THE CONGRESSMAN WHO GOT AWAY WITH MURDER

Hardback. In February 1859, in broad daylight, in front of 12 witnesses in Lafayette Square, across from the White House, Congressman Daniel Sickles - one of the capitol's most promising politicians - shot Philip Barton Key - US District Attorney for the District of Columbia and son of Francis Scott Key - in a jealous rage over the illicit affair Key had been carrying on with Sickles's beautiful young wife Teresa. With public opinion solidly behind him, Sickles was subsequently acquitted in his highly publicised murder trial, which featured scandalous sexual revelations, and the first successful use of the temporary insanity plea in American legal history. The author's analysis of this extraordinary case is enlivened by contemporary newspaper accounts, many of which were salacious amd misleading, and reports of the gossip that was rife in Washington and throughout the nation. Surprisingly, Sickles and his wife were reconciled after his acquittal, and he went on to play a heroic role in the Civil War, losing a leg as a Union general at Gettysburg. As for his wife Teresa, as a fallen woman she became a social outcast in the Washington society that had once so warmly embraced her. She died soon after the end of the Civil War, at the age of 31. Illus., Notes, Bibliog. and Index. 261pp. 8vo. h/back. From the library of true-crime writer, Wilfred Gregg, with his personal b/plate. F. in F. dw.