[exit82]

Dan Sickles took his leg with him to Washington when he was evacuated after the battle of Gettysburg, and gave it to a group of Army docs who were studying battle wounds. The leg was preserved, and for years after the war he visited his own leg in a museum in DC, and the leg still exists.

In spite of his battlefield screw-up, he wound up bewitching Congress into giving him a medal, and in the 1880s, he established the commission that turned Gettysburg into a national park.

Other little known fact—in 1890, he was elected Sheriff of NYC.

One of the most colorful characters in American history. If he was alive, he would agree.

[Joe 6-pack]

Yep. I majored in history at Gettysburg College. Wrote a couple papers on Sickles. The leg thing might seem very eccentric by modern standards, but at the time, the Army Medical Corps was soliciting and collecting medical curiosities so while his donation of his amputated leg thing is often portrayed as an act of vanity, it was in fact, more of an answered request (although I'm certain his vanity made it an easy request to honor).

Years after the battle he was instrumental in his efforts to preserve the battlefield at Gettysburg.