CIVIL WAR UNION GENERAL VISITS MUSEUM

Visitors to the National Museum of Health and Medicine had a unique experience when their lecture about Civil War medicine was interrupted by a famous Civil War general. Civil War Maj. Gen. Daniel E. Sickles barged into the auditorium and claimed that there were inaccuracies in the presentation given by Alan Hawk, the manager of the museum's historical collections.

Sickles came to the museum to visit his leg. On July 2, 1863, the general was riding horseback during the Battle of Gettysburg when he was struck by a cannonball. Due to the force of the 12-pound ball, his right lower leg bones had to be amputated. In accordance with the U.S. Army Surgeon General's orders at the time, he sent the amputated limb to the museum. However, Sickles sent it in a coffin-shaped box to the museum with an accompanying card that read, "With compliments of Major General D.E.S." Sickles was known to visit the museum, and his leg, every year on the anniversary of his amputation.

The group of more than 100 day-campers, senior citizens, nursing listened to a presentation by Lenore Barbian, Ph.D., assistant curator of the museum's anatomical collections. Barbian spoke about the various types of life-saving procedures used during the Civil War. Attendees were then given the opportunity to get an up-close look at bones that suffered battlefield injury.

Sickles was portrayed by Gregory Johnson, a Civil War lecturer, historian, and member of the Civil War Heritage Foundation. After graduating from Randolph Central School in Randolph, N.Y., Johnson served in the U.S. Army from 1964-1974. He served in Vietnam and received the Bronze Star for Meritorious Service. Johnson is a corrections officer with the Chautauqua County Sheriff's Department in Mayville, N.Y. He and his wife live in Frewsburg, N.Y.

Sickles is also known as the New York congressman who accused Philip Barton Key, the son of Francis Scott Key, of having an affair with his wife. He shot and killed Key in Lafayette Square and was the first to successfully use the temporary insanity defense.

The amputated tibia and fibula are some of the most visited specimens on display at the National Museum of Health and Medicine. It is part of the exhibit, "To Bind Up the Nation's Wounds: Medicine During the Civil War," which documents Civil War medicine through the eyes of battlefield surgeons and the stories of wounded