Civil War's Strangest Personalities Maj. Gen. Daniel E. Sickles (Union Army): Temporarily Insane The American Civil War was rife with large-than-life (and stranger-than-fiction) characters. Case in point: Maj. Gen. Daniel E. Sickles, the first person in U.S. history to use the temporary-insanity defense -- and to win acquittal with it. In 1859, while serving as a congressman from New York, he shot and killed Philip Barton Key II, his wife's lover and the son of "Star Spangled Banner" writer Francis Scott Key. He also once escorted a prostitute into the chambers of the New York. Photos and Text Provided by Our Partner: LIFE.com. See more pictures at LIFE.com. |
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