Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 5).djvu/555

Rh sides receiving two other wounds in the service, and was brevetted brigadier-general on 21 Oct.. 1864, and major-general on l-'J March. 1M5. He was health officer of the port of Philadelphia in 1865-'!), in 1869-'71 collector of internal revenue, and in 18?l-'84 U. S. pension-agent. He was an officer in banking and railroad corporations, was for eight years a member of the Philadelphia school board, and after 1881 he was president of the board of health of Philadelphia.

SICKLES, Daniel Edgar, soldier, b. in New York city, 20 Oct., 1823. He was educated at the University of the city of New York, but left to learn the printer's trade, which he followed for several years. He then studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1844. and began practice in New York city. In 1847 he was elected to the legislature, in which body he took rank as a leader of the Democrats. In "1853 he was appointed corporation counsel of New York city, and on 30 July of the same year he was commissioned as secretary of legation at London, and accompanied James Buchanan to Eng- land. He returned in 1855, was elected, after an energetic canvass, to the state senate in the autumn, and a year later was chosen a member of congress, taking his seat on 7 Dec.. 1857. Discovering a guilty intimacy between his wife, who was the daughter of Antonio Bagioli. and Philip Barton Key, U. S. at- torney for the I list net of Columbia, he shot the latter in the street on 27 Feb., 1859. He was in- dicted for murder, and after a trial of twenty days was acquitted. He had been elected for a second term in 1858. and served till 3 March, 18G1. At 1 In- beginning of the civil war he raised the Excelsior brigade of U. S. volunteers in New York city, and was commissioned by the president as colonel of one of the five regiments. On 3 Sept., 18(51, the president nominated him brigadier-general of vol- unteers. The senate rejected his name in March, 1863, but confirmed a second nomination. He com- manded a brigade under General Jo- seph Hooker, and gained distinction at Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, and Malvernllill. His brigade saw se- vere service in the seven days' fight before Richmond and in the Mary- land campaign, and bore a con- spicuous part at Antietam. He suc- ceeded Gen. Hook- er in the command of the division, and was engaged at Fredericksburg. On the reorganization of the Army of the Poto- mac he was assigned to the command of the 3d army corps, and was appointed major-general on 7 March, 1863, his commission dating from 29 Nov., 1862. At Chancellorsville he displayed gal- lantry and energy, gaining the first success of the day by cutting off an ammunition-train of the en- emy, arresting a general panic by rallying the re- treating artillery, and withstanding the force of Stonewall Jackson's attack with determination after the line was formed. At Gettysburg his corps was posted between Cemetery hill and Little Round Top. He advanced to an elevation which he thought desirable to hold, and in this position was assailed bv (leii. James Longstreet's column, while Gen. John P.. Hood endeavored to gain the unoccupied slope of Little Hound Top. In the de-perate strug- gle that followed, the 3d corps effectively aided in preserving that important position from the enemy, but was shattered by the onset of overwhelming numbers. After the line was broken, Gen. Ambrose P. LI ill followed the Confederate advantage with an attack on Sickles's right, during which Gen. Sickles lost a leg. He continued in active service till in the beginning of 18U5, and was then sent on a confidential mission to Colombia and otherSouth American countries. On 28 July, 1866, he joined the regular army as colonel of the 42d infantry. On 2 March, 1867, he was brevetted brigadier- general for bravery at Fredericksburg, and major- general for gallant and meritorious service at Gettysburg. He commanded the military district of the Carolinas in 1865-'7, and carried out the work of reconstruction so energetically that Presi- dent Johnson relieved him from his command, after first offering him the mission to the Netherlands, which he declined. He was mustered out of the volunteer service on 1 Jan., 1868, and on 14 April, 1869, was placed on the retired list of the U. S. army with the full rank of major-general. He was active in promoting the candidacy of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant for the presidency, and on 15 May, 1869, was ap- pointed minister to Spain. He relinquished this post on 20 March, 1873, and resumed his residence in New York city. He was president of the New York state board of civil service commissioners, and likewise of the board of commissioners for the erection of New York monuments at Gettysburg.

SICOTTE, Louis Victor, Canadian jurist, b. in St. Famille, Canada, 6 Nov., 1812 ; d. 5 Sept., 1889. He was admitted as an advocate in 1838, entered the parliament of Canada in 1851. became a mem- ber of the executive council in 1853, and was speak- er in 1854-'7. He was appointed queen's counsel in 1854, and judge of the supreme court of the province of Quebec in 1863, resigning in 1887.

SIDELL, William Henry, soldier, b. in New York city, 21 Aug., 1810; d. there, 30 June, 1873. He was graduated at the U. S. military academy in 1833, and assigned to the artillery, but resigned in order to follow the profession of civil engineering. He was successively city surveyor of New York, assistant engineer of the Croton aqueduct.and division engineer of railroads in Massachusetts and New York. In the construction of the Panama railroad he acted as chief engineer. He was employed by the U. S. government on surveys of the delta of Mississippi river. In 1849-'55 he was chief engineer of the railroad between Quincy and Galesburg, 111. He was appointed in 1859 chief engineer of the projected Tehuantepec railroad, and had completed the surveys when the political troubles in the United States caused the abandonment of the enterprise. He volunteered at the beginning of the civil war, but before he received an appointment he was restored to the regular army on its enlargement, with the rank of major, 14 May, 1861. He mustered and organized recruits in Louisville, Ky., and Nashville, Tenn., was also disbursing officer, and planned a system by which more than 200,000 soldiers were mustered in, and at the end of their terms of service disbanded, without errors or delays. From M:iy. isr,:!, till the close of the war he was acting a"i.-t.'int provost-marshal for Kentucky. lie was promoted lieutenant-colonel of the 10th infantry on 6 May, 1H|>4. and received the brevets of colonel and brigadier-general on 30 March, 1865, and on 15 Dec., 1870, was retired from service, in consequence of a paralytic attack.