Such attacks on Sickles were perhaps inevitable for a well-known figure. But Sickles did himself no favors when he attempted to increase the prestige of his brigade by christening it “Excelsior,” the New York state motto. The name implied that this was the state brigade of New York and would represent it in the war.

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Farmers and townsmen of Republican upstate New York immediately complained to Governor Morgan that the “state” brigade was drawn too much from Democratic New York City. They resented that their counties would not be included in the brigade and that their state would be represented by a murderer and scoundrel. For Morgan’s part, he could not alienate his base of support and perhaps had grown uneasy by the great success of a Democrat. Morgan had encouraged Sickles only because he had a proven ability to recruit men from areas in which Morgan held less sway. Now that Sickles imperiled overall recruitment—presumably upstaters would be less likely to enlist if their demands were not met—Sickles’ actions could no longer be tolerated. Morgan ordered Sickles to disband 32 of the 40 companies he had raised.

Daniel Sickles, to say the least, was outraged. He was being told to send away willing volunteers when the country was in danger. What’s more, with the loss of his brigade, he would no longer be eligible for a general’s star. Morgan, Sickles believed, had no authority over what he saw as his brigade. He had recruited the men without any help from the state government, and he was responding to the president’s call to save the Union. The soldiers reported to Sickles, and Sickles reported to Lincoln. In Sickles’ mind, the governor of New York had no business interfering in the Excelsior Brigade’s affairs.

Sickles immediately set out to correct Morgan’s misguided order. He departed for Washington and an audience with President Lincoln. Sickles urged Lincoln to federalize the brigade and take them out of the hands of the petty Morgan. Thus, Sickles presented Lincoln with a dilemma. The Union desperately needed troops to put down the rebellion, and a body of troops Democratic in origin would demonstrate that the North was united in its resolve. However, Lincoln could not risk alienating the governor of the most populous state in the Union. Lincoln delayed a decision. Secretary of War Simon Cameron would address the issue and solve it in due time. Meanwhile, Sickles was to return to New York to train his soldiers.

Upon Sickles’ return to New York, his fury increased when he saw that the discipline of his brigade had vanished in his absence. Strewn across City Hall Park, the men were hungry, dirty and some drunk and unruly. Sickles marched them to Crosby Street where every man was given a haircut and a shave for 10 cents apiece. Sickles then arranged for the bri-gade to be transported to Long Island where an unused racetrack in Queens County could serve as a campground. Away from the city and civilians, Sickles set his men and officers to train in the hopes that their new military skills would indeed be used in battle.

For the next few weeks the Excelsior Brigade’s prospects grew dimmer as problems mounted. The racetrack was still too close to the civilian population for true discipline to be enforced so Sickles moved the brigade to a spot on Staten Island surrounded by marsh and woods near the Verrazano Narrows. The state of New York refused to pay for the brigade’s upkeep—the governor had ordered them disbanded, after all—and the federal government had not acted. The men still needed to eat, so the bills went to Sickles. The tab soon mounted in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, far more than Sickles could ever pay out of his own pocket.

Meanwhile, the men, without any salary and without any hopes of entering the army, grew restless. Many deserted. Independent companies who had joined the Excelsior Brigade were rebellious under New York officers whom Sickles had appointed in return for their recruiting help. In the coming weeks, one of those companies, B of the 5th Regiment, attempted to depart for Philadelphia to join a Pennsylvania regiment. Sickles drove them back to camp at the point of a bayonet and sentenced them for desertion, only to postpone their execution and be sued by the company’s captain so that the company would be allowed to leave and be paid for expenses incurred during their travel to New York.

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