- Joined
- Nov 26, 2016
- Location
- central NC
Colonel Robert Lee Longstreet and Lieutenant George E. Pickett III
Apparently the burial of LaSalle Corbell Pickett, wife of Major General George Pickett, sparked not only a controversy, but also the proposal of another set of memorials for the Confederate section of Arlington Cemetery in 1931. George Pickett was briefly interred in a cemetery in Norfolk, but his remains were reburied in the Confederate military section of Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond on October 24, 1875. When LaSalle Corbell Pickett died on March 22, 1931, her wish was to be buried next to her husband. However, Hollywood Cemetery officials refused, citing regulations that only men could be buried in the Confederate section of the cemetery. LaSalle's grandson and eldest surviving male descendant, Lieutenant George E. Pickett III, was outraged by the cemetery's decision. He sought to have his grandmother buried in the Confederate section of Arlington National Cemetery and to have his grandfather's remains disinterred and brought there for burial beside her.
Lieutenant Pickett conferred with representatives of the War Department and Colonel Robert Lee Longstreet, son of Lieutenant General James Longstreet. The three parties devised a plan to erect statues to Generals Pickett, Longstreet and Robert E. Lee in the Confederate section. The three statues would be grouped together where Jackson Circle and McPherson Drive met, creating what Pickett and Longstreet called a "tri-hero corner." Additionally, Colonel Longstreet conceived of a site adjacent to the Confederate section where Confederates could be buried or reburied and additional memorials to them be erected. He brought his idea to War Department shortly after the tri-hero corner concept was broached.
Alarmed not only at the loss of Pickett's remains but at a potential shift in focus from Richmond to Arlington, Hollywood Cemetery officials quickly agreed to inter LaSalle Pickett next to her husband. With this decision, the rationales for a tri-hero corner largely went away and neither it nor Longstreet’s memorial section plan were ever implemented.
Source: "Dead of Lost Cause May Get U.S. Shrine." Washington Post. March 30, 1931.