October 20, 1819

Union General Daniel Sickles is born
General Daniel Sickles, one of the most colorful generals in the Union army, is born.

Sickles was part of the famously corrupt Tammany Hall political machine in New York City and he served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1857 to 1861. His political career was marked by scandal--the New York State Assembly censured him for escorting a known prostitute into its chambers, and he took the same woman on a trip to England while his pregnant wife remained in the states. While serving as a member of Congress in 1859, Sickles confronted Philip Barton Key, son of "Star Spangled Banner" author Francis Scott Key, when Key had an affair with his wife, Theresa Sickles. Sickles shot Key, Washington's district attorney, in Lafayatte Square, just across from the White House. "Is the damned scoundrel dead yet?" Sickles reportedly asked as he brandished his smoking pistol. Sickles' murder trial created sensational headlines. He assembled a defense team that included Edwin Stanton, who later became Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of War. Stanton employed the temporary insanity defense, and Sickles became the first defendant in the United States to be acquitted using that strategy. Sickles was then shunned by Washington society for taking Theresa back. Southern diarist Mary Chestnut observed him in the House chambers in 1860 and wrote that, "he was left to himself as if he had smallpox." Sickles left office in 1861.

When the Civil War erupted, Sickles raised a brigade from New York. The Republican governor, jealous of Sickles' success, ordered the Excelsior Brigade disbanded, but Sickles appealed to President Lincoln. Lincoln gave Sickles the rank of temporary commander and promised to help negotiate the New York political maze to commission the brigade. This took nearly a year, but Sickles and his command came to be part of General Joseph Hooker's corps during the Seven Days' Battles.

Sickles quickly moved up the ranks. By early 1863, he became commander of the Army of the Potomac's Third Corps. His troops fought well at the Battle of Chancellorsville, and Sickles played a major role in the Battle of Gettysburg. Sickles occupied a low portion of Cemetery Ridge on the battle's second day. He moved his troops forward against the wishes of Commander General George Meade in order to take a section of high ground in Sickles' front. The move left his corps and the Army of the Potomac in a highly vulnerable position. Confederates under General James Longstreet attacked, and Sickles' corps barely survived the day.

Sickles lost his leg during the battle, and he never regained another command. After the war, he was military governor of the Carolinas and served as U.S. minister to Spain. His time in Madrid was also marked by scandal--rumors spread of an affair between Sickles and Queen Isabella II. After his return to the U.S. in 1874, Sickles spent much of his life defending his actions at Gettysburg and shaping the accounts of the Civil War. He died in 1914 at the age of 94. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery, but the leg he lost at Gettysburg is on display at the Armed Forces Medical Museum in Washington, D.C.




Sunday Oct. 20 1861
LADY LEAVES LOOSE-LIPPED LIST

The slogan “loose lips sink ships” would not be coined until a much later war, but something like it should have been mentioned to military commanders in Washington at this time. Additionally, something along the lines of better border security would have been a good idea. A woman, whose identity is unknown, walked into the Confederate War Office in Richmond today, dropped off a parcel of papers, and walked back out. The papers included explicit descrïptions of the plans for Banks’ forces’ advance on Manassas, as well as Burnside’s expedition into North Carolina and Butler’s into Louisiana. The lady had gathered this information at a dinner party in Washington D. C. several days earlier, where Gen. John A. Dix was one of the guests. Dix’s lip slipped.



Monday Oct. 20 1862
MCCLERNAND MISASSIGNMENT MAKES MILITARY MESS

Either Abraham Lincoln was trying to keep too many people happy and feeling important, or he suffered a major brain cramp today. He issued orders to Maj. Gen. John A. McClernand, a big-shot politician from Illinois, to organize troops and lead them on an expedition to Vicksburg, Mississippi. What Lincoln seemed to forget was that he had just assigned Gen. Ulysses S. Grant to the same task. This was to lead to no end of conflicts, confusion and eventually hostility between Grant and McClernand, since each quite honestly believed himself to be the rightful commander of the project.



Tuesday Oct. 20 1863
CONFEDERATE CONFIDENCE CURSES CRUISERS

At the beginning of the War the Confederacy, realizing that it simply did not have enough warships, had begun contracting to have new ones constructed, primarily in the great shipyards of Liverpool, England. Although technically in violation of British “neutrality”, much of this was winked at as contractors were making money hand over fist. Finally, though, the US representatives got through to foreign secretary Lord Russell to point out a coincidence: Two rams known as “294” and “295” were very close to being finished. At the same time huge numbers of Confederate naval officers seemed to be finding their way to English shores. How alarmed Lord Russell was at the threat of war with the United States if the ships were released is unknown, but today he put the final nail in the coffin: the ships were quietly seized by Her Majesty’s government. The “Laird rams”, as they were known, never saw Southern service.



Thursday Oct. 20 1864
PRICE’S PROJECT PRODUCES PROFOUND PERIL

Sterling Price had been fighting to liberate Missouri from Union hands since the beginning of the war. His final excursion had been going on for a month now, and was having no greater success than the previous ones, in large part because Missouri seemed to have no great desire for such liberation. Price expected to lead his army in and grow it by a flood of recruits. Since nearly every man in Missouri eligible for army service was already serving, on one side or the other, this did not occur. Today Price was in Lexington, on the banks of the Missouri River. He had Pleasanton’s heavy cavalry behind him, Andrew Jackson Smith’s infantry on his left and Samuel Curtis’ men up ahead. The river, on the right of his course, was the only direction from which shot and shell were not flying.