James A. Hessler
Page 49
Not only did Sheriff Harburger stall long enough for Sickles to avoid jail time, but he also asked some of New York’s richest citizens, including J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie to help Sickles out. The sheriff also received a letter from Sickles in which Dan addressed (of all things) criticism of his Gettysburg performance. Sickles included Longstreet’s statement that Sickles’ advance to the Peach Orchard had helped the Union cause. “You will see from the statement of General Longstreet that I won the great and decisive battle of Gettysburg.”48
Contrary to popular history, Sickles’ troubles did not end with the signing of the bond. Slightly more than a week later, Sheriff Harburger received two more claims against Dan totaling $8,557. These would have to be paid out of the General’s property before the Monument Commission’s claim could be paid. Sickles’ house was set to be sold at foreclosure in March, but once again he received a delay until arrangements could be worked out. It was reported that “sympathy for the aged soldier is said to have been the chief reason for the postponement.” It wasn’t until early May before Sickles finally dodged the threat of jail time. State Attorney General Carmody issued a statement that despite numerous efforts to recover the remaining $23,000, “not a dollar has yet been turned over to the State authorities for this purpose. If we are satisfied that General Sickles has no assets and that we cannot recover this money, we will not press the body execution the State obtained to satisfy the judgment.” Sickles never did “make good” on the full shortage. He had spent the previous fifty years cultivating his war-hero image. In the end, that image combined with his ability to rally supporters saved him from the worst consequences of his chronic financial irresponsibility.49
To help relieve the financial pressure, Sickles rented out apartments on the upper floors of his home. Among his tenants was New York Governor William Sulzer, who occupied office for only ten months in 1913 before he ran afoul of his Tammany sponsors and was impeached. Sulzer’s wife recalled that Sickles and Governor Sulzer became close friends. As if the preceding months had not been bad enough, a fire erupted in the basement of Sickles’ home in late May. Police and firemen burst into his room to inform him that smoke was rapidly filling the house. Showing that he still had some fight, he cried out to the would-be rescuers, “When I see flames I will get up!”50
Sickles had transformed from celebrity to what one author has since called a “relic of a bygone era”—and an embarrassing one at that. But if the early months of 1913 represented one of the lowest points of Sickles’ public life, the summer still held the promise of Gettysburg’s fiftieth anniversary celebrations. His recent legal troubles raised concerns that he would be unable to attend. A GAR committee visited the New York sheriff’s office to determine if the authorities would prevent Sickles from leaving New York state. When it was decided that traveling to Pennsylvania would not violate his bond, Sheriff Harburger allowed Sickles to attend the ceremonies.51
When July 1913 finally and mercifully arrived, newspapers across the country covered the massive Blue and Gray reunion. Attendance figures have since been debated, but the official count claims that 53,000 Union and 11,000 Confederate veterans attended, along with numerous dignitaries, including a brief appearance by President Woodrow Wilson. A massive encampment was established near the Emmitsburg Road from June 29 through July 6. The celebration was an odd mixture of remembrance and sideshow.
Reports, then and now, gushed when approximately 500 survivors reenacted Pickett’s Charge and exchanged handshakes across the stone wall. Even five decades later there was still fight left in some of the veterans. Several men (reports varied between seven and eight) were stabbed in the Gettysburg Hotel’s dining room when a fight erupted following verbal abuse of Lincoln. (Despite initial reports that “an old veteran in blue” was responsible, a thirty-something son of an attending veteran was later arrested for the crime.) The July heat was intense, and keeping the old soldiers safe and sober proved a unique challenge. After three veterans were found dead in their tents (conspiracy-minded newspapers believed that the number of veteran deaths was being under-reported), the New York Timesnoted that “the serious conditions among the veterans” had brought an appeal to “close all the saloons and prohibit the sale of liquor in the town.” Health authorities even threatened the proposal of “martial law” if their abstinence requests were not granted by the governor. Then, as now, controlling tourist crowds was a concern to the locals. A newsman bemoaned the manner in which visitors “thoughtlessly and recklessly run over” historic properties south of town where the July 2, 1863, combat occurred.52
Sickles arrived in Gettysburg in his wheelchair, accompanied by Wilmerding, Joe Twichell, and Sickles’ black valet, Frazier Moseley. The event’s organizers had solicited Sickles’ input for years. In 1910, he had told them that “the most appropriate monument in commemoration of the 50th anniversary would be a monument consecrated to Peace, Liberty, and Patriotism.” He had also worried that Confederate veterans would not attend in great numbers, preventing what he hoped would be “a national love feast.” By the time he attended, however, he no longer served in any official capacity and was not officially invited to participate in speeches or activities. This may have been simply due to his age and infirmity. Alluding to his recent troubles, Helen Longstreet called him the “tragic figure of this great reunion,” and complained publicly. “He was not placed on the program,” she grumbled. “He was probably not expected. But he came because he could not help coming.…It was his victory. It is his field.” Insisting on being “with the boys” one last time, Sickles headquartered himself with the veterans of Carr’s brigade at the Rogers house site. At the anniversary twenty-five years earlier, James Longstreet had stolen the show. Now Dan Sickles had returned as the last living corps commander and seems to have been viewed as almost a museum curiosity. He was undeniably a center of attention, and newspaper reports consistently updated readers on his movements. One typical report recorded that he was “the center of attraction of hundreds of men in gray. He sat on the porch of the Rogers House and shook hands with all comers. Before the Southerners left the Rogers House they shouldered the General, carried him out on the battlefield and stood him up before a moving-picture machine.” At least a dozen men told him that they remembered seeing him wounded on the field, and at least one man supposedly remembered watching the amputation. An “enthusiastic” woman proclaimed him the “greatest of living Americans.” Sickles offered a one word reply: “Correct.”53
Dan Sickles, Eleanor Wilmerding, and Union veterans celebrate together one last time at Gettysburg’s 50th Anniversary in July 1913. Library of Congress
Despite his age and declining health, Sickles served as a news correspondent, writing daily dispatches that were picked up in papers such as the North American and Philadelphia Inquirer. He rhetorically asked his readers on July 1, “Has it been fifty years ago? I scarcely realize it.…The memory of it all comes back to me today.” His reports over the next several days provided extremely lucid (one assumes that he at least had a ghost writing assistant) and consistent (despite misspelling the Trostle farm as Brostle) accounts of the great battle. Some things never changed—especially his accounts regarding July 2. “Meade never had been in favor of giving battle at Gettysburg and I knew that he would order me to leave my position and move to Pipe Creek, where he intended to battle.” Regarding the reunion, he wrote happily that he was with “my boys” and at Gettysburg for one last time. “I believe I am living right now the happiest days of my life.”54
At times, Sickles was overwhelmed by the attention. He would eventually slip into what one report called a “coma”-like condition and the hand-shaking sessions would be brought to an abrupt halt. Wilmerding was observed giving him medicine when he grew too weak to continue. One newsman, whose own brother had been a member of Graham’s 114th Pennsylvania and was mortally wounded near the Peach Orchard, found Sickles “a wreck mentally and physically.” Still, he had to
admit that Sickles was also a …
man remarkable for many things, besides being the sole corps commander living on either side…first coming into the limelight from his shooting on the streets of Washington…he next appears at the beginning of the war as a major general, the commission being tendered him at a time when Lincoln was tactfully endeavoring to placate the Democratic party…he seemed to be a failure at Gettysburg, from his disobeying or misunderstanding of orders…after his wife died he married again, which was followed by domestic troubles, and this by those of worse than financial ones, which came near getting him in prison; in fact nothing but the action of his deserted wife and the mercy of an outraged law leaves him free.55
Sickles was clearly nearing the end of his life, and the reporter found him to be a “pitiable object as he sat on the porch in plain view of where he directed the movements of the Third Corps.…Among a host of others I shook hands with him, but with reservations; the greeting being more like that of a corpse, so helpless he seemed as he lay back in his Morris chair trying to smoke.…All he said as each one shook his hand, was in a mumbling, low voice: ‘Morrow, five o’clock’ alluding to a reunion of the Blue and Gray.…Poor Old General Sickles! I pitied him as he lay back in his chair in the door yard, a curious throng constantly on the stare around him, a passerby from his old command coming through it now and then to shake his limp, passive hand.” The reporter wondered “whether the scenes and sounds of fifty years ago were not breaking through his clouded brain.”56
Helen Longstreet, the general’s widow, arrived on July 1. Dan welcomed her as a crowd of veterans, North and South, immediately gathered to eavesdrop. Helen apparently did not have a place to stay, and a surprised Sickles asked, “Didn’t you get that telegram I sent you…when I heard that you were coming I wired you that Carr’s Brigade would turn over a tent to you.” Showing that he still had a little muscle, he added, “I gave the order myself.” Like Sickles, Longstreet’s widow was doubling as a news correspondent and was a popular attraction herself. She was frequently stopped by old vets who assured her that they “fought under Longstreet.” One man even bragged to her that, “Nothing saved us [the South] from utter ruin but the Ku Klux Klan and I am proud to say that I was a member of it.” Longstreet’s son, Major Robert Lee Longstreet, attended and said that his father and Sickles had predicted this reunion decades earlier.57
Before the ceremonies concluded, Sickles managed to create one last sensation when a rumor spread through the camp on July 4 that he had died. The story caused “much excitement among the old soldiers.” An aide was sent to the Rogers house site, where he was met by Sickles who proclaimed, “That story, sir, was a damned lie. When I am ready to die you will be informed.” But he knew the inevitable truth. He told his readers on July 5: “We don’t say it, but ‘my boys’ know, and I know, that we shall probably never meet again.”58
As late as 1907, Sickles had still hoped for a monument on the battlefield, telling John Nicholson, “if at some future time it may be the pleasure of the State of New York to place some memorial of myself on that battlefield I should prefer to have it on the high ground at or near the Peach Orchard.” Now, as Sickles and Twichell looked out over the field together one last time, Twichell is said to have expressed surprise that there was still no Sickles statue on the field. Battlefield legend tells us that Sickles replied, in essence, that the whole damned battlefield was his monument. The moment symbolically defines Sickles’ immense battlefield contributions, as well as his acknowledgment and defiance that he might never receive a statue at Gettysburg. Unfortunately, like so many of the more colorful aspects of the Sickles legend, there is some doubt as to whether he actually spoke those words. Twichell’s brief diary entry for June 27 - July 9 makes no mention of it. Sickles’ early biographers clouded the issue by treating the conversation differently and not crediting any sources as references. Edgcumb Pinchon claimed that Sickles replied to Twichell, “Never mind Joe—all this is monument enough, isn’t it?” W. A. Swanberg did not quote Sickles directly, stating instead, “The general had an answer to that. The whole damned field was his memorial.” Whether the quote is accurate or not, like so many other aspects of the Sickles story it seems appropriate to the man and has therefore largely gone unchallenged by subsequent historians.59
While we may never see a Sickles statue on the field, his presence is, in fact, nearly everywhere. The lengthy “Sickles Avenue” runs over most of the Third Corps line. From Devil’s Den, it passes the Wheatfield and Peach Orchard and ends at the Emmitsburg Road. The Excelsior Brigade monument, even without the legendary missing bust, commemorates both he and the men he raised in New York. In 1901, a marker was placed near the Trostle farm to denote where he was wounded, while the New York Monument in the National Cemetery dramatically depicts the moment. The rear of the Lincoln Speech Memorial, dedicated in 1912, credits Sickles with introducing the legislation that established the park and erected the monument. His name sits at the top of the New York Auxiliary State Monument, dedicated in 1925 (after his death) to the memory of all New York commanders who were not individually honored elsewhere. Under his leadership, New York placed eighty-eight monuments on the battlefield, the state monument in the National Cemetery, statues to two generals (Slocum and Greene), and applications for two more (Wadsworth and Webb). Locales such as Devil’s Den, the Wheatfield, and the Peach Orchard might not have any significance today were it not for his July 2 advance. He also established the park’s initial boundaries. The “peace memorial” that he supported to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary came to fruition in 1938 as the Peace Light Memorial—an eternal flame to symbolize the nation’s unity. Even the fence separating the National Cemetery and the local Evergreen Cemetery was the same that stood in Lafayette Square when Dan killed Barton Key. The whole damn battlefield might not be his monument, but he certainly has his share of it.60
About six months after returning from Gettysburg, Wilmerding took ill and died in February 1914. When her body was carried out of Sickles’ home, a rumor started that it was the general who had passed on. With this obstacle removed, Caroline and Stanton finally moved into the house. They opened Wilmerding’s safe-deposit box hoping to find some of Dan’s lost fortune, but the box was empty. Whatever their relationship had been, Wilmerding had lasted longer than any other woman in his adult life. Several weeks later, rumors spread again that Dan was also near death. On March 29, a reporter for the Times telephoned the Sickles house to see if the story was true. The voice on the phone replied, “Yes, this is General Sickles. Am I ill? Nonsense. I was never better in my life. There’s nothing to that story. It’s all a lie.”61
Less than a month later, Dan suffered a cerebral hemorrhage on April 24,1914. Lingering in semi-consciousness, he was surrounded by Caroline, Stanton, an attorney for Mrs. Sickles, and a nurse when he died at his Fifth Avenue home at 9:10 p.m. on May 3. Although his obituary contributed to the confusion over his age by noting that he “lived to be almost 91,” he was more likely six months short of his ninety-fifth birthday. Even his age can be debated.62
The New York Timeseulogized “a stirring” career. He was remembered as a “soldier, politician, and diplomat…he lost a leg at Gettysburg…the last of that galaxy of corps commanders who made possible the achievement of Grant and brought our great civil strife to a triumphant close.” Gettysburg was only part of his legacy. The Timesastutely observed the diversity of his resume as a “Fighter, lawyer, politician, and diplomat, his life was a crowded one.” His legacy did not escape one last reminder of the Key murder, which the paper called “the sensation of the day.” Regarding Gettysburg, “his courage and activity at Gettysburg are matters of history. All authorities accord him a very important part in that great battle, some contending that his was the master stroke that saved the day.” While the Timesmercifully avoided the Meade-Sickles controversy, it is somewhat surprising that his role in the development of Gettysburg National Military Park was also excluded (although
his recent expulsion from the Monuments Commission was mentioned).63
The Timesfollowed with an editorial on May 5. “Nobody with warm blood flowing through his veins can read the obituary notices of Gen. SICKLES without a certain thrill of admiration. His was truly the adventurous spirit. Under the right inspiration, he might have been an intrepid explorer or a founder of thriving colonies. As it was, he filled many important positions in civil and military life and was always conspicuous in the minds of his contemporaries.” After summarizing his resume, the Timesmarveled that he returned for his final stint in Congress at “an age when most men are ready to retire.” Noting that his “domestic life was marred by calamities which, unhappily, were always themes of public talk. He never quite lived down the effects of his mad action in 1859.…But there was no disposition to withhold frank acknowledgment of his gallantry and military skill in the service of his country, and the loss of one of his legs in battle helped to keep the heroic side of his character in the public mind.” Although vilified by many modern Gettysburg students, the contemporary press was able to place his accomplishments in a more appropriately broad perspective. Sickles “certainly had more than one man’s share of family troubles,” but he “was assuredly a picturesque and interesting character, and his long life was marked by many noteworthy achievements.”64