[Non-Sequitur]

He was definitely the idiot at the Wheat Field but he commanded a division at Antietam, not a brigade. Give you an idea of the kind of guy he was, he lost his leg at Gettysburg. He had the amputated leg skinned and kept the bones and after the war he gave the leg bone and the cannon ball that took it off to what is now the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Bethesda, MD. He used to visit them every year on the anniversary of the amputation and you can still see it on display in the hospital museum. And people thought that Stonewall Jackson was eccentric.

On the other hand, prior to the war Sickles also murdered Philip Barton Key, son of the author of the Star Spangled Banner. Key was having an affair with Sickles' wife. Sickles got himself off by pleading temporary insanity. Maybe it wasn't so temporary after all?

[Aurelius]

AMERICAN SCOUNDREL: The Life of the Notorious Civil War General Dan Sickles, By Thomas Keneally. (NYT Book Review)

[WhiskeyPapa]

On the other hand, prior to the war Sickles also murdered Philip Barton Key, son of the author of the Star Spangled Banner.

Your humble narrator is distantly related to the Keys.

Walt

[lentulusgracchus]

He was definitely the idiot at the Wheat Field but he commanded a division at Antietam, not a brigade.

I just looked it up and I was thinking of Sedgwick at Antietam, had a brigade in Sumner's division. Marched right up to Jackson and never saw him lying in wait behind some rock ledges, got 2500 KIA in 20 minutes. Meanwhile, his supporting brigade had gotten drawn off to the left somewhere by a Confederate skirmish line and was no longer in support when everything hit the fan (of course) -- that was French's.