Craig's post below reminded me of my trip a few years ago to the National Museum of Health and Medicine at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in D.C. It's a really creepy museum, off the beaten path, but well worth the trip if you're tired of all the glitzy museums on the Mall.

The purpose of our visit was to see the shattered lower leg of Civial War General Daniel Sickles. Ick.

Daniel Sickles was my great, great, ..., great uncle on my mother's father's side. He's more infamous than famous. A Tammany Hall politician and U.S. Congressman, before the war he shot and killed the son of Francis Scott Key in Lafayette Park and was the first person ever acquitted on the grounds of temporary insanity. As a General in the war he was a disaster; he almost lost the battle of Gettysburg for the Union by moving his troops off Little Round Top as ordered and into the Peach Orchard far in front of the union lines on Cemetery Ridge. After getting his Corp III almost wiped out, complete disaster for the Union was only narrowly averted by a quick-thinking major who dragged several cannon up Little Round Top to stop the Confederates from taking the unguarded hill and outflanking the union lines. If he hadn't suffered the leg injury at Gettysburg and been so well connected politically, he most surely would have been court martialed for disobeying orders.

UPDATE: Perhaps I was too unfair to Gen. Sickles? I received the following e-mail.

Sir: With all due respect, I don't take such a dim view of your "great, great, ..., great uncle on my mother's father's side" as you do. Perhaps you have accepted as gospel Thomas Keneally's hatchet job, "American Scoundrel: The Life of the Notorious Civil War General Dan Sickles." Personally, I think you'd be better served by embracing W. A. Swanberg's "Sickles the Incredible: A Biography of Daniel Edgar Sickles" or Edgcumb Pinchon's 1945 book "Dan Sickles: Hero of Gettysburg and 'Yankee King of Spain.' " In any event, regarding the incident at Gettsyburg, I used to tell visitors to the National Museum of Health and Medicine (where I worked for 6 years until retiring in March) that if Sickles hadn't disobeyed the incompetent Gen. Meade (who was actually about to order a retreat!) by moving his soldiers 3 miles forward to higher ground, that the Confederates would have easily overrun his Division and then perhaps have encircled the remaining Federals and won the battle. Sickles was the right man in the right spot. Not having gone through the ranks, he had no problem arguing with Meade and eventually doing what he felt was best. I'd compare him to General H. Norman Swartzkopf. As to his other exploits, shooting Francis Scott Key's son, moving in with Queen Isabella, etc., I think these add to the aura of his swash-buckling reputation. The author Norman Mailer has written a screenplay about Sickles. And although he's never released it I have talked to his archivist and we both hope that someday he will. Wouldn't that be something?

PS: And as far as your comment about his leg, the first time the Medal of Honor was ever awarded was to soldiers who fought in the War of the Rebellion. Sickles received one along with thousands of others. Years later, when the Army decided to make the medal a more meaningful decoration, it rescinded most of the medals it had awarded. They did not take Sickles' medal back. The Army felt he deserved it!

I am aware that there is some dispute about Sickles' role at Gettysburg. True, Meade was a boob and he was probably going to retreat. True, Sickles' moving of his III Corps lured the Confederates to attack and committed both sides that the battle. True, the Union ultimately won the battle. Still my (now dated) reading of military histories of the battle (as opposed to Sickles biographies) is that his move was pretty foolish and almost resulted in complete disaster (as opposed to disaster just for his III Corps). It was pure dumb luck that it didn't turn out very badly for the Union. Meade ultimately was fired in disgrace and rightly so. But if anyone was in a position to write the history books in his favor it was Sickles, and he definitely tried, yet he still is given low marks in most accounts.