Sickles at Gettysburg: The Controversial Civil War General Who Committed Murder, Abandoned Little Round Top, and Declared Himself the Hero of Gettysburg

Major General Daniel E. Sickles was one of the most controversial figures in Civil War history, both in his personal conduct and military decisions. Before the war, he was a disgraced former Congressman who murdered his wife's lover in Washington and became the first person to use a temporary insanity defense in an American court. With his political career destroyed, he leveraged connections with President Lincoln to secure a command in the Army of the Potomac's 3rd Corps despite having no military experience. At Gettysburg, Sickles openly disobeyed orders in what became one of the most debated military decisions in American history. James Hessler's biography examines Sickles' controversial life, the battlefield strategies at Gettysburg, internal conflicts within the Army of the Potomac, and the creation of the Gettysburg National Park. The book won the Robert E. Lee Civil War Roundtable of Central New Jersey's Bachelder-Coddington Literary Award and the Gettysburg Civil War Roundtable's Distinguished Book Award.