George Pickett Biography Essay

Many generals in history, are known for their greatest successes or worst failures. A prime example of that is George Pickett. Thanks to his catastrophic charge on July 3, 1863 in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, we remember him for that. Neither his accomplished record of service nor his positive events are remembered. While his charge was part of the big turning point in the war in the wrong direction, it's important to realize how important he is.

George Pickett was born on January 16, 1825 in Richmond Virginia to Robert and Mary Pickett. Interestingly enough, the Picketts were considered one of the first families of Virginia. He also had some related family members in the war, most notably Henry Heth, Pickett’s cousin who would also become a

Confederate general in the war. After a failed attempt to study law in Springfield, Illinois, Pickett was accepted into West Point in New York at the age of 17. There are many stories based on how he actually was able to get into the academy, but most historians believe that Pickett’s appointment into the academy came from Kentucky native John T. Stuart. Stuart was a close family-friend, especially of his uncle, and was a man who knew a lot of influential people in our nation, including the Secretary of War at the time John Canfield Spencer. On April 19, 1842, Spencer, through Stuart’s recommendation, sent George his conditional appointment into the academy.
During his time at West Point, Pickett was very popular. He went away from the norm, and this is best represented by Edward G. Longacre in his biography Pickett: Leader of the Charge. “Pickett demonstrated by word and deed that he would neither cowtow to authority nor submit to what he considered the Academy’s narrow, arbitrary, unrealistic, harshly punitive, and inconsistently applied code of conduct. Such behavior, coupled with his determined indifference to the scholastic demands of the institution, ensured his stay on the upper Hudson would be a memorable one in the most perverse sense of the term,” (Longacre, 7). At a time when often a third of the class washed out before graduation, Pickett was able to just get by, doing enough in his studies to graduate, peaking at the 52nd position before ranking last out of the 59 surviving students in the Class of 1846. This is now known as the goat, an interesting position to be in, as said by James S. Robbins in his book Last in Their Class: Custer, Pickett and the Goats of West Point. “The term goat connotes many things - stubbornness, persistence, but also mischievousness and playfulness. The goats were by and large charismatic, adventurous, with a youthful bonhomme that generally made them very popular with their classmates,” (Robbins, xi). Interestingly, Pickett was a goat like George Armstrong Custer, and also Pickett's cousin, Henry Heth. All of them had the good fortune to graduate about the time a war broke out, when the army had a sudden need for officers, greatly improving their opportunities.had the good fortune to graduate about the time a war broke out, when the army had a sudden need for officers, greatly improving their opportunities.
Pickett was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the U.S. 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. Wounded at the base of the wall, Pickett's friend and colleague Lt. 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 brevet promotion to captain following this action. In 1849, while serving on the Texas frontier after the war, he was promoted to first lieutenant and then to captain in the 9th U.S. Infantry in 1855. In 1853, Pickett challenged a fellow junior officer, future Union general and opposing Civil War commander 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. During this time he married Sally Harrison Minge, the great-great-grandniece of President William Henry Harrison. She and their baby died during childbirth in 1851. Pickett would later serve in Washington Territory and in 1856 commanded the construction of a fort in Bellingham, Washington. While in Washington Pickett married his second wife, a Haida Indian named Morning Mist, but she would die during the birth of their son James in 1857. Two years later Pickett commanded a small complement of troops during an incident known as the Pig War, a border dispute in British Columbia that nearly led to a confrontation between American and British forces.
It was now time for the Civil War. Claiming loyalty to his home state, Pickett resigned from the Union army shortly after Virginia seceded from the in April 1861. He travelled east to the Confederate capital of Richmond, where he secured an appointment as a colonel in command of defenses on the Lower Rappahannock River. By 1862 Pickett had earned a promotion to a brigade command under General James Longstreet. He served with distinction during the Peninsula Campaign at the Battles of Williamsburg and Seven Pines. Pickett was severely wounded in the shoulder at the Battle of Gaines’ Mill in June 1862, and was unable to rejoin his men until September. He was promoted to major general the next month, and his division saw light duty at the Battle of Fredericksburg before taking part in the Suffolk Campaign in southeastern Virginia and eastern North Carolina in the spring of 1863. During this time Pickett began a romance with a Virginia woman named LaSalle “Sallie” Corbell, and the two would later marry in September 1863.
Pickett’s most famous Civil War action came at the Battle of Gettysburg which took place from July 1-3, 1863.

Pickett’s forces arrived late to the battle, missing out on the first two days of heavy fighting. When General Robert E. Lee elected to mount an attack on the center of the Union lines on July 3, Pickett’s fresh division was selected to lead the offensive. Following a barrage of preliminary cannon fire, it was time for the moment that stands out when thinking of Pickett, his infamous Pickett’s Charge. Pickett’s division advanced toward the Union high ground on Cemetery Ridge. The resulting charge proved a disaster, and Pickett’s men were forced to withdraw after being cut down by heavy cannon and musket fire. All of the men that reached the Union stone wall were either killed or captured. Pickett’s division suffered staggering casualties during the attack, with nearly 50 percent of his men killed, captured or wounded, including all of his brigade commanders. When Lee later asked about the state of his division, a despondent Pickett is said to have answered, “General Lee, I have no division.” The failure of Pickett’s Charge would follow Pickett for the rest of his career, and he would remain bitter about the loss until his death, especially at Lee for giving him the go-ahead for the

attack.
After Gettysburg, Pickett was given a departmental command in North Carolina. In February 1864 he was ordered to capture New Bern, North Carolina, from Union forces, but his assault—which included coordinated attacks by both land and sea—failed to take the town. In the aftermath of the battle, Pickett ordered the hanging of 22 prisoners upon learning they were former Confederate troops who had shifted their allegiance to the Union. This action would result in an investigation for war crimes after the end of the Civil War. Pickett returned to Virginia in April 1864 and served during the defense of Petersburg before reuniting with the Army of Northern Virginia for the Overland Campaign. His final major engagement at the Battle of Five Forks in April 1865 proved to be another disappointment. In a famous blunder, Pickett was separated from his division and having lunch with some fellow officers at the time of a Union attack. When he finally arrived on the field, his lines had been broken and his division was in disarray. The defeat at Five Forks prompted Lee to order a Confederate retreat and led in part to his surrender, along with Lee’s, at Appomattox Court House days later on April 9, 1865.
After the Confederate surrender Pickett was reunited with his wife and an infant son in Richmond, but the family fled to Canada upon learning that Pickett was being investigated for war crimes over the hangings in North Carolina. In 1866 after a letter of support from Union General Ulysses S. Grant, the family returned to Virginia. Funny enough, Grant was one of Pickett’s former classmates at West Point, ended the investigation. Pickett went on to turn down several job offers, including an appointment in the Egyptian military, and chose to spend his later years as a farmer and insurance agent in Norfolk, Virginia. He died in 1875 at the age of 50. Pickett’s widow LaSalle Corbell Pickett would later become an enthusiastic biographer of her husband and gained minor fame as a lecturer and writer, although many of her claims about Pickett’s career have since been proven to be fabrications.
Pickett’s story and his role in the Civil War, especially at Gettysburg, are sometimes overlooked but very important when discussing the impact of the Civil War.