This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

This is Lee Habib, and this is our American Stories, the show where America is the star

and the American people coming to you from

the city where the West begins, Fort Worth, Texas. One of the great characters of the Civil

War, General Daniel Sickles, left a trail of unpaid bills, broken romances, and political

scandals everywhere he went. Here to tell the story is Ashley Lubinsky.

Ashley is the former co-host of Discovery Channel's Master of Arms,

and she's the co-founder of the University of Wyoming College of Law's Firearms Research Center.

Here's Ashley.

The expression, sometimes fact, is stranger than fiction, might well have been written specifically

for Civil War General Daniel Sickles. I'm not sure that there is a more peculiar or colorful

character in American history. It's hard to know where to begin with Sickles, as he has no

shortfall of stories that could be told about him.

He was born in New York City and throughout his life would serve as a soldier, politician, and diplomat.

He attended law school and became active in the Democratic Party and began his political career in 1847.

Probably his least controversial accomplishment is that he acquired the land for Central Park in 1847. Probably his least controversial accomplishment is that he acquired the land for Central

Park in 1853. In 1855, he won consecutive terms in the New York State Senate and was a member

of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1857 to 1861. That tenure, though, was not without

scandal, which might be a massive understatement.

On February 27, 1859, Sickles shot and killed Philip Barton Key, who was the son of Francis Scott Key, who wrote the national anthem.

He shot Key in broad daylight across from the White House.

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