Star Spangled Scandal

by Chris DeRose

  Mr. Key has ridden in Mr. Sickles’s carriage, and has called at his house without Mr. Sickles’s knowledge, and after my being told not to invite him to do so, and against Mr. Sickles’s repeated request.

  She signed the letter with her maiden name, “Teresa Bagioli.” A legalistic postscript followed:

  This is a true statement written by myself, without any inducement held out by Mr. Sickles of forgiveness or reward, and without any menace from him. This I have written with my bedroom door open, and my maid and child in the adjourning room, at 8 1/2 o’clock in the evening. Miss Ridgeley is in the house within call.

  Teresa Bagioli

  Lafayette Square, Washington D.C., February 26, 1859

  A second postscript was added.

  Mr. and Mrs. Pendleton dined here two weeks ago last Thursday, with a large party. Mr. Key was also here, her brother, and at my suggestion, he was invited because he lived in the same house, and also because he had invited Mr. Sickles to dine with him, and Mr. Sickles wished to invite all those from whom he had received invitations; and Mr. Sickles said, “do as you choose.”

  It was signed again, “Teresa Bagioli. Written and signed in the presence of C. M. Ridgeley and Bridget Duffy.”

  C. M. Ridgeley, known as “Octavia,” was Teresa’s closest friend and a frequent house guest, a beautiful blue-eyed blonde around her age. Her father had died in the Mexican War, and she lived alone with her mother. She and Bridget were called into the room to sign the letter, attesting to its authorship. They quickly learned the reasons for the raised voices and sobbing.2

  Sickles asked Teresa for her wedding ring. She slipped it off her finger, where he had placed it six years ago, and handed it to him. He left her room.

  Teresa refused to lie in the bed with Octavia. To punish herself, she sprawled on the floor with her head propped up on the rung of a wooden chair. From her room, Bridget drifted to sleep amid the sounds of Teresa and Dan sobbing from their separate rooms.3

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sunday in Lafayette Square

  Sunday, February 27, 1859

  The day opened quiet, clear, and pleasant.1

  Key walked into the basement of the Willard Hotel. He was greeted by the staff of the barber shop, free black men in “clean white jackets and aprons,” and seated in a chair. He relaxed as they spread a fragrant cream across his face. He daydreamed of Teresa, close by, in the home of her husband on Lafayette Square.

  The straight razor scraped his cheeks and chin. The barber cleaned up his face. If he saw her today—and he was determined to see her—he would be fresh and smooth shaven. Key encountered Mayor James Berrett and S. S. Parker outside the barber shop. He bowed to Parker and spoke for a moment with the mayor. Key then made a joke that came completely out of nowhere—something about Sickles killing him. It seemed strange but insignificant in the moment. If Key finally understood that he was playing with fire, he didn’t seem bothered by it.2

  Samuel Butterworth, visiting from New York, was seated in the parlor of Senator Gwin. With them was Robert Walker, the former senator and treasury secretary, who as governor had brought free elections to Kansas before resigning over the Lecompton Constitution. Butterworth was the Tammany stalwart who had been accidentally shot on the train ride to Buchanan’s inauguration. As hoped, he benefited from the new administration as the Superintendent of the New York Assay Office, responsible for testing the purity of American coins.

  A messenger arrived at Gwin’s house for Butterworth. He read the letter:

  Dear B.—Come to me right away.

  He showed the letter to Gwin and Walker. “What can Mr. Sickles desire?” Butterworth excused himself and headed to the Ewell House.

  Bridget Duffy had plenty to pray for that morning at Mass. The previous night, she had witnessed Teresa’s confession and fallen asleep to the sounds of the Sickles wailing in separate rooms. She returned home unsure of what awaited her. Bridget walked upstairs to clean Sickles’s room. It was empty.

  Sickles entered suddenly, crying and sobbing, his hands tearing his hair from his head. “God, witness my troubles!” he begged.

  Butterworth let himself into the house and searched for Sickles. He walked upstairs and opened the door to his room.

  Sickles lay on the bed with his head buried in a pillow. “I am a dishonored and ruined man and cannot look you in the face,” he explained. Sickles poured out the revelations of recent days: the anonymous letter, the desperate investigation, the rendezvous house, the encounters in his own home, the confrontation, and the confession.

  Butterworth could do little to make him feel better. But he did have thoughts on how to proceed. Send Teresa back to New York. It was near the end of session and would not raise suspicion. Travel to Europe during the recess of Congress. Arrange a separation. File for divorce. Almost no one will know the truth of the matter.

  “My friend, I would gladly pursue this course, but so abandoned, so reckless have Key and my wife been, that all the negroes in that neighborhood, and I dare not say how many other persons, know all about the circumstances.”

  If true, that certainly narrowed their options, thought Butterworth. He went downstairs to find Wooldridge newly arrived. “This is a terrible affair,” said Wooldridge. He didn’t know the half of it. Butterworth handed him Teresa’s confession.

  Butterworth excused himself to get a drink. If Sickles asks, tell him I’ll return. His destination was the Club House.

  It was a three-minute walk across the park, around 700 feet, from the Ewell House to the Club House. As Butterworth crossed the Jackson statue, the White House was directly to his right, just across Pennsylvania Avenue, and the Club House straight ahead, across from the Sickles home. The crooked trees that dotted the square had yet to regain the leaves they had lost in autumn. Butterworth crossed Madison Lane, the street that made up the eastern boundary of the square and entered the Club House.

  Key headed to Lafayette Square and drew a handkerchief from his pocket. He waved it in the air, hoping she would see it. A couple he knew passed through the park after church at St. John’s. He stopped to speak with them for a moment, waving his handkerchief toward the Ewell House, his eyes on Teresa’s second-story window. Key pulled at opposite ends of the handkerchief, tightening and holding it in the air. There was no response.

  Key saw a young woman he knew and walked alongside her for a bit. “I am despondent about my health,” he said, “and very desperate. Indeed, I have half a mind to go out on the prairies and try buffalo hunting. The excursion would either cure me or kill me, and, really, I don’t care much which.”3

  Key was oblivious to what was happening inside: penitent Teresa prone on the floor of her room, Sickles agonizing his way around the house. All Key could think about was seeing her. He did succeed in attracting one member of the Sickles family. Dandy, their dog, walked over to Key and greeted him familiarly.

  Butterworth swallowed an ale at the Club House bar. Poor Sickles. Everything gone in an instant. He walked back to the Ewell House and encountered Wooldridge in the library. Key had passed the house, Wooldridge said. Twice. Waving his handkerchief. Butterworth scarcely had time to think as Sickles bounded in on them.

  “The villain has just passed my house.” Sickles said. “I have seen the scoundrel making signals. My God! This is horrible.”

  “Mr. Sickles, you must be calm,” Butterworth said, “and look this matter square in the face. If there be a possibility of keeping the certain knowledge of this crime from the public, you must do nothing to destroy that possibility. You may be mistaken in your belief that it is known to the whole city.”

  “No, no, my friend, I am not.” Sickles said. “It is already the town talk.”

  “If that be so,” Butterworth said, “there is but one course left for you, and as a man of honor you need no advice.”

  Butterworth left the Ewell House, retracing his steps toward the Club House down Pennsylvania Avenue, across the south side of Lafayette S
quare. He encountered Key at the southeast corner of Lafayette Square, on Madison Lane and Pennsylvania Avenue.

  “Good morning, Mr. Butterworth,” Key said. “What a fine day we have.”

  “Have you come from the Club?” Butterworth asked.

  “I have.”

  Butterworth inquired after a sick friend. “Is Stuart in his room?”

  “Yes, and he is quite unwell.”

  “I am going to see him,” Butterworth said, excusing himself. “Good morning.” Turning toward the Club, Butterworth saw Sickles walking quickly toward them, coming down Madison Lane from the north.

  “How are you?” Key asked Sickles, extending his hand.4

  “Key, you scoundrel, you have dishonored my house. You must die.”

  “What for?” Key asked.

  Sickles pointed a pistol at him and fired. The sound shattered the Sunday afternoon quiet, bouncing off the mansions of Lafayette Square and the White House.

  Key reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a pair of binoculars, and “rapidly advanced” on Sickles. Key grabbed a fistful of his coat collar and tried to strike him with the binoculars. Key hung on, knowing that everything he had in the world depended on his doing so. He had been surprised, but he was uninjured, and, now fully aware of what was happening, had a real chance of surviving.

  Sickles backed up into the street and wrested himself free. He drew a pistol from his overcoat and “presented it at Key,” who backed up toward the Club House. Key threw the binoculars at Sickles as he fired again. It was an uneven trade. The binoculars hit Sickles, without conspicuous effect. Key was wounded. “Don’t shoot me!” he said, staggering toward the sidewalk and taking refuge behind a tree.

  “Murder!” he yelled. “Don’t murder me! Murder!” Sickles advanced on him at close range and fired again. Key wilted, falling on the sidewalk, clutching his groin, landing hard on his elbow. “Don’t kill me!”

  “You villain, you have dishonored my house, and you must die!” Sickles repeated. And again. Sickles advanced with no special hurry and pointed his gun.

  “I am murdered!”

  Sickles fired again, flattening Key on the sidewalk as his chest filled with blood.

  Sickles came closer until he was standing directly over Key. He aimed the gun directly at his head. Click. Misfire.

  Sickles felt a hand on his shoulder. Francis Doyle had come running from the Club House, begging him not to fire again. “He has defiled my bed,” Sickles said.

  Thomas Martin had also come from the Club House and knelt beside Key’s body. He looked up inquiringly toward Sickles.

  “He has violated my bed.”5

  Martin asked for help in carrying Key to the Club House. They were aided by William Bonitz, a twenty-year-old White House clerk. Martin asked Key if he had anything to say, perhaps to his children, or an explanation of what happened. Key made no response.

  A crowd began to gather. “Is the damned scoundrel dead?” Sickles asked no one in particular. Butterworth gently linked arms with Sickles and guided him away.

  Where does a congressman go in this city to turn himself in for a murder? Sickles and Butterworth decided on the home of Jeremiah Black, Attorney General of the United States.

  Bonitz, bearing the signs of having carried a bloodied man, ran into the White House and found the president in his study, getting ready for church. Buchanan nearly collapsed when he heard the news. “I must see Sickles at once,” he said.

  Bonitz had seen a great deal since arriving from Germany three years before. He had made his way from North Carolina to a job with Senator Jefferson Davis in Washington. A year later, he was working in the White House. Now he had witnessed a congressman kill the US Attorney.

  Buchanan warned him that “as the principal witness he would be put in jail without bond,” and that he must “leave Washington immediately.” It was a lie. But if his friend Sickles was going to survive this, Bonitz’s testimony wouldn’t help. He handed Bonitz some money and hunted around for a souvenir. Buchanan settled on his personal shaving razor, of the finest Sheffield steel, that he had brought home from England. He thanked Bonitz for his service as they said goodbye. Bonitz hid for the rest of the day, planning to catch an excursion boat to Norfolk that evening. He was robbed at gunpoint as he walked through Lafayette Park. The man took the money the president had given him, which for some reason he had kept separate from a money belt he was wearing, where he still had $500.I

  Richard Coolidge, assistant surgeon of the Army, thought nothing of Sunday afternoon gunfire in Washington—until he heard people running. He left his room at 820 H, seven blocks away, and followed the gathering crowd to the Club House. Running inside, he saw Key on the floor, his head propped up on the rung of a chair.

  Coolidge felt for a pulse. Nothing. Key breathed twice and never again.

  Washington policemen James Suit and William Daw were the first to respond to the shooting. Members of the crowd directed and then followed them to the home of Jeremiah Black on Franklin Square. The door was answered by the attorney general himself. The officers asked for Sickles. Black went upstairs and personally brought him down. Sickles went willingly. He asked if he could return home to set some affairs in order before going to jail. The officers agreed to accompany him, and they along with Butterworth headed for the Ewell House.

  Thomas Woodward was surprised to see a carriage outside his home in Georgetown. On a Sunday?

  It was Francis Doyle. Are you the coroner?

  I am.

  I need you to come with me.

  At Brown’s Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, Virginia Clay was getting ready for church. Her husband, Senator Clement Clay, “burst into the room, his face pale and awe-stricken.”

  “A horrible, horrible thing has happened, Virginia!” Sickles “has killed Key, killed him most brutally, while he was unarmed!”6

  Lawrence Branch, a North Carolina congressman who was a regular at Teresa’s parties, sat and wrote a letter to his wife. “What is the world coming to?”7

  In Senator Gwin’s parlor, where Butterworth had been passing a pleasant morning just hours earlier, a servant entered. “Mr. Sickles has just shot Barton Key dead.”

  “What was the cause?” Walker asked.

  “Did you never hear the stories as to Mr. Key and Mrs. Sickles?” someone said.

  “No.” Walker answered. It seemed he was the only one.

  This scene was replayed in similar fashion in thousands of rooms across the District. Coroner Woodward arrived to find that the Club House had lost some of its exclusivity. Over a hundred people were lurking about the building. Washington City had morphed into something like a vast stage with multiple scenes playing out at once and the audience having to decide which was the most worth watching.

  A more modest crowd was in the room with Key’s body. It was Woodward’s responsibility to determine the cause of death. He announced a coroner’s inquest, a spontaneous trial where he would pull men from the crowd to serve as jurors, who would examine evidence and question witnesses. The proceeding began with Key still in his place on the floor.8

  Sickles pulled in front of his home to find a swarm of curiosity seekers. He made his way inside, Officers Daw and Suit with him, as well as Butterworth. He asked to go upstairs and see Teresa. They asked his pledge not to harm her. He agreed. The word of a man who had, an hour before, publicly executed the US Attorney was considered enough to guarantee the safety of Mrs. Sickles.

  Teresa had not left her room since last night’s confession. Suddenly, her husband was back, standing in front of her.

  “I have killed him.”

  Robert Walker raced to the Club House, then Black’s, then Sickles’s. He entered amidst “Great buzz and confusion” and saw a familiar face.

  “My friend, you should not grieve so deeply,” Butterworth said. “It is deplorable, but Mr. Key deserved his fate.”9

  Sickles was also there to greet him. “A thousand thanks for coming to see me under
these circumstances.” Without warning, Sickles threw himself on the sofa and covered his face with his hands. Twisting in violent spasms, he “broke into an agony of unnatural and unearthly sounds, the most remarkable” that Walker had “ever heard—something like a scream interrupted by violent sobbing.” He believed that Sickles would lose his mind and nearly sent for a doctor.

  Sickles cried for his wife and his daughter. What would happen to them?

  Walker thought it was the most terrible thing he had ever seen in his life.10

  Police Chief Goddard and Mayor Berrett arrived. “I was just making some little arrangements here,” Sickles said, “preparatory to coming to you to surrender myself into your custody.”11

  The final party at the Sickles home was drawing to a close. There were famous names: Governor Walker, the Police Chief, the Mayor, Butterworth. There were random faces. The hostess was nowhere to be found. Nobody seemed happy.

  The most famous host in Washington had one last task to perform. He opened a bottle of brandy and offered it to his guests. All but Butterworth declined to drink with him. With that, the final party at the Ewell House came to an end.12

  The police had not anticipated the crowd outside, which they now estimated at 150 people. Daw worried that “some of the mob would shoot Mr. Sickles.” Suit put his hand on his pistol and said that “he could shoot as well as any of them.” Sickles was led through a sea of people, any one of whom could have meant him harm. They boarded the carriage without incident.