Pickett Does Pickett deserve a monument?

I generally use it as the opposite counter point when people start lambasting Lee for his mistakes. Surprisingly not a single general was perfect in that conflict. It's so odd! :wink: I'm sure this all has to do with the circles we run in and the focus of those conversations.

It's interesting to note Sickles also has a monument. Not that this is an argument for or against Pickett having one, but food for thought.
My understanding is that Sickles does not have a monument at Gettysburg. There is one to the Excelsior Brigade, which he raised and briefly comanded.
 
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I agree that Pickett does not but those men from those divisions merit and are derserving of a monunent to praise their herioc effort.

It would be difficult to do that, because the divisions contained both men who went forward and men who did not, and there were a lot more who turned back than those who went over the wall. Of the 12,000 who started out, roughly half were casualties, roughly 500 went over the wall. The rest seem to have turned back, or never went out in the first place. It's nice to think about heroism, but these were human beings, not icons.
 
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All he's got is the buffet. I'm not suggesting we start a campaign to get him one, but does he deserve one? Personally, I don't think so - he did his job at Gettysburg, but I don't think his service rose to monument stature. Anybody disagree?
Is there not a monument or plague that marks the area where the charge began? .Was it Hancock who had his hat through his sword? That would be a fine stature to place in that area if not one of Pickett asking Longstreet if he should proceed,with Longstreet looking down ,hat in hand as in a prayer.
 
(A) Is there not a monument or plague that marks the area where the charge began? (B) Was it Hancock who had his hat through his sword? That would be a fine stature to place in that area if not (C) one of Pickett asking Longstreet if he should proceed,with Longstreet looking down ,hat in hand as in a prayer.

a. The area the charge began is about a mile and a half long
b. That would be pre war Hancock's buddy (on the other side) Lou Armistead
c. That could happened in the book and the movie and doubtful that happened in real life. Imagine a Lieut. Gen. praying after sending the troops to battle.
 
There's a story that he and Mosby visted Lee after the war - in Richmond, but don't quote me on this - and after the meeting, Pickett bitterly said "That old man had my division slaughtered at Gettysburg."

But I don't know how credible that is or if even if the story is true if that reflects the whole of Pickett's attitude.
Mosby's claim has been discredited. It first appeared in "Personal Recollections of General Lee,published in the April, 1911 edition of Munsey's Magazine.
The March 21, 1911 Richmond Times-Dispatch published the relevant excerpt, which was immediately rebutted by a person who was at the brief meeting, Ms. K. C. Stiles in a letter to the paper's editor, which was published in the March 25, 1911 Times-Dispatch.
As is often the case (even in those days before Twitter) Mosby responded.
Years later, when asked about the incident, historian Clifford Dowdey wrote on October 5, 1957:
There seems no real factual support for the alleged animosity between Pickett and the Old Man, or for Lee's dismissal of Pickett. Apparently all we have to go on for the dismissal is that Walter Taylor wrote Fitz Lee that he had written such an order, and Mosby seems to be the chief witness for any actual exchange of coldness between Pickett and Lee after the war. Pickett, like any man with a strong personality (say, J.E.B. Stuart) made enemies as easily as he made friends but that the glory that accrued to him for Gettysburg aroused a jealousy in men who had never liked him (as Hunton, Haskell and Otey), and they felt compelled to denigrate him.​
<http://www.pickettsociety.com/mosby.html>
 
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