Never a dull moment in some lives.

To point out any one casualty in the Battle of Gettysburg to illustrate the carnage would be difficult: there were more than 46,000 either wounded or killed on both sides. But I can point to one of the strangest and most controversial victims - Maj. General Daniel Edgar Sickles.

I could spend pages relating the exploits of the General (but I don't have the time.)  In a nutshell, Pre Civil War, Sickles was a notorious whoremonger and New York State Senator (no, those two things don't naturally go together.)  Sickles is credited as being the first person to successfully use the temporary insanity defense in the United States in his defense of the murder of Philip Barton Key II, son of Francis Scott Key, who Sickles had discovered was having an affair with his wife (this did not end his public career.)

To repair his image, Sickles 'volunteered' for the Union Army.  Through his political connections, Sickles rose throught the ranks to become a general and yet he always seemed to have something else to do and avoided many of the major early battles of the Civil War. One of his closest allies was Major General Joseph Hooker (yes, the term, sometimes, is associated with the "Handsome Captain" as he was known to the ladies of the evening in Washington DC.)

Back to Gettysburg - somehow, Brigadier General Sickles got himself promoted to major general, commanding the III Corps, making him the only Union Corp Commander who did not go to West Point.  Through no fault but his own, during the second day of the Battle, Sickles disobeyed orders and advanced his troops. Sickles was wounded in the leg by cannonball fire and had his right leg amputated in a field hospital on this date in 1863.



After a cannonball mangled his leg at Gettysburg, he retired from the army and donated the bones from his amputated leg to the Army Medical Museum, reportedly visiting each year on the anniversary of the amputation. (The National Museum of Health and Medicine still has the bones on display today.)

We don't have time to touch on some of the other scandals that awaited the monoped General, including his affair with the deposed Queen of Spain, the questionable awarding of The Medal of Honor and his involvement with the embezzlement of $27,000 from New York State.