American Scoundrel (2002)

A jealous husband, a forgotten wife, a passionate lover, a notorious murder and an even more notorious acquittal – the stuff of a soap opera you may think, but it was all real. Real to the man that died, the woman that suffered and the one that got away – with murder.

American Scoundrel: Murder, Love and Politics in Civil War America is Thomas Keneally's biography of Daniel Edgar Sickles, the American politician, army general and diplomat, who caused a scandal in Washington D. C. and its political environs, when he shot and killed his wife’s lover, just across from the White House.

The biography deals an even hand. Sickles is portrayed as ambitious, determined, driven, clever, persuasive, passionate and charming. His political career, which began at Tammany Hall, the New York-based political machine of the Democratic Party, took him as far as the United States House of Representatives. His controversial military career will forever make the Battle of Gettysburg a contested topic, because of the decisions he chose to make on that fateful day. Then there is the unproductive diplomatic stint in which he served as the United States Minister to Spain.

We also see Sickles as a power broker, who got into financial difficulties, but had the right connections to dust himself off the ground. He was a philanderer with the audacity to introduce a woman from a New York bordello to Queen Victoria. A philanderer with a wife and a daughter. A philanderer whose wife had an affair, and this is where the crux of the story rests.

In February 1859, on a cold Sunday afternoon, Sickles fatally shot his wife’s lover Philip Barton Key II, the Federal District Attorney of Washington D. C. (son of Francis Scott Key, who composed the American national anthem) in Washington D. C.’s Lafayette Square.

Sickles in Federal Army uniform
(Image © Brady National Photographic Art Gallery)

The narrative unfolds brilliantly – tears, recriminations, grief, guilt and heartbreak. Keneally takes us through the events and emotions that culminated in the murder, the various accounts of what happened, and the sensational trial that gave rise to the plea of ‘temporary insanity.’ It is a step-by-step telling of the media frenzy, the courtroom drama and the aftermath of what happens to these two individuals, as history rushes past them in its traumatic way.

Where is Teresa in all this? Keneally makes every attempt to bring out the narrative of Teresa Bagioli Sickles. Little is known about her, and not enough is said and written by her to help us understand her better, but we see her through absences. She leads a trophy-like existence and is feted as the perfect hostess, keeping up appearances in the face of her husband’s numerous affairs and obvious neglect.

The world collapses in on itself for this young, beautiful and intelligent (she spoke five languages) woman, when an adulterous affair is discovered. The biography carries no excuses for Teresa’s actions; it is more an attempt to understand the unfortunate circumstances surrounding it. It also reveals her shame and despair, the extraordinary ‘confession’ Sickles persuades her to make, and the intense pressure of accusation for violating the sanctity of ‘home’ and ‘marriage.’ Place this if you will in comparison to Sickles’ own adultery and you will know which way the scales tipped.

Teresa at the time of the trial (Image © Harper’s Magazine)

The key to all this is the vicious beast that is public morality. It applies double standards to Sickles and Teresa – one a serial adulterer and the other a one-time offender. Society ostracises her from all manner of social life and cultural activity, and the monotony and loneliness that dawns on her days suffocates her spirit. She is absent from Civil War army camps, as other army wives carry coffee for the soldiers and nurse the wounded. She is dealt a brutal punishment, and tragically and effortlessly, she is forgotten and erased from memory by all who ever knew her.

Sickles’ continued and successful political career is at odds with Teresa’s (and their daughter Laura’s) fate. His battle to set the record straight about the Gettysburg Battle, his war injury, his close interactions with the President, the Congressional Medal of Honour, second marriage and continued affairs stand testament to how the balance of power was tilted towards the man. With time, he is forgiven and accepted back into all the social circles that mattered. Not so for her. Therein lies the biography’s exploration of social ethics and the power of public judgment.

Internal politics provide a graphic backdrop to American Scoundrel. Such machinations and their players jostle each other for recognition, power, position and honour. The Civil War also claims a large portion of the narrative, and the death and destruction is depicted in all its awful glory.

Keneally’s research is thorough, and his voice is strong and assured. It lends credence to a riveting tale, which will leave you that much wiser to the hypocrisies that bind life.

Keneally, T. (2003). American Scoundrel: Murder, Love and Politics in Civil War America (Vintage ed.). NSW, Australia: Random House Pty Ltd.