Civil War Leg on Display at Fort Detrick

The amputated leg of a colorful Civil War general is still getting around.

The shattered bones of Union Maj. Gen. Daniel Sickles's lower right leg went on display Tuesday at the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command headquarters at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md.

The specimen belongs to the National Museum of Health and Medicine and is on display at Fort Detrick while the museum moves from Washington to Silver Spring.

Sickles lost his leg in 1863 at the Battle of Gettysburg. The exhibit includes a 12-pound cannonball of the type that hit him.

Before the war, Sickles served two terms as a Democratic U.S. representative from New York.

In 1859, he shot and killed his wife's lover, Philip Barton Key, in Washington, but was acquitted due to temporary insanity.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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