Star Spangled Scandal

July 29, 2019
DeRose (The Presidents’ War: Six American Presidents and the Civil War That Divided Them) provides a comprehensive look at a sensational but forgotten cause célèbre—the fatal 1859 shooting of United States Attorney Philip Barton Key in Washington, D.C., by New York Congressman Daniel Sickles. Shortly before Sickles fired several shots, in broad daylight and in front of witnesses, at Key—the son of the composer of “The Star-Spangled Banner”—Sickles received an anonymous letter. The unnamed correspondent warned the well-connected legislator, whose six-year-old daughter was President James Buchanan’s goddaughter, that Key was having an affair with Sickles’s wife. The pioneering use of telegraphs to rapidly share news stories around the country made the killing the subject of national interest. The trial centered on Sickles’s mental state at the time. His defense team maintained that Sickles fired his weapon while Key was essentially still in the “act of adultery” with Sickles’s wife. Sickles was acquitted. While readers may not be convinced that the case merits the gravity of the subtitle’s claim, true crime fans will relish this thoughtful look at a murder and its aftermath that riveted a nation.