Brig. Gen'l Daniel E. Sickles, seated portrait with sword

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Daniel E. Sickles is shown here seated, with his sword resting at his side, a pose that presents him as a professional soldier rather than as a man in action. Sickles, a New York political figure before the war, commanded the Union Third Corps and is best remembered for moving his line forward into the Peach Orchard on the second day at Gettysburg, a decision that left his troops exposed to heavy Confederate attack in July 1863. He lost a leg to a cannonball later that afternoon, and he survived to become a controversial figure in postwar memory of the battle. Portraits like this one were often used to commemorate officers and circulated widely in the decades after the war.

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