George E. Pickett

George Edward Pickett (January 16,Military records cited by Eicher, p. 428, and Warner, p. 239, list January 28. The memorial that marks his gravesite in Hollywood Cemetery lists his birthday as January 25. Th

claims to have accessed the baptismal record from St. John's Church in Richmond; at the time of young Pickett's christening on March 10, 1826, his parents gave their son's date of birth as January 16. 1825 – July 30, 1875) was a career United States Army officer who became a major general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He is best remembered for being one of the commanders at Pickett's Charge, the futile and bloody Confederate offensive on the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg that bears his name.

Pickett graduated last out of 59 cadets in the United States Military Academy class of 1846. He served as a second lieutenant in the United States Army during the Mexican–American War and is noted for his service in the Battle of Chapultepec in September 1847. After this, he served in the Washington Territory and eventually reached the rank of captain. Pickett participated in the Pig War of 1859. Near the beginning of the American Civil War, he was commissioned in the Confederate States Army, and attained the rank of brigadier general in January 1862. He commanded a brigade that saw heavy action during the Peninsula Campaign of 1862. Pickett was wounded at the Battle of Gaines's Mill on June 27.

He did not return to command until September, following the Battle of Antietam, when he was given command of a division in the Right Wing of the Army of Northern Virginia, in the command of Major General James Longstreet, which became the I Corps that December. His division was lightly engaged at the Battle of Fredericksburg and, along with most of Longstreet's Corps, missed the Battle of Chancellorsville while participating in the Suffolk Campaign in 1863. During the Gettysburg Campaign, his division was, much to Pickett's frustration, the last to arrive on the field. However, it was one of three divisions under the command of General Longstreet to participate in a disastrous assault on Union positions on July 3, the final day of the battle. The attack has been given the name "Pickett's Charge." In February 1864, Pickett ordered 22 North Carolinians in Union uniform hanged as deserters after a failed assault on New Bern. His military career came to an inglorious end when his division was overwhelmed and defeated at the Battle of Five Forks.

Following the war, Pickett feared prosecution for his execution of deserters and temporarily fled to Canada. An old Army friend, Ulysses S. Grant, interceded on his behalf, and he returned to Virginia in 1866. He could not rejoin the Army, so he tried his hand at farming, then selling insurance. He died at age 50 in July 1875 from an "abscess of the liver."

Early life

George Edward Pickett was born in his grandfather's shop in Richmond, Virginia, on January 16, 1825, and raised on his family's plantation at Turkey Island. He was the first of the eight children of Robert and Mary Pickett, a prominent family of Old Virginia of Huguenot origins. He was the cousin of future Confederate general Henry Heth.Eicher, p. 428.

For a time in the 1840s, Pickett lived and served as a law clerk for his uncle Andrew Johnston in Quincy, Illinois. He went 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 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, could not nominate candidates, although he did give the young man advice after he was accepted.Tagg, p. 237. Pickett was actually appointed by Illinois Congressman John T. Stuart, a friend of Pickett's uncle and a law partner of Lincoln.

Pickett was popular as a cadet at West Point. He was mischievous and a player of pranks, "a man of ability, but belonging to a cadet set that appeared to have no ambition for class standing and wanted to do only enough study to secure their graduation." At a time when often a third of the class left before graduation, Pickett persisted, working off his demerits and doing enough in his studies to graduate, ranking last of the 59 surviving students in the Class of 1846. It is a position held with some backhanded distinction, referred to today as the "goat," for both its stubbornness and tenacity. Ordinarily, such a showing would be a ticket to an obscure posting and a dead-end career, but Pickett, like George Armstrong Custer a generation later, had the fortune to graduate just as a war broke out, resulting in a sudden need for many junior army officers. Pickett's cousin Henry Heth graduated last in the Class of 1847.

United States Army career

July 1, 1846, Pickett was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the 8th Infantry Regiment. He soon gained national recognition in the Mexican–American War when he carried the American colors over the parapet during the Battle of Chapultepec in September 1847. Wounded at the base of the wall, Pickett's friend and colleague Lieutenant James Longstreet handed him the colors. Pickett carried the flag over the wall and fought his way to the roof of the palace, unfurling it over the fortress and announcing its surrender. He received a second brevet promotion, to captain, following this action. His record of service, compiled by the Adjutant-General's Office in March 1887 at the request of his widow, states: Brevetted first lieutenant August 20, 1847, "for gallant and meritorious conduct in the battles of Contreras, and Churubusco, Mexico"; and captain September 13, 1847, "for gallant and meritorious conduct at Chapultepec, Mexico."

June 28, 1849, while serving on the Texas frontier after the war, he was promoted to first lieutenant and then to captain in the 9th Infantry Regiment March 3, 1855. In 1853, Pickett challenged a fellow junior officer, future Union general Winfield Scott Hancock, to a duel; (they had met only briefly when Hancock was passing through Texas). Hancock declined the duel, a response not unlikely as dueling had fallen out of favor at the time.Tagg, p. 112.

In January 1851, Pickett married Sally Harrison 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 V, a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence. Sally died during childbirth that November, at Fort Gates, Texas.Gordon, ''Encyclopedia of the American Civil War'', pp. 1518–19.

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 which still stands; Pickett House is the oldest house in Bellingham and the oldest house on its original foundation in the Pacific Northwest. While posted to 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 months later. "Jimmy" Pickett made a name for himself as a newspaper artist, before dying of tuberculosis at the age of 32 near Portland, Oregon.

In 1859 Pickett was dispatched in command of Company D, 9th US Infantry, to garrison San Juan Island in response to discord that had arisen there between American farmers and the Hudson's Bay Company. The confrontation, known as the Pig War, was instigated when American farmer Lyman Cutler shot and killed a pig that had repeatedly broken into his garden. The pig belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company, and though Cutler was prepared to pay a fair price for the pig, the Company was not satisfied, insisting he be brought before the British magistrate, thus initiating the territorial dispute. In response to the U.S. forces, the British sent a force of three warships and 1000 men. The British commander, Captain Geoffrey Phipps Hornby (H.M.S. 'Tribune', 30 guns), demanded that Pickett and his men leave. Pickett declined, and the British officer returned to his frigate, threatening to land his own men. Pickett with his 68 men appeared to be fully prepared to oppose a British landing, ordering them into a line of battle near the beach. "Don't be afraid of their big guns," he told his men, "We'll make a Bunker Hill of it." Pickett's presence and determination prevented the landing, the British being under orders to avoid armed conflict with United States forces, if possible. Pickett had set up camp and his battery of cannon near the Hudson's Bay Company's Belle Vue Sheep Farm, and directly under the cannons of the British warship. Having this error pointed out to him, he moved the camp and battery a few miles north to high ground, to a spot overlooking Griffin Bay and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. After initial tensions passed the crisis was averted, both sides being unwilling to go to war over a pig. President James Buchanan dispatched Brevet Lieutenant General Winfield Scott to negotiate a settlement between the parties.

There is also some controversy that Pickett and General William S. Harney, per General Granville O. Haller, maneuvered behind the scenes to provoke a war between the United States and Britain, to distract the North, allowing the South to seek independence or, as General George B. McClellan said, to unite the North and South.

Civil War

Early assignments

On April 19, after the firing on Battle of Fort Sumter and in response to President Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers to suppress the rebellion, Virginia joined three more Southern states in seceding from the Union. Native son Pickett sailed from San Juan Island to Bellingham, Washington to resign his commission and was told by his commander that he had to resign it in Washington, D.C. To accomplish this he sailed to Fort Steilacoom, south of Tacoma, Washington, and caught transport aboard a mail steamer to the Isthmus of Panama, trekked 40 miles overland to Colon, caught another ship to Richmond, Virginia, to obtain a commission in the Army of Northern Virginia, and continued to Washington, D.C. to turn in his resignation. Arriving after the First Battle of Bull Run, he resigned his commission in the U.S. Army on June 25, 1861; he had been holding a commission as a major in the Confederate States Army Artillery since March 16. Within a month he was appointed colonel in command of the Rappahannock Line of the Department of Fredericksburg, Virginia, under the command of Major General Theophilus H. Holmes. Holmes's influence obtained a commission for Pickett as a brigadier general, dated January 14, 1862.

Pickett made a colorful general. He rode a sleek black charger named "Old Black," and wore a small blue kepi-style cap, with buffed gloves over the sleeves of an immaculately tailored uniform that had a double row of gold buttons on the coat, and shiny gold spurs on his highly polished boots. He held an elegant riding crop whether mounted or walking. His moustache drooped gracefully beyond the corners of his mouth and then turned upward at the ends. His hair was the talk of the Army: "long ringlets flowed loosely over his shoulders, trimmed and highly perfumed, his beard likewise was curling and giving up the scent of Araby."

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). Pickett led his brigade ably in the battles of Williamsburg and Seven Pines, earning commendations from his superiors. At Gaines's Mill on June 27 he was shot off his horse while leading his brigade in its first assault. Pickett continued to move forward with his men for a while, leading his horse on foot. A second assault by Pickett's brigade, led by Colonel Eppa Hunton, along with the brigade led by Cadmus M. Wilcox, broke the Union line. Pickett feared that he had taken a mortal blow to his shoulder, but the wound was initially assessed by others as minor. The shoulder wound turned out to be severe enough that, though it was not fatal, Pickett was out of action for the next three months, and his arm would remain stiff for at least a year.

When Pickett returned to the Army in September 1862, following the Battle of Antietam, he was given command of a two-brigade division in the corps commanded by his old colleague from Mexico, Major General Longstreet. Pickett was promoted to major general on October 10. Shortly afterwards his division was upgraded to five brigades, commanded by Generals Garnett, James L. Kemper, Lewis Armistead, Montgomery Dent Corse and Micah Jenkins. The division was only lightly engaged at the Battle of Fredericksburg in December.

Suffolk and courtship

Longstreet and two of his divisions—those commanded by Pickett and John Bell Hood—were detached from Lee's main army in April while participating in the Suffolk Campaign. They thus missed the Battle of Chancellorsville. The Suffolk Campaign was minor and inconclusive, while the Battle of Chancellorsville was an enormous Confederate victory.

Before the Gettysburg Campaign, Pickett fell in love with a Virginia teenager, LaSalle "Sallie" Corbell (1843–1931), commuting back and forth from his duties in Suffolk to be with her. Although Sallie would later insist that she met him in 1852 (at age 9), she did not marry the 38-year-old widower until November 13, 1863. The couple had two children, George Edward Pickett, Jr. (born July 17, 1864) and David Corbell Pickett (born 1865 or 1866). David died in late 1873 or January 1874 of measles.

At Suffolk, Longstreet grew impatient with Pickett's frequent trips away from his division to see Sallie at her home in nearby Chuckatuck. Pickett then decided to ask for permission for the visits from Longstreet's chief of staff, Moxley Sorrel, who referred him to Longstreet. Instead of asking Longstreet, Pickett went without permission. After the war, Sorrel commented, "I don't think his division benefitted by such carpet-knight doings in the field."

Gettysburg and Pickett's Charge

Pickett's division arrived at the Battle of Gettysburg on the evening of the second day, July 2, 1863. It was reduced to three brigades present, Corse's still being detached in Virginia and Jenkins' transferred. It had been delayed by the assignment of guarding the Confederate lines of communication through Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. After two days of heavy fighting, General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, which had initially driven the Union Army of the Potomac to the high ground south of Gettysburg, had been unable to dislodge the Union soldiers from their position. Lee's plan for July 3 called for a massive assault on the center of the Union lines on Cemetery Ridge, based on the assumption that Meade had concentrated his forces to protect his flanks while leaving his center weak. Lee directed General Longstreet to assemble a force of three divisions for the attack—two divisions from the corps of Lieutenant General A. P. Hill, under the temporary command of J. Johnston Pettigrew and Major General Isaac R. Trimble, which had both seen action on July 1, and Pickett's fresh division from Longstreet's own corps. The center was occupied by the Union II Corps, commanded by Major General Winfield Scott Hancock. Longstreet was technically in command, not Pickett. Nevertheless, the attack became known as "Pickett's Charge". In addition, much of the mythology of the Charge arose from newspaper reports. As Pickett was the only major general from Virginia to participate in the charge, the Virginia newspapers both played up their native son's role and made the assault a more "glamorous" event.

Following a two-hour artillery barrage meant to soften up the Union defenses, the three divisions stepped off across open fields almost a mile from Cemetery Ridge. Pickett inspired his men by shouting, "Up, men, and to your posts! Let no man forget today that you are from Old Virginia." Pickett's division, with the brigades of Brigadier Generals Armistead, Garnett, and Kemper, was on the right flank of the assault. It received punishing artillery fire, and then volleys of massed musket 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 termed the " high-water mark of the Confederacy". Neither of the other two divisions made comparable progress across the fields; Armistead's success was not reinforced, and his men were quickly killed or captured.

Pickett's Charge was a bloodbath. While the Union suffered 1,500 casualties, the Confederates had over 6,000. Over 50% of the men sent across the fields were killed or wounded. Pickett's division alone, out of about 5,500 men, lost 224 killed, 1,140 wounded, and 1,499 missing/captured. Pickett's three brigade commanders and all thirteen of his regimental commanders were casualties. Kemper was wounded, Garnett killed, and Armistead mortally wounded. Trimble and Pettigrew were the most senior casualties of the entire Confederate assault, the former losing a leg and the latter wounded in the hand and later mortally wounded during the retreat to Virginia. Pickett has received some historical criticism for establishing his final position well to the rear of his troops. Thomas R. Friend, who served Pickett as a courier, defended Pickett by writing that he "went as far as any Major General, commanding a division, ought to have gone, and farther."

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. When Lee told Pickett to rally his division for the defense, Pickett allegedly replied, "General Lee, I have no division."Tagg, p. 240. Pickett's official report for the battle has never been found. While it is rumored that Lee rejected it for its bitter negativity and demanded that it be rewritten, an updated version was never filed.

North Carolina

After the Battle of Gettysburg, Pickett commanded the Department of Southern Virginia and North Carolina. In February, Pickett was ordered to capture New Bern, North Carolina from Federal forces. The subsequent Battle of New Bern resulted in a Confederate defeat. Following the battle, Pickett ordered the execution of 22 United States Army soldiers from North Carolina who were captured during the failed raid. Confederates claimed they were merely executing deserters. In fact many of the US soldiers put to death offered good evidence that they refused service in the Confederate States Army, serving only in the North Carolina home guard on the basis of refusing to take up arms against the United States.''An Account of the Assassination of Loyal Citizens of North Carolina'' by Rush C. Hawkins, 1897. One of the executed soldiers was just 15 years old.

After the war Pickett fled to Canada to escape an investigation into the executions, but he returned to the United States after being promised by General Grant, to public controversy, that he would not face prosecution.

Overland Campaign and Siege of Petersburg

Following the New Bern battle, Pickett 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 did not occur. His division participated in the Siege of Petersburg.

Battle of Five Forks

General Pickett had received orders from Robert E. Lee to, with the Cavalry divisions of Major Generals William Henry Fitzhugh Lee and Thomas L. Rosser, hold the vital railroad crossing at Five Forks at all costs. On April 1, at the Battle of Five Forks, their troops were attacked by a combined force under Major General Philip Henry Sheridan, which consisted of the V Corps of the Army of the Potomac, commanded by Major General Gouverneur K. Warren, and the Cavalry Corps of the Army, commanded by Brigadier General Wesley Merritt. Pickett, W.H.L. Lee, and Rosser were located behind the lines of their troops at the time of the attack, enjoying a shad

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