What Union general lost a leg in the US Civil War?

Answer 1

You're probably thinking of Richard S. Ewell, who lost his leg after being shot in the knee at the Second Battle of Manassas (or Bull Run) in August 1862. Ewell was away from the army for nearly a year recovering from the amputation, but was thought to be well enough to replace Stonewall Jackson in command of the Second Corps of General Lee's Army, after Jackson died from his wound received at Chancellorsville, in May, 1863. Chancellorsville was the big battle which immediately preceded Gettysburg, so Gettysburg was Ewell's first battle as a corps commander. Previously he had been a division commander, and a good one. But indecisiveness or timidity perhaps, maybe induced by his wound or his year-long absence from the fighting, or the paralysis of mind which afflicted many men when promoted one grade above their level of competence, some cause at any rate led to a performance at Gettysburg less effective than had been hoped. Ewell, though much liked personally, proved that he was certainly no Stonewall Jackson. Ewell had also married a widow woman during his year of convalescence, and spoke of "my wife, Mrs. Brown". Some ascribed his poor performance to her influence, but this seems unlikely to me. Ewell had to be strapped on a horse to get around the field, and in the end the rigors of service with the field army proved too much for him, and he was sent to command the defenses of Richmond. His departure in his reduced state was not much of a loss to the army.

Answer 2

No doubt there was more than one, but the one that comes to mind at Gettysburg was Dan Sickles. Sickles was a New York politician without military experience before the war, but was commanding a corps in the Union Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg. On the second day of the battle he disregarded his orders and moved his corps forward of the Union line into the Peach Orchard, because he thought this was a better position. This move endangered the entire Union line. When this move was noticed by the Union commander it was too late to order Sickles back, as the Confederates were just commencing an attack on Sickles exposed corps. Sickles was brave, and rushed into the fight where he was so badly wounded in the leg that it had to be amputated. He ordered the leg to ke kept, and later had the flesh stripped from its bones, the shattered bones wired back together, and the bones mounted in a little case with a glass top, shaped like a casket. He presented his mounted leg bones to the Army Medical Museum in Washington. After the war he used to come stumping in to the museum on his crutches to visit his leg.

Sickles first became nationally known for killing his wife's lover a few years before the Civil War. The lover was the son of Francis Scott Key, who wrote the Star Spangled Banner. Sickles shot him at high noon on a Sunday, in Lafayette Park, right across the street from the White House, before hundreds of witnesses. At his trial Sickles became the first person in the US to get off with the insanity defense.

Sickles was a prominent Republican politician for years after the war. He was one of the chief conspirators who stole the election of 1876 from the winner, Samuel J. Tilden, a Democrat and an honest man, so that Republican rule could continue under "His Fraudulency", "Rutherfraud" B. Hayes.

In later years Sickles was US ambassador to Spain, where he had an affair with the Spanish Queen, one leg and all.

Sickles had taken his wife back after her affair with Key, but she never appeared in public after the sensational trial. Sickles made her write out a confession of her adultery, and had it published in the newspapers across the land, then took her back.

Answer 3

The commander of the Union Third Corps, Army of the Potomac, Major General Dan Sickles lost his leg at the Battle of Gettysburg.