Daniel Sickles: An Unlikely Union General

By Christopher Ryan Oates | America's Civil War  | one comment  | Print This Post  | Email This Post

Complicating matters, it was unclear whether Sickles had any authority over these men. He called himself a general, as the head of a brigade, but the soldiers had not been sworn into the armed forces, meaning that military discipline did not officially apply. In the eyes of the law, these men were still private citizens and legally could not be forced to stay at camp under Sickles’ command.

June of 1861 saw Sickles teetering on the precipice of absolute ruin. He was in massive debt. His brigade was not fully manned and was beginning to bleed away. He was in a questionable legal position. The governor of New York, the most powerful governor in the Union, wanted Sickles’ Brigade disbanded, and the federal government was not helping. Should the Excelsior project fail, Sickles would again be ruined, would have lost his best chance at a general’s star and would face years in court to fight his creditors.

When all was almost lost, Sickles was again saved by his country’s troubles. Lincoln’s need for troops compelled Secretary of War Cameron to accept Sickles’ proposal to federalize the troops. He sent army agents to swear the soldiers into service as the 1st through 5th U.S. Volunteer Infantry Regiments. It was a legal manipulation that allowed the federal government to pay for the soldiers’ upkeep and provide for their equipment. Daniel Sickles had emerged from his dispute with Governor Morgan victorious.

Federalizing the troops did not, however, confirm Sickles as their leader nor did it help him with his creditors, who hounded him in camp. Only another national disaster could keep Sickles out of their clutches. When word reached Staten Island that a great battle had commenced at a creek named Bull Run, the soldiers became convinced that this would be the great battle to end the rebellion and that their military service would soon be over. Had that happened, Sickles would have returned to civilian life to face his debts. It did not. The Union army was put to flight, leaving Washington exposed to a Rebel attack. All available units were called to the defense of the capital. In the week following the Battle of Bull Run, Sickles and his regiments departed for the South. The brigade’s debts were left in the hands of Captain William Wiley, Sickles’ original partner. Finding the money to settle with the creditors consumed Wiley in the following months and nearly ruined him. Sickles offered no help, and Wiley came to despise his former friend. He was the Excelsior Brigade’s first casualty.

In the District of Columbia, under the direct command of Regular Army generals, there was no chance that the Excelsior Brigade would be disbanded or be expected to pay for its own supplies. Still, Sickles’ command of the brigade was not assured. Generals needed to be confirmed by the Senate, usually no more than a formality. Sickles, however, was not usual. The Republican majority remembered that just months earlier Sickles had opposed the party. They were possibly fearful of entrusting 5,000 soldiers to an ambitious hothead. If Sickles could murder a man in Lafayette Park, might he make rash decisions on the battlefield? If Sickles’ former political friends had withdrawn to the Confederacy, might Sickles take his brigade over to the South as well? Dislike and concern held up his confirmation as a brigadier general throughout the summer and autumn of 1861. Sickles spent much of his time in Washington and away from camp, lobbying for a vote while being drawn into the capital’s politics and intrigues.

In February 1862, amateur undercover reporter Chevalier Henry Wikoff, a European adventurer and old friend of Sickles, had submitted extracts of one of President Lincoln’s speeches to the New York Herald. Wikoff almost certainly received the text of the speeches from Mrs. Lincoln, who had become great friends of both Wikoff and Sickles while both were in Washington in 1861. Congress prepared to investigate both Wikoff and Mrs. Lincoln for distributing secret government documents, a move that would be highly damaging for President Lincoln. Once again, others’ ill fortune served Sickles well. As legal counsel to Wikoff, Sickles found a way out of the mess. He forced the White House gardener to testify that he had seen the speech on the president’s desk, memorized it word for word and submitted it to the newspaper. It was an improbable story, and perhaps no one truly believed it, but it was a cover that allowed the president to escape a scandal, for which he was grateful to Sickles.

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