Pickett Pickett's son James

Interesting. Thank you for posting this. Longacre's biography, Pickett, Leader of the Charge, does include a few pages that mention "Jimmie" James Tilton Pickett but I was surprised to read in the article that "Pickett's good friend, Sam Grant," whom I"m assuming is Ulysses S. Grant, also is believed to have married an Indian woman who took the Christian first name of Caroline, while stationed in Oregon Territory. I went back and looked up "Caroline Grant" in a number of my Grant biographies and came up with zilch.
 
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Interesting. Thank you for posting this. Longacre's biography, Pickett, Leader of the Charge, does include a few pages that mention "Jimmie" James Tilton Pickett but I was surprised to read in the article that "Pickett's good friend, Sam Grant," whom I"m assuming is Ulysses S. Grant, also is believed to have married an Indian woman who took the Christian first name of Caroline, while stationed in Oregon Territory. I went back and looked up "Caroline Grant" in a number of my Grant biographies and came up with zilch.

:D Might be able to help you there! Some of my relations are named Grant and are convinced they are descended from Ulysses Grant - the name is passed along down the line, too, which is a river custom. I'm not sure if Ft Humboldt was considered Oregon Territory then or not. However, Lt Grant married the headman's daughter Indian way (which, of course, was not a recognized marriage) over by where Klamath is now - Yurok side. Then he took off. For generations they've believed this was Lt Ulysses Grant but it was actually a Private Robert Grant (whose name is also passed along) who had borrowed U S Grant's name and attached rank to boost his chances with the girl's menfolk. There's yet another Indian Grant family whose ancestor was a Scottish miner who had absolutely nothing to do with U S Grant...except maybe way back there in the long gone day they might have belonged to the same clan up in the Highlands! But they firmly believe he is their ancestor.

This marriage of Native women to army men was a common way of securing all the benefits of marriage without acquiring any of the responsibility or getting shot by her pa. These marriages were not recognized, so when the soldier transferred it was c'est la vie, good luck and good-bye! That'w why O O Howard went ahead and shocked a table full of high toned society people by saying any soldier who made such a marriage and left it to marry 'right' was a bigamist. I give George Pickett a lot of credit for marrying Sakis Tiigang both Indian way and in the church, legal license and all the works. He made sure they were good and married! He had to leave his son behind when he returned back East but he tried to take care of him and did acknowledge him as his son. I think there were a lot of social and even legal pressures in play to make it easier for Pickett to abandon his mixed race kid but he persisted. Got to applaud him for that.
 
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