Chris was i believe in a sweden last week and we just got the call last week that he was coming. Were thrilled he took time away to reach out to us and confirm his appearance. Hes a New York Times bestselling author of the star spangled scandal which is the topic for today. The president he was formally senior litigation counsel to the Arizona Attorney general and professor of constitutional and International Law and clerk of the superior court were americas part the fourth largest county. Chris sits on the board of directors for the Abraham Lincoln association and the board of scholarly advisors to president lincoln cottage. He and his wife, haner, reside in phoenix. Without further introduction eight present to you chris derose. [applause] thank you, tammy, for that introduction. Thank you for having us and all of you for being here. Pennsylvania cable tv and cspan book tv this will be my fifth appearance on the cspan book tv. Thank you for all you do to promote books and promote authors. Who here has heard the one about the kind of man who killed his wifes lover across from the white house . Good. When i came across the story i knew it was too extraordinary not to share so i was working on my last book called the president s award which was about five former president s who live to see the American Civil War and im reading through their letters and diaries and appropriately focused on the great challenge as i faced our country in 1829 as a teeter toward the edge of the civil war. Then they want to talk about the sickle affair. I had to stop what i was doing and fall into a Research Rabbit hole that happens to be once in a while and said thats a pretty good story. He did kill his wifes lover across from the white house and the victim was no ordinary victim. He was often key, United States attorney and she federal prosecutor from the Nations Capital and son of the author of our National Anthem and one of americas most prestigious and important families, american royalty. This is just where the story starts. I do want to review what that set in motion. He was flying high, congressman from new york and an intimate of president James Buchanan and considered one of the most forceful and persuasive speakers in the house of representatives and talked about for big things in the future and he and his wife, teresa, sits atop the washington social scene until one night, a thursday, after the parlors have cleared out and have gone to the after party and they have come home to try to get work done before going to fed and he remembers that at the as the party was winding down a messenger had come to him with a letter and he opens this letter and read the following. Dear sir, with deep regret im close to your address a few lines but an indispensable duty compels me to do so seeing that you are greatly imposed upon it there is a fellow and i may say for he is not a gentleman by any means by the name of Philip Barton key and i believe the District Attorney who runs the house of a man by the name of john gray, situated on 15th street between k and l street for no other purpose than to meet your wife, mrs. Sickles. He hangs a string out the window as a signal to her that he is in and leaves the door unfastened and she walks in and sir, i do assure you he has as much the use of your wife as you have. With these few hands i leave the rest for you to imagine, most respectfully your friend, rpg. No one asked me what i think the author meant to leave to the imagination but the point was conveyed with shocking clarity. Sickles, no stranger to washington understands that gossip is the coin of the realm and you can waste a lifetime crediting every bit of gossip, every story that courses through washington but that letter is awfully specific and so he realizes he will have to verify, one way or another and will be greatly relieved or his entire life hes built from south will be completely offended. He goes to the house of representatives and finds his friend, george walbridge. If you look up henchman in the dictionary you would probably see someone like george. He wears a black bowler hat, big fake mustache and a huge upper body and walks on crutches because infantile paralysis. A man with a massive chest walking on crutches and big mustache, bowler hat and he first meets sickles when he was the doorkeeper at the new York Assembly. Hes in old tammany person who grows up to manage a brothel and a barroom and hears all kinds of great information in his capacity and decides the real money is to start a newspaper and print these stories and rumors in the press. He realizes that as a newspaper editor its one thing to sell advertising but what if you could blackmail people who cannot afford to see their names appear in his newspaper. This gets him into trouble and end up in prison and when he leaves he goes to europe for ten years as a manager of the first minstrel show, the virginia sarah naders, and appears in albany where he makes a connection with senator dan sickles. When he was elected to congress he brings wooldridge with him and get him a job as a clerk in the map room at the house of representatives. It is to wooldridge, his old friend, that he turns and confides about this offer letter he received and so they begin a stakeout in this neighborhood. The neighborhood north of the white house and this house where barton key and his wife are supposedly meeting and everyone in the neighborhood want to talk about what happening in that house. Its the most exciting thing going on and everyone agrees barton goes into the house but they also say its a woman wears a veil. So theyre trying to catch these two going into the house and trying to catch them in the act. What happens is there able to match a clothing description of the woman seen going into the house with keys, to an outfit owned by teresa. So there is no hiding it or escaping it and Daniel Sickles will say often over the next few days that follow i was the last person to know what was happening in my own family. Hes not far off the mark and indeed, he tries to deny it to himself as long as he can till you cant ignore the evidence any further. He confronts his wife and get her to sign a confession about what she did and what happened in his house, when he was gone, what happened at the house one it was rented for the specific purpose of carrying on this affair with barton key, amanda sickles believed to be his earnest friend and sickles now needs to figure out what he will do about this. He stands for his friend samuel butterworth, another old tammany man who had a variety of things under u. S. Attorney in mississippi and now the head of the office in new york city that test the purity of american coins and in dc on business and two of his old tammany stalwarts, they are with them in the room. Samuel butterworth advises him its almost the end of the congressional center and send teresa back to new york, go to europe and sue for divorce and no one will know what happened but sickles says thats good advice but it sounds like everyone in town already knows about it. That route closed off to me. Trying to figure out what to do. Enter barton key. Barton key shows up in Lafayette Square as sickles is in his house and sickles lives in a home on the west side of Lafayette Square and what might be particular interest to this audience is known as the you will house so it was built and originally owned by the father of general mule and he was a doctor, very talented physician who came to the Nations Capital when it was a new city and ended up having a big dreams to open up a hospital and fell into alcoholism in bad financial mismanagement and ended up having to sell the house. He was on the west side of Lafayette Square billed by jen the generals father and he walked into Lafayette Park and starts waiting his handkerchief at sickles house which was the prearranged signal for sickles wife to go meet him at the rendezvous house. While sickles is losing his mind everything hes built up his entire life is aspirations as a new York Assembly man and a state senator in our commitment perhaps the future senator for future president looks like its all going up in smoke and his beautiful wife that he had for the most popular woman in washington who betrayed him with one of his best friends, mother of his child and trying to figure out what to do and there is keep walking in Lafayette Park waiting the handkerchief at his house. Butterworth leaves to go visit a sick friend on the side of Lafayette Square in a building very imaginatively known as the clubhouse. Its a private members club on the east side of Lafayette Square and of particular interest, this is the home to be occupied by William Seward in the home is where hes attacked and nearly fatally killed at the conclusion of the civil war. At this time its a private members club and so butterworth goes to visit a friend of his and he encounters him and he has a conversation and sees Daniel Sickles show up. Sickles tells key you have dishonored my home, prepare to die. He brings three guns to the fight and brings them in a trenchcoat in an unseasonably warm february day and where do you go if youre a congressman who killed a u. S. Attorney cannot go to the home of the attorney general. Wordofmouth spreads throughout washington dc that key has been killed and that sickles is the killer and people leave their homes, leave their boarding houses, leave the bars and restaurants and get a look at what is happening. You have over 100 people show up for the corners in cost at the clubhouse with keys body right there on the ground with one witness after another being summoned to testify what happened and you have people going to sickles house and panning out on his lawn waiting for him to get arrested. He allowed to go say goodbye to his wife, his promise he wont harm her is good enough for the Police Officer even though he just killed the u. S. Attorney for dc walks into his wifes room triumphantly announces i have killed him. This is just the beginning of where this story starts in all gets crazier from here. The kindling was there to create a immediate firestorm unlike anything anyone had ever seen. This will be the most covered event in Human History up until this point. I found newspaper articles from hawaii and from bermuda and there were daily coverage in almost every newspaper in the United Kingdom and regular coverage in france and i found a book written about it in german and the entire world was paying attention to this fantastic case and its the first story we as americans all follow together because you just had the telegraph scale. People are finding out about the story in close to realtime that had ever happened up until this point. Yet people in new york finding about it that evening, sickles family and friends are finding about it that evening and so you have newspaper correspondence running all over dc trying to collect as many faxes again to get out of the water so can hit the morning newspaper. As you back up a little bit and talk about how news was trading at this time and originally the concept of news where these very expensive commercial newspapers where you learn the price of cotton and copper and other commodities in Business Intelligence and very expensive and what ship is going and nothing exciting. Yet political newspapers, financed by Political Parties either to promote the candidate or criticized a candidate or party. Then you have the entrance of the press starting with the new york sun 1830 where we dont want to talk about politics we dont talk about the shipping so lets talk about fire, animal stories, tragedies and yes, true crime. Real Human Interest story and they made money by selling advertisements which meant they do not have to rely on Political Party or lie on businessmen to underwrite the cost of the paper and the Lightning Press have been introduced. The length of the broadsheet, the number of newspapers that can be printed at any given day, lateness of the hour you could get a story like this out on the street hours after it happened and thats what happened all over the country. Of course you have fake news in their People Racing too quickly to verify things and people for things like butterworth have been arrested as an accomplice and teresa had been arrested and teresa was pregnant with bartons baby and all kinds of false information but a lot of really Accurate Information included in these first reports and intimated by these reporters is that yes, this is not a surprise to us necessarily sickles really was the last to know about what was happening. Yet this daily media feeding frenzy which is very familiar to us today and we are blurring the lines between news and entertainment and i think never been more relevant that when we look back to this incident to see what happens. Sickles, if he has any hope of surviving the hangmans noose and just killed the chief federal prosecutor in broad daylight in front of many witnesses has to put together the best possible legal team, eat your heart out johnny cochran, this is the first Legal Dream Team assembled to defend Daniel Sickles looks as though it was chosen deliberately. He picked all the best lawyers in new york city and dc and virginia to try to represent them but it quite happened haphazardly. Once the news of sickles being arrested hit the street and the members and friends start hiring lawyers and by the end of the first day he had four lawyers representing him including most famously, Edwin Stanton who is a shortterm way from eternal glory as secretary of war during the American Civil War but at this time the prominent lawyer in washington dc and one of the first people retained to represent Daniel Sickles. The prostitution in the case are no slouches either, James Carlisle who was one of sickles first choices to represent him and he happens to be a very close friend of barton key and no interest in helping bartons murderer get justice. Then you have robert gould who will actually become assistant secretary in the confederates of america in charge of hostage, prisoner of war swap for the confederacy and also will go on to be Jefferson Davis lawyer which is of particular interest to those in this room from gettysburg. He was not actually the best u. S. Attorney and hes there basically because of the family name because of political connections and gold does a lot of the work but he is also intermittently sick and travels and so you put a lot of the most important possibilities on robert gould but i thought it was interesting he faxed robert gould life by putting this work off on him now by dying he has given him the hardest case under the biggest microscope in the history of the world. Gould will be appointed by president buchanan to replace key as the u. S. Attorney and this might be a singular phenomenon of American History where you have to wait for a u. S. Attorney to be appointed any murder case because the other one and killed. You got this incredible lineup trying this case in front of judge crawford has been appointed by president polk and presided over every major trial in washington dc up until that point. One of the things that struck me about this book was the confluence of all these fascinating people who either were witnesses in the trial or within the courtroom and who participated in some way and extra ordinary story or were a part of life of Daniel Sickles. Sickles meets his wife, teresa, when she was very young and hes a border in the house of her grandfather and they are preparing him for entry to the university of new york which is not New York University and a mans name is lorenzo and aponte and might be a familiar name to some of you, most famous [inaudible] starts off as a young man in venice and becomes a priest and decides the priestly life is not for him and he is ultimately expelled from the city of venice because of his possible residence in a brothel and is charged to successfully with public concubinage. He finds his way to the court of ambridge where he can [inaudible] add the words to the famous shows like [inaudible] and the marriage of figaro and popular operas weve all seen or heard of but he finds his way back to new york city where he starts the first Opera Company on the islands. One of his daughters which she was an adopted daughter but suspected to be a biological daughter of his due to a liaison in his 60s and that will be the mother of teresa sickles. Shes just a little girl and sickles moves in as a border but he will stay in touch with the family as his career progresses and enters into the law and becomes a new yorker from women and continues to visit the family and as teresa grows up decides hes in love with her and the family was opposed to the marriage at first because of the age difference and she is still in the equivalent of high school so they married in secret with the mayor of new york performing the ceremony and let it never be said that Daniel Sickles was not grand 14 grand gestures but the family will be reconciled to the idea of the marriage and when theyre married a second time in a public ceremony before the arch bishop of new york and its a pretty good start to your marriage. You got the blessing of the mayor of new york city in the highest ecclesiastical officer of the city and that should have pretended good things for the sickles. Sickles will end up going off to the United Kingdom when teams buchanan passed up by president pierce. President pierce will be the first president since interjection to win a second term and the only real big your stature to challenge him to a second term is James Buchanan and he resolves to set beginning off as minister of the United Kingdom. Is a former secretary of state and longtime senator encouragement and does not need disappointment and not interested in this appointment but pierce makes every concession and makes every demand and so buchanan get sent packing. He needs a good aid to go with him and a mutual friend of his makes the connection that sickles ends up hitching his wagon to the sky looks like hes in the next chapter of a long career of public service. They end up going to the United Kingdom where teresa shines with her ability to speak multiple languages and her familiarity with language and culture and shes in her element promoting the United States at Queen Victoria score. They should have stayed there. He will come back to pave the way for James Buchanan who campaign for president because peers had sent buchanan to the United Kingdom to put an end to his career but in fact, pierce will sign the kansas nebraska act on doing the missouri compromise leading to violence and Election Fraud in kansas and so the only democrat with the hope of winning the presidency in 1856 is someone whos untainted in any way by the kansas nebraska act. The very act meant to pave the canons career ends up being the thing that ensures he will be the next president of the United States and sickles comes back ahead of him to lay the groundwork and people regulate what he be in line for Something Big in the beginning and menstruation. Sickles is not interested and this is a recurring theme. Dot his life and career and Daniel Sickles is his own man. Let me read something to you which i think is illustrative of his general life philosophy. He writes as a congressman, think about sickles at gettysburg and every other aspect of his life and see if this does not fit. I cannot play courtier to the multitude much less to the individuals and i know all the consequences and have many a long year since resolved to enjoy it even at the price which must inevitably be paid. I do not deem it a wise course, nor prove it or recommend it to any friend but ive adopted it and its mine and i will follow it come what may. That sickles in a nutshell print that is sickles at his birth and in his home in Lafayette Square and wanting to kill the chief federal prosecutor for the district of columbia in front of a crowd on a sunday afternoon in washington dc. Sickles is his own man. He will run for congress in humans. And so, he immediately distinguishes himself stepped out under buchanan shadow and becomes renowned as an expert in Foreign Affairs on military policy speaker of the house thought he was most capable member elected to the house of representatives. Everything was going well for the way to get ahead in dc is to throw the best party. The easiest way to get invited to get to the best parties by its the best way to court other legislators, journalists, ambassadors, members of the cabinet so congressman salary is 3000 a year and i would not pay for a months worth of festivities. He has to maintain his law practice in new york city which means hes often away from washington was so glad to entrust his wife to barton key to escort her to a fence and they are introduced through a mutual friend. A u. S. Marshall. He is hoping to hold onto his job and buchanan is taking over for apollo democrat and they were [inaudible] buchanan was well within his rights to send the pierce appointees packing was a part in hopes to hang onto his job and he was marshall make that connection between sickles and key and says please we proceed on behalf of my dearest friend and sickles is happy to do it. Thats how their friendship was launched. We say sickles is the last to know but teresa had a stalker. Steven beekman. In the process of stalking teresa, young man, with the new yorker but hanging around in dc the process of stalking teresa he sees that shes going out riding alone with barton key in one instance he follows them and sees they have disappeared into a hotel for a time and comes out together and he starts telling people about what he saw and signs himself to the sickle phone. I would not want to be summoned to the home of an angry Daniel Sickles. Sickle is the man that beekman tells them and beekman folds. He denies what he said and denies what he saw and thats enough for sickles. Thats what keys denial is enough for sickles to go back to his obliviousness and so what is happening. Unless you think he and teresa were appropriately concerned about merely being discovered, two weeks later, they are dancing together of the most popular ball in washington, masquerade ball thrown by the wife senator [inaudible] and it will become notable in retrospect after its opulence but for the fact that many people there present, Jefferson Davis, william steward, the last time they will meet on friendly terms. If this incredible party and everyone in washington is there and all these different costumes and describe it as a stimulus for the cost to makers and tailors of washington dc and sickles is interposed and can i go but his wife shows up as little Red Riding Hood and he shows up as an english huntsman. And that very conspicuously leading together. In a situation with discretion was called for weeks after their close call none could be found. People tried to warn them about the situation. At first, he denied it and said no, no, im nothing but fatherly feelings towards her and i as i went to a daughter and eventually says sickles is a damned yankee and will not do a thing about it. Or says and prepared for any exigency to indicate where he has his firearm and where his firearm was on the date of the murder is the subject of contention and rumor and speculation as a major part of the trial. He was wrong in his estimate of what sickles was willing to do about it. Of course, this will lead to the most gullible trial, 20 day trial in a country where the average homicide case would typically be resolved in a afternoon. As a former attorney or as a current attorney but former prosecutor and courtroom criminal lawyer really the most extraordinary case ive ever come across and not just a template for every celebrity trial but that followed but the template for every scandal that follows in the arrow we live in now where the line is a race between entertainment and news and what is edifying to read and learn about and what is sensational and exciting. That is refine ourselves today. I was delighted to be able to spend this time these incredibly vivid characters and to tell the story which of course will lead to sickles momentous decision on day two of gettysburg so with that i love to throw open the floor to questions and thank you for being here and for your kind attention. Its an honor to be speaking here at gettysburg as part of the anniversary celebration. [applause] what was your take, temporary insanity defense . Yeah, you got the insanity defense gets poured over from the United Kingdom and so its a relatively new kind of defense where you dont know what youre doing is wrong or dont understand what it is youre doing and so its a relatively new defense and temporary insanity was the only opening they had if you plead insanity because hes having conversations with people right before the incident and then after the incident hes having all kinds of conversations goes to the attorney generals house actually encounters a former u. S. Senator there who remarks that he has forgotten to wipe the mud off his boot. If he had known sickles was packing a hot pistol that had just been used to kill the chief federal prosecutor he might have had less regard for jeremiah blacks carpets. But has a perfectly listed conversation and ask questions about pennsylvania politics and so their avenue in pleading insanity is to say is temporarily insane at some point for putting on the trenchcoat and packing three firearms and when he hits the ground and sickles attempts to fire a final shot standing over him in the pistol misfires but really quite a brutal killing quite a number of shots fired and even after the fatal shot so that was the avenue but hes famous for the temporary insanity plea but also they started with an argument about a straight justification so key has had an affair with his wife and sickles is justified for getting him down. They make that case to the jury even though completely contrary to the law and contrary to the judges instructions and they go for straight navigation argument and say its okay if you dont buy that and that gun we found on the ground do not match the ball that came out of barton key and that was hes gone and how do you know thats not his gone back to try a halfhearted self defense argument and if you dont buy those Daniel Sickles is temporarily insane for a few minutes. What you have here is this is not injury getting bamboozled by pseudoscience but a jury who believes that you are entitled they are convinced you are justified in killing the seducer of your wife, seducer of your wife. This will start a trend in the United States. Something called the unwritten law. For almost a century in america must rigidly adhere to law in the United States is a lot you never find in any statute book and not in any case called the unwritten law but it was absolutely followed regardless of the circumstances or where it happened and what you will see is juries if it even gets to a jury, jury will equip people who commit murder to avenge their honor, the familys honor, the honor of a female representative in honor of a female relation and even when a female could have successfully invoked the unwritten law more often than men could successfully. With thousands of cases never charged and thousands of cases dismissed by the coroners for the grand jury and judges who would issue directive verdict and throughout cases in the circumstances of the case could get to the jury jurors would often simply acquit and if they found the circumstances that they were persuaded that someone had killed in order to avenge their honor or familys honor if the jury convicted, the judge would often issue a nominal sentence and if you seriously got to this point and the judge issued a serious ascendance the government was expected to pardon you. How serious and my about this connect two examples. So, in kentucky you have your classic unwritten law scenario of a man catches his wife in fed with another man and kills the man and the governor announces preemptively if you transmit and convict him i will pardon him. Thats remarkable by itself but with more remarkable is victim in the case was the governor son. Elected official you are expected to pardon the killer of your own son and if it was an unwritten law scenario. Ill give you one other. South carolina, 1890, post reconstruction birthplace of the confederacy. Apartment finds his wife in fed with a white man and kills him. The governor of South Carolina part in the black man because thats what Public Opinion dictated. The unwritten law was even more powerful than jim crow and more powerful than statesponsored segregation in South Carolina in 1890s. This will continue to be the case in last unwritten law case in 1958 and were not talking ancient history. Virtually impossible to punish someone who had committed a killing to avenge or to kill the lover of their wife or perhaps someone would then lover of their sister, female relation or was not prepared to accept response ability for mirroring them for taking responsibility for their child in any number of scenarios like that impossible to successfully punish them and that will go for almost 100 years but as a lawyer i know idea about this so i started to research this case but it will start with the sickles case really becoming a conversation in every living room in the United States. Have limited instances where juries were acquitting under spurious claims of insanity or selfdefense but after the sickles case this is one a wildfire starts. It wont go out for a century you. So, if sickles had been found guilty was the option if they are to find him or give him a sentence i would not be execution or a prison sentence or reduced sentence . The only option in the judges plan was a death sentence. Im pretty confident judge crawford would have hanged him at the jury have found him guilty. Sickles is playing an away game. People live in washington dc and run the country but they dont run washington. Certainly, not in this era. Congress everyone gone over the session and if the residents of dc in charge of the trial. Think about dc culture at the time. Unapologetically proslavery, southern, key as part of the firmament of the city so people come and go, president s, and go, commitment, and go but people like he remains. He had the u. S. Attorney under a multiple presence in pierce and the canon but previously in the polk administration. He tried every case and from the judge crawford and so the bar of washington dc particularly would have consisted on a death sentence to avenge their friend and former u. S. Attorney and i think that wouldve happened if the jury had convicted sickles and really there was a time in that very well may have happened. Theres this reaction guy having affair with his wife and good for sickles but then we think about it and have a few weeks to consider you say you cant just have people going into the street and killing people even if that person had done something wrong to them. The delay in bringing this court case to trial would not be a delay by any measure by todays standard at the time but were not to trial until april and the community at the time to think about it there was a rejected juror who almost made it on the jury and told everyone would listen that fight me down the street i wouldve voted to convict. Im pretty confident he would have hanged. That was one thing that he was concerned of this wouldve been an president begin power and president begin wouldve been able to commute the sentence or pardon him but im not sure that wouldve happened. Buchanan had his own problems of the time hes thinking about another term and obviously you cant alienate key supporters in the Democratic Party and so that wouldve been a tough decision for beginning but we dont know what wouldve happened. Carry out a death sentence for capital what wouldve been the judges options. Other questions. One of the most interesting characters was fanny white. Any more information connect. Justin asked about fanny white was incredible character who appears in this book. You could not make these people up. If i had to write a novel about this you would have not found these characters to be credible. Its just too much. Sickles becomes acquainted with fanny white as a young man in new york and has just fled the academy where he had been kicked out of school and is back in new york working as a journeyman printer and get to know penny white by patronizing her establishment, its a highend brothel where a lot of big names in new york city like to hang out. But its a house of ill repute nonetheless. Danny falls in love with sickles. Sickles is the only man, i think in history, to show up night after night at the most highpriced brothel in the city and come out ahead. Even though sickles made a lot of money in his career as he was on and becomes a lawyer and very successful lawyer and fanny white was probably the Richest Woman in new york city and she likes to buy him fancy things like jewelry and nice suits so sickles is the only guy i know who could show up at a highpriced price brothel in walk out ahead. They like to go to bars together. Women not allowed to part the time but any white would dress up as a man in one night they are caught in and up in jail. Then sickles is not going to marry fanny white. I think ive given credit to bringing her up to the assembly in albany and introducing her to her colleagues because that was a brave move and it and different move toward their what opinion there mustve been but he will not marry fanny white. Most upper with the mobile politicians will not marry fanny white. Falls in love with three separate betty white find out about this and puts on Mens Clothing again and goes and finds sickles at the bar of the Carlton Hotel in new york city and full lips him. I assume its a singular event in the history of new yorks heart Carlton Hotel but thanks for asking about penny white. She is a fascinating and unique figure in American History with any other questions . Thank you so much for being here. [applause]