MAJOR GENERAL DANIEL E. SICKLES - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 04/15/1896 - HFSID 72570

MAJOR GENERAL DANIEL E. SICKLES
1896 handwritten and signed letter to a state governor, urging him to approve a bill
Autograph letter signed "D.Sickles". 2 pages (1 sheet folded, front and verso), 4 ½ x 6 ¾, on stationery imprinted with Sickles' monograph.April 15, 1896. Addressed to "His Excellency Gov. Morton". In full:"My dear Governor, I commend to your form & approval the St. John's Park Site Bill, relieving owners in the vicinity for amendments therein. It is an equitable measure, since all Parks are recognized as public im-provements, in which adjacent owners have no special privileges or advantages. Tell me public square have been so recognized. His Excellency Gov. Morton". This letter was presumably to New York Governor Levi P. Morton, asking him to approve a bill. Sickles had been a United States Representative for New York the previous year. Daniel E. Sickles (1825-1914), born in New York City, had gained notoriety before the Civil War when he shot Philip Barton Key, the son of Francis Scott Key, because he believed Key and his wife were lovers. (Sickles was tried for murder but acquitted, the first successful "temporary insanity" defense in U.S. history.) During the American Civil War, he rose from colonel to major general in command of a brigade at Gettysburg. Sickles, thinking that his position was vulnerable, moved his 3rd Corps from Cemetery Ridge to the battlefield's Peach Orchard without orders. His action drew criticism, but he was later credited with staving off disaster by blocking a surprise attack led by General James Longstreet against the Union Army's left flank at Little Round Top. Sickles lost a leg in the fighting, but won the respect of General Winfield Scott Hancock, in command at Little Round Top. Sickles' brigade, however, had the fifth most killed and wounded of all brigades in the war. He represented New York in the U.S. Congress (1857-1861, 1893-1895) and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1897. Lightly toned. Page has been folded in quarters, arrives folded in half. Otherwise, fine condition.