Dan Sickles Leg

A Union general who lost his leg to a cannon at the Battle of Gettysburg, Major General Dan Sickle was not a brilliant man. After seeing high ground in front of his troops, he ordered them to move about a mile away, which was more indefensible and where they were effectively decimated. His leg was hit by a cannonball and had shattered, but he persevered until his leg was amputated that afternoon. Sickles leg and the cannonball are displayed at the American National Museum of Health and Medicine since he remembered that the Army Surgeon General was building a display of morbid anatomy along with the projectiles that caused it. Too bad this insubordinates legacy lives on because of that directive.