Please join us for a Chambersburg Civil War Seminars & Tours Lecture Series! Our next lecture will be: The Daniel Sickles Murder Trial by James Hessler. Cost is $6 per person. Zoom Login details will be sent with your email registration confirmation.

Synopsis

Many Civil War enthusiasts know Union General Dan Sickles as the man who nearly lost the Battle of Gettysburg for the Northern army. But in 1859, then-Congressman Sickles was best known for murdering US District Attorney Philip Barton Key, who was having an affair with Sickles’s wife. Congressman Sickles shot Key dead in front of multiple eyewitnesses yet was somehow acquitted of the crime in a “trial of the century”! Join Sickles at Gettysburg author, Gettysburg Licensed Battlefield Guide, and The Battle of Gettysburg Podcast co-host James Hessler as we learn how and why Sickles managed to evade justice. Is "temporary insanity" a myth? View 'Then and Now” images of key crime sites! How did this lead Sickles into the Civil War? Join us for a session of murder, adultery, and scandal courtesy of Dan Sickles.

Biography

James Hessler is a Licensed Battlefield Guide at Gettysburg National Military Park. His 2009 book, Sickles at Gettysburg, was awarded the R.E. Lee Civil War Round Table’s Bachelder Coddington Award and the Gettysburg Civil War Round Table's Distinguished Book Award as the most outstanding work on the Gettysburg Campaign. His most recent book, Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg, was co-authored with Wayne Motts and released in 2015. Jim has been a guest on NPR, Travel Channel, PCN-TV, Breitbart News, and Civil War Radio. He is a popular author and speaker at civil war round tables who has taught courses for the Gettysburg Foundation and Harrisburg (PA) Area Community College. He lives in Gettysburg with his wife and children.