Everything about George E Pickett totally explained
George Edward Pickett (
January 16,
January 25 or
January 28,
1825 –
July 30,
1875) was a career
U.S. Army officer who became a general in the
Confederate States Army during the
American Civil War. He is best remembered for his participation in the futile and bloody assault at the
Battle of Gettysburg that bears his name,
Pickett's Charge.
Early years
Pickett was born in
Richmond, Virginia, the first of eight children of Robert and Mary Pickett, a prominent family of Old Virginia. He was the cousin of future Confederate general
Henry Heth. He went west to
Springfield, Illinois, to study law, but at the age of 17 he was appointed to the
United States Military Academy. Legend has it that Pickett's
West Point appointment was secured for him by
Abraham Lincoln, but this is largely believed to be a story circulated by his widow following his death. Lincoln, as an Illinois state legislator, couldn't nominate candidates, although he did give the young man advice after he was accepted; Pickett was actually appointed by Illinois Congressman
John T. Stuart, a friend of Pickett's uncle and a law partner of Abraham Lincoln.
Pickett was a popular cadet at West Point, charming and dapper, but a class clown, demonstrating his aversion to intellectual pursuits and hard work by graduating last (a position nicknamed the "goat") of 59 students in his 1846 class. Usually, such performance is a ticket to an obscure posting and a dead-end career, but he, just as
George Custer did later, had the fortune to graduate just after a war broke out and the army had a sudden need for officers. He was commissioned a
brevet second lieutenant in the
U.S. 8th Infantry Regiment and almost immediately became engaged in the
Mexican-American War. He gained national recognition when he was the first to climb the parapet during the
Battle of Chapultepec, retrieving an American flag from his wounded colleague, future Confederate general
James Longstreet, and unfurling it over the fortress while under fire. He received a brevet promotion to captain for his exploit. After the war, while serving on the Texas frontier, he was promoted to first lieutenant in 1849 and to captain, in the
9th U.S. Infantry, in March 1855.
In January 1851, Pickett married Sally Harrison Steward Minge, the daughter of Dr. John Minge of Virginia, the great-great-grandniece of
President William Henry Harrison, and the great-great-granddaughter of
Benjamin Harrison, a signer of the
United States Declaration of Independence. She died during childbirth that November, immediately following an Indian raid at Fort Gates, Texas.
Captain Pickett next served in the
Washington Territory. In 1856 he commanded the construction of Fort Bellingham on Bellingham Bay in what is today the city of
Bellingham, Washington. He also built a frame home that year and it still stands today,
the oldest house in Bellingham. At Fort Bellingham, Pickett married a Native American woman of the Haida tribe, Morning Mist, who gave birth to a son, James Tilton Pickett (1857-1889); Morning Mist died a few years later.
Pickett's first combat command was during the
Peninsula Campaign, leading a brigade that was nicknamed the Gamecocks. (The brigade would eventually be led by
Richard B. Garnett in Pickett's Charge.) They performed well at
Williamsburg,
Seven Pines and
Gaines' Mill. At Gaines' Mill, Pickett was knocked off his horse by a bullet in the shoulder, and although he made an enormous fuss that he was mortally wounded, a staff officer examined the wound and rode away, stating that he was "perfectly able to take care of himself." However, Pickett was out of action for three months on medical leave and his arm would remain stiff for at least a year. Pickett's division, with the brigades of Brig. Gens.
Lewis A. Armistead,
Richard B. Garnett, and
James L. Kemper, was on the right flank of the assault. It received punishing artillery fire on its flank and then volleys of infantry rifle fire as it approached its objective. Armistead's brigade made the farthest progress through the Union lines. Armistead was mortally wounded, falling near "The Angle" at what is now considered the "
High Water Mark of the Confederacy". But neither of the other two divisions made comparable progress across the fields and Armistead's success wasn't reinforced.
Pickett's Charge was a bloodbath. While the Union lost about 1,500 killed and wounded, the Confederate casualty rate was over 50%. Pickett's three brigade commanders and all thirteen of his regimental commanders were casualties. Kemper was wounded and Garnett and Armistead didn't survive. Trimble and Pettigrew were the most senior casualties, the former losing a leg and the latter wounded in the hand and dying on the retreat to Virginia. Pickett himself has received some historical criticism for surviving the battle personally unscathed, but his position well to the rear of his troops (probably at the Codori farm on the Emmitsburg Road) was command doctrine at the time for division commanders.
As soldiers straggled back to the Confederate lines along Seminary Ridge, Lee feared a Union counteroffensive and tried to rally his center, telling returning soldiers that the failure was "all my fault." Pickett was inconsolable for the rest of the day and never forgave Lee for ordering the charge. When Lee told Pickett to rally his division for the defense, Pickett allegedly replied, "General Lee, I've no division now." Pickett's official report for the battle has never been found. It is rumored that Gen. Lee rejected it for its bitter negativity and demanded that it be rewritten, never filing an updated version.
To his dying day, Pickett mourned the great loss of his men. After the war, it's said that he met once with General Lee in a meeting described as "icy."
John Singleton Mosby seems to be the only witness to support this claim of coldness between Lee and Pickett. Others were present and are on record denying such an exchange. Mosby related that afterward Pickett said bitterly, "That man destroyed my division."
Five Forks
After Gettysburg, despite never receiving condemnation by Lee or Longstreet, Pickett's career went into decline. He commanded the Department of Southern Virginia and North Carolina over the winter, and then served as a division commander in the Defenses of Richmond. After
P.G.T. Beauregard bottled up
Benjamin Butler in the
Bermuda Hundred Campaign, Pickett's division was detached in support of Robert E. Lee's operation in the
Overland Campaign, just before the
Battle of Cold Harbor, in which Pickett's division occupied the center of the defensive line, a place in which the main Union attack didn't occur. His division returned to take part in the
Siege of Petersburg. On
April 1 1865, Pickett's defeat at the
Battle of Five Forks was a pivotal moment that unraveled the tenuous Confederate line and caused Lee to order the evacuation of
Richmond, Virginia, and retreat toward
Appomattox Court House. It was a final humiliation for Pickett, because he was two miles away from his troops at the time of the attack, enjoying a
shad bake with some other officers. By the time he returned to the battlefield, it was too late. After the
Battle of Sayler's Creek, he was relieved of command. He was paroled at Appomattox Court House on
April 9 1865.
A legend told by Pickett's widow stated that when the Union Army marched into Richmond, she received a surprise visitor. He acted graciously and inquired whether he'd found the Pickett house. Abraham Lincoln himself had come to determine the fate of an old acquaintance before the war, and Sallie, astonished, admitted she was his wife and held out her infant for the president to cradle. Lincoln historian Gerald J. Prokopowicz has called this story a "fantasy".
Postbellum
Despite his parole, Pickett fled to Canada. He returned to
Norfolk, Virginia, in 1866 to work as an insurance agent.
Pickett had difficulty seeking amnesty after the Civil War. This was a problem shared by other former Confederate officers who had been West Point graduates and had resigned their commissions at the start of the war. Former Union officers, including
Ulysses S. Grant, supported pardoning Pickett, but it wasn't until one year prior to his death that George Pickett received a full pardon by Act of Congress (
June 23 1874).
Pickett died in Norfolk and is buried in Richmond's
Hollywood Cemetery.
In memoriam
Decades after Pickett's death, his widow Sallie became a well-known writer and speaker on "her Soldier," eventually leading to the creation of an idealized Pickett who was the perfect Southern gentleman and soldier. A considerable amount of controversy attends Sallie Pickett's lionizing of her husband. Two books published posthumously in her husband's name,
The Heart of a Soldier, As Revealed in the Intimate Letters of Gen'l George E. Pickett (published in 1913) and
Soldier of the South: General Pickett's War Letters to His Wife (1928), have been described as "unreliable works that were fictionalized by Pickett's wife." (Sallie was also the author, under her own name, of
Pickett and His Men, published in 1913.) As a result, General Pickett has become a figure partially obscured by "
Lost Cause" mythology.
Pickett today is widely perceived as being a tragic hero of sorts—a flamboyant officer who wanted to lead his troops into a glorious battle, but always missed the opportunity—until the disastrous charge at Gettysburg.
Douglas Southall Freeman's works (especially
Lee's Lieutenants), as well as
Michael Shaara's novel
The Killer Angels (1975) (and
Gettysburg (1993), the film adaptation in which he's portrayed by
Stephen Lang) have greatly enhanced this reputation in popular culture.
Pickett's grave is marked by an elaborate memorial in Hollywood Cemetery. Commissioned in 1875 by the Pickett Division Association, a group of veterans from his division, it was originally intended to be placed at
Gettysburg National Military Park at the "High Water Mark" of Pickett's Charge, but was built in Richmond when the U.S. War Department refused permission for the battlefield placement. A monument to Pickett also stands in the American Camp on San Juan Island, Washington, erected by the Washington University Historical Society,
October 21 1904.
Fort Pickett in
Blackstone, Virginia, is named in his honor. Originally a site for the
Civilian Conservation Corps, it was an active U.S. Army training facility in
World War II and is currently occupied by the Virginia National Guard.
In popular media
Actor
Stephen Lang portrayed George Pickett in the 1993 film
Gettysburg, for which he received critical praise. In the 2003 prequel
Gods and Generals,
Billy Campbell portrayed Pickett.
Further Information
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