William R. Sutton 
Audacious Myth 

An Audacious Myth: The Personal Memoirs of Major General Daniel Edgar Sickles is a fictional first-person account of the real-life Civil War Union General Dan Sickles and his controversial actions at the Battle of Gettysburg. An Audacious Myth chronicles Sickles’s rise from a self-centered operative of New York’s infamous Tammany Hall to the rank of Major General. His scandal-ridden life included owning a brothel with his lover Fanny White, marrying the teen daughter of his best friends, and gunning down his wife’s lover in front of the White House. He was the first American to be found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity. Sickles’s time after the war was devoted to creating a narrative that put him at the center of heroics at Gettysburg. His efforts won him the Medal of Honor thirty-five years after the battle. Did he save the Union and deserve the medal? Was there a twisted divine intervention that guided him at Gettysburg? We view the man through his own eyes and decide for ourselves.