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George Pickett (1825–1875)


George E. Pickett had just the right amount of dash and daring to lead the courageous but disastrous charge at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863, that bears his name. A West Point graduate and veteran of the Mexican War, Pickett joined the Confederacy at the start of the conflict and distinguished himself in the Peninsular Campaign of 1862. At Gettysburg, General James Longstreet remembered how Pickett looked as he led his gallant charge, “his jaunty cap raked well over his right ear, and his long auburn locks nicely dressed, hanging almost to his shoulders. He seemed rather a holiday soldier than a general at the head of a column which was about to make one of the grandest and most desperate assaults recorded in the annals of war.”


Edward Virginius Valentine (1838–1930)
Bronze, 1978 cast after 1875 plaster
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

 

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