by Chris DeRose
Most newspapers relied on subscriptions and advertising. Wooldridge found the real money was in blackmail. He moved in low circles and knew the secrets of men who couldn’t afford to read about them in the Flash. The publishers found themselves defendants in the first obscenity trial in New York City. Wooldridge was a survivor, turning state’s evidence against his partners in exchange for a dismissal. On the stand, he defended the newspaper as having done “more good in correcting vice and shaming profligacy than all the sermons preached by all the paid and pretended moralists of the church put together.”
After the trial, Wooldridge opened the Libertine, a similar paper featuring woodcut “pleasure pictures.” The law caught up with him again, resulting in a sixty-day stay on Blackwell’s Island. It was an occupational hazard, but after his fifth indictment, this time for defaming a dancer, Wooldridge decided on a new line of work. He set out for Europe as the business manager of the Virginia Serenaders, the first minstrel show. He reappeared a decade later in Albany as the doorkeeper of the Assembly, where he befriended State Senator Sickles. When Sickles was elected to congress, he placed his friend as a deputy clerk in the House map room.
Sickles found Wooldridge behind the speaker’s chair.
“George, I want to speak to you on a painful matter; late last night, I received this letter.” Wooldridge thought his friend “appeared different from what he had been the day before . . . very much affected and distressed.”3
Sickles read from the parchment, slowly breaking down until he burst into tears. Unable to finish the final lines, he handed the letter to Wooldridge. “I would not have given it another thought,” Sickles said. “But its detail made it simple to verify and impossible to disregard.”
Sickles told Wooldridge of his trip that morning to the house mentioned in the letter and his conversation with the neighbors. Barton Key had indeed rented it out, and a woman “was in the habit of going there. My hope is that this is not my wife but some other woman. As my friend, you will go there, and see whether it is or not. Get a carriage, we’ll go, and I’ll show you the house.”
Washington was a patchwork of neighborhoods, from brilliant marble edifice to the gritty, muddy dwelling places of the tradesmen. On their two-mile ride, Sickles and Wooldridge passed from one to the other. Sickles pointed to the house at 383 15th Street. They drove past without stopping and returned to the Capitol, where Sickles was urgently needed.
The Naval Appropriations Bill was back on the floor. Sickles proposed an amendment to maintain the yards at Pensacola, Norfolk, New York, Mare Island, and Sackett’s Harbor, telling his colleagues, “There never had been a time when a strong Navy was more necessary than now.”
He was questioned by Congressman John Millson of Virginia. “But sir, it is a truth that in this country, with a very small Navy, we have more Navy Yards than the great naval powers of the world,” more “than either England or France.”
“We have not half the number that England has,” Sickles said. “She has eight within the British Isle.” Not everything called a “Navy Yard” was the same. “I am not speaking of colonial dockyards, where occasional ships of war may undergo repairs, but I am speaking of the great establishments for the constitution of war vessels.” Sickles rattled off the challenges and opportunities that required a strong fleet: European navies off the waters of Mexico, Haiti and St. Domingo in a state of revolution, commercial trading routes in Central America and new ones in China and Japan, and increasing hostility with Spain.
Meanwhile, Wooldridge’s investigation was off to a promising start. Everyone he met had something to say about the house and the people who used it. Key was the man in question. There was no doubt about that. Workers of the capital may have been invisible to the US Attorney, but they could see him. An acquaintance of the owner said that Key claimed to be renting the house for a member of Congress. The man and the woman met there two or three times a week, starting in January. Their most recent rendezvous had been on Thursday. Wooldridge’s informants agreed that it was the same woman every time, though she covered herself in a veil or a shawl.
Wooldridge wrote down descriptions of her outfits in a notebook. To be certain, he would have to catch them in the act. Wooldridge walked on his crutches across the street from Number 383 and knocked on the door. He told the woman his business and asked if he could rent a room in her home. The owner was a single mother, and the money would help. She agreed. Wooldridge returned to the Capitol and shared what he had learned. Sickles thought the outfits worn by the mystery woman resembled clothes belonging to Teresa. Wooldridge promised an update after the next day’s surveillance.
The following day, a Saturday, two Washington newspapers, the Star and the States, carried a curious advertisement among ads for competing undertakers; weather reports from “stormy, cool” New York, rainy Lower Peach Tree, Alabama, and “clear, pleasant” Cincinnati; a promotion for a sermon on “Sinful Pleasures” delivered to the Young Men’s Christian Association; and a funeral notice for Mary Quincy, “for many years a teacher in Washington.” A finger graphic pointed to the text:
R.P.G., who recently addressed a letter to a gentleman in this city, will confer a great favor upon the gentleman to whom the letter was addressed by granting him an early, immediate and confidential interview.4
It was the first modest manifestation of the Sickles story in print—one that would soon consume more column inches than any previous event in history.
Sickles answered the first roll call of the morning. The Navy Yard debate continued. “Mr. Chairman,” Sickles began, “this is not the first time that the Brooklyn Navy-Yard has been selected as a point of attack from the other side of the House.”5
Wooldridge sat in his rented room, watching out the window while Sickles defended American naval power. Quiet. No signs of life. At least he was indoors. After a dull day staring at an empty building, he returned to his boarding house. There was a note waiting from Sickles: “Be exceedingly tender in the prosecution of your inquiries. I have reason to believe my wife is innocent.”
Wooldridge ate dinner and walked to the Capitol. Sickles and Wooldridge met once again behind the Speaker’s Chair. Wooldridge gave him an update, such as it was. Sickles shared his news with excitement. Teresa couldn’t have been the woman with Key on Thursday. Her whereabouts were accounted for the entire day. And the neighbors said that it was always the same woman. So it must be someone else.
Wooldridge steeled himself. Earlier that day he had learned his initial report was wrong. And didn’t realize the significance. Key’s most recent visit to the house was Wednesday, not Thursday. Wooldridge watched Sickles absorb the blow. It unmanned him completely, he thought. Wooldridge managed to move Sickles to a private room, where the weight of it came crashing down. Sickles sobbed uncontrollably.6
Chapter Nine
New Latitudes
Winter of 1857–58—One year earlier
Barton Key bundled up and boarded an icy steamship. Days later, he could put his coat away and leave his porthole open. At night, he could stand on the deck and look at the big moon and vivid stars and feel the warm trade winds and watch the sun rise from the same spot. It was still winter, but it didn’t feel like it.
It had been years since he’d traveled, when he and his father had ventured into the heart of the country. Now there was the Morro Castle, the oldest building he’d ever seen, the massive fortress that guarded the harbor of Havana. The masts of the ships in port looked like a dense forest. He could see working men in little boats with oranges and bananas, wearing straw hats and blue and white checked shirts.
A man boarded the steamer, wearing a white linen suit and straw hat with a red cockade and chewing a cigar—how you would expect a Cuban functionary to look. He was a health officer and had to clear passengers for arrival. Key hadn’t felt healthy for quite some time. In fact, he had hoped this trip would restore him.
Key walked the narrow streets of the old city. He could sme
ll cigars and flowers, and he saw mango and palm trees for the first time. There were beggar girls playing tambourines and lottery vendors selling tickets. The billiard halls and cafés were filled with people. In the cobbled Plaza des Armas, he could hear a military band play for an hour at night. There were at least fifty instruments, maybe more.
Near the water were the Banos de Mar, little square pools cut into the rock, filled with seventy-two-degree water from the Gulf Stream. There were holes big enough to let the water flow in and out but small enough to keep the sharks out.
Key had taken a proper vacation in a healing climate, but he felt no better. As the steamer headed north, he passed the lighthouse at Cape Hatteras, the final resting place for so many sailors. The year had been full of struggles, but at least he’d kept his job. Maybe 1858 would be better.1
Daniel and Teresa Sickles entered Washington society in earnest in December of 1857, more than a year after his election and nine months since the Inauguration.
On February 2, Buchanan sent congress the application of Kansas to join the union, with a pro-slavery Constitution adopted by force and fraud.2
There were days of acrimonious debate. It was after 2:00 a.m. on the House floor. Members smoked, slept at their desks, came and went from the bar. A fight broke out between members.
It was a “truly fearful contest,” where “blows were given and taken indiscriminately.” Sickles thought the congressmen pounded “each other with little skill, but with much enthusiasm, making blood fly in every direction.” Finally, one congressman grabbed the hair of another and found himself holding nothing but a wig. “A mighty shout of laughter filled the hall.” The melee ended.3
The breakdown in Congress had not yet infected the social scene. Virginia Clay felt “the surface of society in Washington” was “serene and smiling, though the fires of a volcano raged in the under-political world.” There were balls and parties; hops and dinners; and plays, operas, and symphonies. Clay said that she felt so tired at night that she couldn’t wiggle an antenna.4
Teresa held receptions on Tuesdays and dinners on Thursday evenings. As Ladies Palmerston and Clarendon had done in London, the grand dames Mathilde Slidell and Virginia Clay adopted Teresa in Washington.
Teresa’s hectic calendar was relayed to a high school friend: “Tomorrow night Mrs. [Stephen] Douglas’s party will be a perfect crush. So many invitations are out and we were invited to dine at [Senator] Gwin’s but Miss Gwin is quite ill and the dinner is therefore postponed. On Thursday we have another large dinner party. I was invited to one yesterday but was too ill to go.”
Teresa’s entertainments were the equal of anyone’s. And they were far from free. The lease on the Ewell House was $3,000 a year, equal to Sickles’s congressional salary. Teresa had $5,000 worth of jewelry and a “splendid carriage with outriders.” To maintain their lifestyle, Sickles had to keep his law practice in New York, which took him away from the capital more than he liked.5
Chapter Ten
Vile Calumnies
March 1858
Stephen Beekman was “violently in love” with Teresa. Now she was off riding horses with Barton Key, outside the city on the road to Bladensburg. By Beekman’s count, this was the third time since Dan Sickles went to New York on business. He watched them go inside a hotel and waited for them to come out—an hour and a half later. He was furious. Key had bragged to him once: “I only need thirty-six hours with any woman to make her do what I please.” Now it seemed he was right.
At first, Teresa and Key rode in a group, along with Congressman John Haskin of New York and reporter John McElhone of the Congressional Globe, out to Potomac Falls. Then it was the two of them. What had happened that first day? Maybe the others had cancelled. Or maybe Key had suggested they ride alone. But what Beekman knew for sure was that Sickles was out of town and this was the third time Teresa was out with Key.1
Beekman became too upset to keep it to himself. He went to Willard’s where he saw Marshal Bacon, a young clerk at the Interior Department. He and Bacon were loosely connected through New York and Albany circles and had met at the Sickles home. Bacon took him aside, out of earshot of everyone else. What did he think about Mr. Key’s attentions toward Mrs. Sickles? Bacon affected a “confidential tone,” and made “several very indelicate remarks about Mrs. Sickles.” He then asked for Beekman’s opinion of her. Beekman gave it to him.
Before long, Beekman was summoned to the Sickles home. Sickles asked: “What did you say about my wife in connection with Mr. Key’s name?”
“Trifling jokes.” Beekman said. And “that I had noticed a flirtation going on.” But “I had uttered no charges, no facts, no inferences even injurious to Mrs. Sickles, but merely generalities, without the slightest design or malice. What I had said I had said and am personally responsible for.”
Beekman walked out of the house, never to return.
Jonah Hoover, who had made the connection between Sickles and Key, brought the matter to Key’s attention. Key was determined to discredit the whole thing as idle gossip. He sat down at his desk and spread out a piece of buff paper with his family crest at the top: a dragon with a key in its mouth.
He wrote first to Wooldridge, who had brought Beekman’s chatter to Sickles: “Will you please state in writing what communication you made to [Sickles] concerning me and also give me your authority for making such communications?”
Key thought Wooldridge would back down. But if Key had spent his life among the highest society, Wooldridge had spent his among the lowest. His replied: “Marshal J. Bacon informed me on Tuesday afternoon, March 23, that Mr. Beekman said that Mrs. Sickles [and Mr. Key] had been out riding on horseback three different times . . . during Mr. Sickles’s last absence to the city of New York,” that they had “stopped at a house on the road towards Bladensburg,” “that Mrs. Sickles had a room there and remained one hour and a half,” and that he had no doubt there was an intimacy” between the two. “There was much more of the same kind of conversation.” For good measure, Wooldridge added, Bacon told him that Key had bragged that he could make any woman do whatever he wanted within thirty-six hours.
Key took this letter and forwarded it to Bacon, who also stuck to his story. “In the main,” Bacon replied, “his statement is correct.” I learned these things from Mr. Beekman. “I stated at the time to Mr. Wooldridge and now repeat, that I did not believe there was any truth” to it and “deemed it a fabrication.”
Beekman thought the matter behind him until there was a knock on his door. It was Jonah Hoover with a note from Key. Are you “responsible for the vile calumnies?” Key demanded “an immediate answer.”
Beekman responded: “I disavow that I was ever their author, and pronounce everything therein as a lie, and also the statement of Mr. Bacon that I was their author.” Perhaps Beekman didn’t want to get involved, didn’t want to admit how he knew, or didn’t want to fight a duel with Key. But he had folded.
Key forwarded his response to Sickles with a note: “My Dear Sir,” he wrote. “You will perceive the effort to fix the ridiculous and disgusting slander on me” was unsuccessful. Jonah Hoover delivered the chain of letters, from Wooldridge to Bacon to Beekman, to the Ewell House.
“I have always liked Mr. Key,” Sickles said, and “thought him a man of honor. This thing shocked me when I first heard of it.” But due to Beekman’s disavowal and Key’s assurances, Sickles was “willing to meet him as formerly.”2
Beekman saw Bacon at Willard’s and charged him, cane in hand, “intending to apply it to him promptly,” along with some “rather harsh epithets.” Bacon pleaded with him: could they please discuss it outside? Beekman realized that a public beating would attract unwanted attention. Outside, Bacon said that “he must have been beside himself” and “would never injure [your] character for anything.” He promised to retract everything. In writing, tomorrow.
But he didn’t. Bacon managed to avoid Beekman until the latter returned to New York.
Chapter Eleven
The Last Dance
April 18, 1858
* * *
For Lo! Amid the night of faction’s din,
A bright idea lights the mind of Gwin,
And see, responsive to her welcome call,
All parties vie to grace her Fancy Ball.
—“A Metrical Glance at the Fancy Ball”
It wasn’t the best time for a party. The Douglas Democrats hated Buchanan Democrats for trying to impose slavery where it wasn’t wanted. The Buchanan Democrats hated Douglas Democrats for not following the party line. The bitterly divided Democrats agreed that they hated the Republicans. The Republicans hated both factions of the Democratic Party. Eight days earlier, after months of bitter debate, the House repudiated the president and rejected the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution.
But the invitations had already gone out.
Mary Gwin was determined to host a masquerade ball, the grandest in the history of Washington. William, her husband, was a medical doctor who had represented Mississippi in congress. He moved to California in 1849, made a fortune in gold mining, and returned to Washington as one of California’s first two senators. Gwin was more popular in Washington this time around, spending $75,000 a year on entertaining (twenty-five times a congressman’s salary). The ball was the most eagerly anticipated event that anyone could remember, and a massive economic stimulus for tailors and seamstresses.1
Mary greeted her guests as Queen Maria Theresa, wife of Louis XIV, whose extravagance had bankrupted France.
Little Red Riding Hood—Teresa Sickles—arrived on her own. The poet John de Havilland published a thirty-page poem about the ball. He looked at Teresa and thought: