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Sickles was now in his 80s. To William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Elihu Root, says author Pinchon, he was a valued counselor; to veterans an adored hero. ("It is my guess," observed Sickles' friend Mark Twain, "that if the General had to lose a leg, he'd rather lose the one he has than the one he hasn't.") And, incredibly enough, he was still the terror of matrons with unmarried daughters. The great bureau in his bedroom was stuffed with silk stockings, lingerie and perfume; to a lady who said she would prefer to be rewarded with a lion cub, Sickles gave a litter of six.
But though he retained his virility, the aging Sickles seemed to lose his head. One day, to the horror of the public, he was haled into court, half-blind and in a wheel chair, on the charge of misappropriating the Civil War Monuments Fund. For the second time in his life he was acquitted, amid roars of popular applause. "Your old grandpa is very ill," he wrote soon after to his favorite grandson, adding: "I see big clouds in Europe." Then, at 93, he died. It was May, 1914.