Edwin Stanton and his famous case representing Daniel Sickles

In the Stanton Heritage Center hangs a picture of Edwin Stanton, after whom the town was named. Among other states having cities or counties with the same name are Texas, Michigan, California, North Dakota, Kansas, and Nebraska. Most everyone knows the man was honored because he was Lincoln’s secretary of war, but when legal scholars hear the name they tend to think not of wartime service, but of the first lawyer to argue “temporary insanity.”

The man the railroad named a town in Montgomery County after was, prior to the Civil War, an attorney practicing law in Washington, DC. In this capacity he became acquainted with numerous politicians, including a New York Congressman named Daniel Sickles.

In 1852 Sickles, at the age of 33, married the lovely 15-year-old Teresa Bagioli. The young Mrs. Sickles seems to have thoroughly enjoyed the nation’s capitol and, apparently, men other than her husband. On several occasions she found it necessary to convince Mr. Sickles that stories of her dalliances were entirely untrue.

Sickles was himself less than a model husband. He drew censure from the New York State Assembly for bringing with him to the chambers a known prostitute, a lady with the presumably appropriate name of Fanny White. He further upset his wife by leaving her home while he took Fanny with him on a trip to Europe, where he attracted considerable publicity by introducing his travel companion to Queen Victoria.

The teen-aged Mrs. Sickles found her own special friend in a noted womanizer named Phillip Barton Key, who happened to be the son of Francis Scott Key. Sickles grew suspicious and confronted his wife, who confessed. She not only admitted the affair, she did so in a signed statement. Armed with the statement and a handgun, Sickles waited for the right moment. That moment came when he spotted Key on a street bench outside the Sickle’s home, beckoning to the lady of the house. Sickles approached Key and shot him several times.

Charged with murder, Sickles called on Edwin Stanton. Stanton, who had argued cases before the Supreme Court, was well aware of insanity as a legal defense. Stanton, however, took things a step further. His client’s insanity, he told an understanding all-male jury, was temporary. The condition had overwhelmed Mr. Sickles when he learned of his wife’s infidelity, but passed quickly once he’d pumped a few bullets into her lover.

Sickles was acquitted and later served as an officer in the Civil War. When he had a leg shattered by a cannonball at Gettysburg he donated the amputated remains to science, and the bones are now on display at the “National Museum of Health and Medicine.”

In part because of his creative defense of Sickles, Edwin Stanton became much admired by Washington insiders and his own political career was soon to blossom. He reminds us there’s usually more in a name than is immediately apparent.

Roy Marshall is a local historian. E-mail him at news@redoakexpress.com.