On the last, cold Sunday of February 1859, Daniel Sickles shot his wife's lover in Lafayette Square, just across from the White House. This is the story of that murder and its repercussions. The shooting and trial are described with all the powers of dash and drama, against a backdrop of double-dealing, intrigue and the "slavery question". Having literally got away with murder through his political connections, Sickles rehabilitated himself by founding the Excelsior Brigade and fighting in the Civil War. He became a General, and at Gettysburg 9 000 men from his corps were killed when he led them out of position. He lost a leg in the war, which he put into the Military Museum in Washington where he would take friends to visit it. His young wife, meanwhile, was ostracised - a victim of a 19th-century morality cruelly condemning women, while turning a blind eye to men's sexual adventures with mistresses and prostitutes.