CS Pickett, LaSalle Corbell

LaSelle "Sallie" Corbell Pickett
From A to Z - Women​

Born: May 16, 1843

Birthplace: Chuckatuck, Virginia

Father: John David Corbell Sr. 1816 – 1895

(Buried: Saint Johns Episcopal Church, Suffolk City, Virginia)​

Mother: Elizabeth Mary Phillips 1825 – 1909

(Buried: Saint John's Episcopal Church, Suffolk City, Virginia)​

Husband: Major General George Edward Pickett 1825 – 1875

(Buried: Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia)​

Married: September 15, 1863 at St. Paul's Episcopal in Petersburg, VA.

Children:

Major George Edward Pickett Jr. 1864 – 1911​

(Buried: Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia)​

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David Corbell Pickett 1866 – 1874​

(Buried: Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia)​

Education:

Attended Lynchburg Female Seminary​

Life Events:

1852: First met her future husband George Edward Pickett​

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1863 – 1875: Wife of Major General George Edward Pickett​

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Taught belles – letters, French and Piano in Canada after War​

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Sold her jewelry in Canada to help maintain her family​

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Government Clerk in United States Pension Office​

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1899 – 1931: Traveled and Wrote Magazine Articles​

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1899: Author of Pickett and His Men​

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1900: Author of Kunnoo Sperits and Others​

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1900: Author of Yule Log​

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1901: Author of Ebil Eye​

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1901: Author of Jinny​

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1905: Author of Digging Through to Manila​

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1912: Author of Literary Hearthstones of Dixie​

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1913: Author of The Bugles of Gettysburg​

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1913: Author of The Heart of a Soldier, As Revealed in the intimate letters of Gen'l George E. Pickett C.S.A.​

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1916: Author of Across My Path: Memories of the people I have Known​

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1917: Author of What Happened to Me​

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1928: Author of Soldier of the South: General Pickett's War Letters to his Wife​

Died: March 22, 1931

Place of Death: Rockville, Maryland

Age at time of Death: 87 years old

Original Burial Place: Abbey Mausoleum, Arlington National Cemetery

Current Burial Place: Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia

Buried Originally at Abbey Mausoleum due to Women not being allowed to be buried in Confederate Section of Hollywood Cemetery. She was moved to Hollywood Cemetery in 1998 and re-interred.

 

[donna]

Thanks for posting.

 

[jackt62]

I find her to be quite an interesting personality. In later life, she claimed that as a child when she first met Pickett, she "knew" that she would one day marry him. She was also the single most important person to perpetuate the memory of Pickett during her long life, in part through her writings, in which she could often stretch the truth.

 

[Shadow9216]

I find her to be quite an interesting personality. In later life, she claimed that as a child when she first met Pickett, she "knew" that she would one day marry him. She was also the single most important person to perpetuate the memory of Pickett during her long life, in part through her writings, in which she could often stretch the truth.

Like Lincoln visiting her in Richmond and kissing her baby?
Some of her books are available as freeware, here: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/6828

 

[Waterloo50]

I find her to be quite an interesting personality. In later life, she claimed that as a child when she first met Pickett, she "knew" that she would one day marry him. She was also the single most important person to perpetuate the memory of Pickett during her long life, in part through her writings, in which she could often stretch the truth.

She was as important in perpetuating the myth of Pickett as Libbie was to Custer.

 

[FarawayFriend]

Like Lincoln visiting her in Richmond and kissing her baby?
Some of her books are available as freeware, here: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/6828

Ha haaah, yes, that was a little bit overdone - although I read elsewhere that Pickett himself never uttered a bad word against Lincoln personally. He owed him - if not his appointment at West Point (that might have been another legend, coming from imaginative Sallie), then some good advice. Also, it's a bit ridiculous that Sallie (who never had received the fashionable French name "LaSalle") wanted to be seen as the "child bride" and made herself younger than she really was. But all that notwithstanding, I really like her. I greatly enjoyed her books - she could write romantic, pathetic, but also pretty funny scenes. Like this here, when Sallie accompanied "her soldier" on an expedition to the New Bern area and the couple could at first not find appropriate lodging. One of Pickett's staff officers found a solution for that problem:

"He learned that the most beautiful and luxurious home in the village was owned by an old Baptist, a power in the church and in the community, who was known to be not unwilling to make an occasional sacrifice of political opinions to religious fraternity. Colonel Floweree called upon the good brother and, with an intonation that he could have learned nowhere but from the pious and hardshell Baptists of that region and period, said:

"My dear Brother, I know what a good Baptist you are and how ready you are to help all your brethren in the Lord. I have my good General, Brother Pickett, out here with his dear pious wife, Sister Pickett, both good Baptists, and I beg you to extend to them the hospitality of your home and entertain them as best you can for the sake of brotherly love."

"If I do," said the old man hesitatingly, "the Yankees may burn my house; but I must take the chances, I cannot let my brethren suffer. Yes, let the good brother and sister come in and share what I have."

We were received with fraternal hospitality, our host shaking hands with us solemnly, saying, "How do you do, Brother Pickett? How are you, Sister Pickett?" in a voice that invested us with the sanctity of the church.

I was interested to observe that our host had but one eye, his wife was cross-eyed, and their daughter was cock-eyed. These optical phenomena were afterward scientifically explained by our Baptist brother.

"I was engaged to a cross-eyed girl," he said, "and my people objected to the marriage. I was about to give it up when one day I was cutting wood and the end of the stick flew up and hit me in the eye and put it out. It was the judgment of the Lord and I repented and married my cross-eyed girl. Then when our girl was born the hand of the accusing angel touched her and she was cock-eyed to keep me in mind of my sin."

Source

I once started a thread about one of her books:

Book by LaSalle Corbell Pickett (Mrs. General G. E. Pickett) | Non-Fiction History of the Civil War

I'm just reading a book about the Civil War commanders and their wives and came across the book of George Pickett's wife Sally, Lasalle Corbell Pickett, 18 years younger than "her soldier". Title: "What happened to me". The book is free for download and I have just started reading. It seems to...

civilwartalk.com

 

[jackt62]

She was as important in perpetuating the myth of Pickett as Libbie was to Custer.

Right! The two share many similarities among them never remarrying and living well into the 20th Century to keep their husbands memory alive and well.