Civil War Expert Unremitting Failure Makes a Charge at: Dan Sickles!

When it comes to great Civil War generals, our fellow historians often neglect to raise the name of Dan Sickles.  This is probably because Sickles' chief military accomplishment was getting his leg shot off by a cannonball at the Battle of Gettysburg.  Sickles was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for this act of valor.  Should you ever visit Gettysburg, be sure to see the monument marking the precise spot where cannonball greeted Sickles.  Some go there to meditate upon mortality.  Others to look for the leg.

Most historians give Sickle an F for his performance at Gettysburg, although a few have thrown him sympathy Ds.  Indeed, many maintain that had that rebel shot not put a halt to Sickles' generaling, he'd have gone down in history as the man who singlehandedly lost the Civil War.  As Fitzlee Algernon Mowat has noted, "Had the projectile landed just a few feet higher it would have been the best bargain in history, shortening the war by two years, Sickles by a mere head."

But Sickles' true accomplishment lay not on the field of battle but in the field of law, albeit as a defendant.  In 1859 Sickles achieved legal immortality by becoming the first American to successfully employ the temporary insanity defense.  To achieve this signal honor he had only to shoot down his wife's lover in public.  He and the little woman were later reconciled. Love is a splendid thing.

Whatever you do, don't stare at his missing leg.

Comments

[Ben]

If I had heard about this shit...

“Sickles often asked Key to escort his wife to social events whenever the congressman had to work late or was occupied with other women…There he shot Key in the groin. As one adulterer begged for mercy, the other fired at point-blank range…Sickles fell near his brigade at Gettysburg when a cannonball smashed his leg. He visited the leg after the war at the Army Medical Museum.”

...I would have paid attention in high school at John Smarsh's retelling of the glory of Gettysburg. As it were, I was thinking, "What the fuck is a kepi?"

[UF Mike]

Dag! We should read this shit! We didn't know the leg was preserved and displayed! Yeah, J. Smarsh blew it. History would be interesting if the teachers would focus solely on gory and amusing trivia. But no. They have to bore us with ideas.

[Ben]

Sickles to bystander at the Army Medical Museum: "See that? That's my leg...(waving) 'Hi there leg!'"