lime pits.1
It was intended to be part of the White House grounds. Thomas Jefferson rejected this idea, directing Pennsylvania Avenue to cut across, opening “President’s Park” to the public. The huts and debris gave way to a series of beautiful homes and a black iron gate around the park at its center. In 1824, it was named in honor of the Marquis de Lafayette, who, along with a rowdy retinue, was partying his way through the United States in the lead up to the semi-centennial.
The centerpiece of Lafayette Square was a park with a statue of Andrew Jackson on horseback. In Clark Mills’s fifteen-ton masterpiece, the horse is rearing on its hind legs, and the general is holding his hat in a greeting. To get the pose right, Mills taught a horse to stand on two legs as a model. Audiences, looking at the first equestrian statue in the United States, were sure that it would fall over and were shocked when Mills threw himself against it to prove its stability. It had been unveiled four years before the Sickles arrived, on the forty-eighth anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans. Four cannons captured by Jackson in battle guarded the statue in each direction. Nearby was the Wishing Tree, a chestnut imported from London’s Hyde Park and believed to have mystical properties. Its leaves were boiled to make healing teas, and its chestnuts baked to predict the future. Visitors would sit beneath the tree and wish for good things, all wishes to be made silently and never shared.
Sickles found the perfect home: Ewell House, at Number 14 Jackson Place. A beautiful white house with two stories, a basement, an attic, and a “square central hall,” it would be the ideal place to live and entertain. Three secretaries of the Navy had lived there, along with two senators and an attorney general. And now, Congressman Daniel Sickles with his wife and daughter were to take up residence. He hired Barton Key to negotiate the lease of the home.
The builder of the house, Dr. Thomas Ewell, was a Navy surgeon, trained at the University of Pennsylvania (and father to Confederate General Richard Ewell). He opened his practice in America’s new capital and placed his hou
se on the west side of the square. His proposal to build a great hospital for Georgetown and Washington went nowhere. Alcohol dulled his genius and ultimately destroyed his career. Soon, all his great plans were reduced to a newspaper advertisement: due to “overwhelming losses and disappointments” and creditors prosecuting him “to the utmost extremity of the law,” he was unable to meet his obligations. Ewell House was sold to pay some of these obligations, and he was locked in a debtors’ prison.
Ewell’s oldest children could remember their neighbor, Stephen Decatur, being brought back to his home to die. Decatur, hero of the War of 1812, was wounded in a duel, and his screams and cries could be heard until 10:30 that night, when he died at the age of forty-one.
He was another man who had chased his ambitions all the way to Lafayette Square and who would make it no farther.2
Chapter Eight
The Investigation
Two years later—Friday, February 25, 1859
The House of Representatives opened in prayer at 11:00 a.m. Members debated a proposal to reduce government salaries until the budget was balanced.
Sickles was nowhere to be found.1
He arrived at the Capitol after noon. The House floor and hallways were busy, noisy, and no one had any clue to his private panic.
Sickles was searching for George Wooldridge. The thickly mustached Wooldridge was tall, his powerfully built upper body a contrast to his shriveled legs. He carried himself through the world on crutches, a result of infant paralysis that limited his ability to walk. Wooldridge had been born in a saloon and grew up to manage one—Ellsler’s, a watering hole and brothel popular with Tammany men. Wooldridge invested his earnings in starting the Sunday Flash, covering “Awful developments, dreadful accidents,” and scandalous revelations of people’s private lives “with all the horror, satire, sagacity, humor, experience and fun necessary for the proper treatment of these important subjects.” On that day, he was about to enter a story more sensational than anything he had ever printed.2