Love him or hate him, Union General Dan Sickles was nothing if not a character. He married a 15 year old; he brought a prostitute to Congress; he killed his young wife’s lover, in front of the White House, and got away with it using the first ever plea of “not guilty due to temporary insanity”. He rose to Corps command (the only Corps commander, on either side at Gettysburg, who was not a West Pointer).
After advancing his Corps to the Peach Orchard on the 2nd Day at Gettysburg, forming an indefensible salient (ill conceived at best, Court Martialable at worst), Dan got hit in the leg by a cannon ball. He would have the mangled leg amputated 2 hours later.
In true Sickles fashion, he donated the leg to the Army Medical Corps museum. Here he would visit the leg on the anniversary of his wounding, often bringing guests and offering a toast. (The cannon ball is for illustration only and is not the one that took his leg.)
Dan was an early proponent of memorializing the Gettysburg Battlefield. He served prominently on the New York monument commission, until some $27,000 (worth close to a million dollars in today’s money) turned up missing.
When asked where his monument at Gettysburg was (the other Union Corps Commanders all have grand equestrian statues), he would say “Why the whole battlefield is my monument”. There is a small monument that marks where he was wounded.
