The Flamboyant Daniel Sickles
base of Little Round Top. But Sickles did not like his position. Rather than turn around and look behind him at the rocky eminence that was Little Round Top, he scouted forward at slightly higher ground from Devil's Den to the Peach Orchard, some 1,500 yards out from the main Union line. He quickly sought to move his men to that position, and despite being ordered three times to remain where he was, Sickles marched his men forward to the higher ground. Men in the II Corps saw this and thought they missed the order to advance. And when an aide pointed out Sickles' movement to Hancock, the fiery general simply told the man not to worry, "he'll come tumbling back."
Sickles' persistent disobeying of Meade's ordered proved costly for the Union, almost deadly. In the ensuing engagement against Longstreet's I Confederate Corps, Sickles lost over 30 percent of his numbers, and lost his own right leg (which he had sent to the Army Medical Museum where it rests still today). His men were eventually forced to retreat back to the original line after a bloody struggle, and it took II and V Corps troops to keep the line from crumbling altogether. Had daylight not expired on Longstreet, he may have had enough fortitude to break the line altogether, thanks to Sickles.
This was his last command of the War, but he never stopped defending his move at Gettysburg, nor did he cease his efforts to smear Meade's reputation and to prove that he was the hero of Gettysburg. Though he was nowhere near a battle hero of the town, he did become a hero in another way; he established the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Park in 1895.
The flamboyant Daniel Sickles was considered the "political general," and rightly so. His military career was a result of political maneuvering from its outset. He rise to the rank of Major General was purely a political scheme. Unfortunately for the brave men who fought under him at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, his military background had nothing to do with his taking command. This certainly goes to show how politics and war will surely result in more lives lost. And though charisma and courage are certainly prerequisites for command of a military group, Sickles is proof that they are by far not the only requirements for such a position.
Sources
Nofi, A.A. (1996). The Gettysburg Campaign (3rd Ed.). New
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