The 4 Flags of the Confederacy

As a proud member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, I would like to introduce you to the 4 flags of the Confederacy, when, where, why they were made and how to show proper respect for them. If you are a member of the UDC or have Confederate ancestors please be proud of your heritage!

The flags of the Confederacy are perhaps the most recognizable and cherished symbols of America’s heritage. When the Provisional Confederate Congress met in Montgomery, Alabama, early in 1861, among the many tasks of organizing a government that faced the delegates assembled, was the selection and adoption of a national flag. A special committee, the Committee on Flag and Seal, whose chairman was William Porcher Miles of South Carolina, was appointed to design a seal and flag for the new nation. The flag committee was inundated with designs. There was even sentiment for the adoption of the American flag with no changes at all. The committee sorted the designs into two groups: 1. Variations of the American flag, 2. Highly original and elaborate designs. The entries were narrowed down to four final proposals. German-born artist Nicola Marshall of Marion, Alabama, was the designer of the flag that was adopted. It quickly became known as the Stars and Bars.
The First National Flag

Adopted March 6, 1861
The flag selected retained the red, white, and blue. The design featured three horizontal strips (red, white, red). In the canton, a star for each state floated in a field of blue. The flag originally bore seven five-pointed stars, one for each of the states that seceded by march 4, 1861. They were South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida and Texas. Stars were added for Tennessee, North Carolina, Arkansas and Virginia as they seceded and joined the Confederacy. Missouri and Kentucky are represented by stars because they were prevented from seceding by the presence of Federal troops, but sent unofficial representatives to the Confederate Congress and supplied troops to the Confederate Army. The constellation of stars became a circle of thirteen.

The Stars and Bars with seven stars was first defiantly hoisted up the flagpole as Montgomery on March 4, 1861, to coincide with Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration as President on the United States on that date.
The flag was officially adopted two days later, on March 6, 1861.

The flag was not popular with the public, who seemed disappointed that the new nation was not symbolized by a lore distinctive emblem. The design seemed to be a poor compromise, to much like the American flag for some, not enough like it for others.

The design proved to be an unfortunate choice in the field of battle, too. The similarity between the opposing forces’ flags and uniforms proved disastrous at the battle of First Manassas. It was a hot, dusty, sultry summer day with no wind. The flags stood limp against the staffs. In the confusion of battle, forces fired on their own comrades, unsure if they were friend or foe.

Determined that this would not happen again, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston ordered all military units to use the flags of their states; however, Virginia was the only state that had supplied her troops with state flags. General P. T. G. Beauregard wrote to William P. Miles, who was now Chairman of the House Military Affairs Committee, suggesting the adoption of a new national flag that would not be confused with the American flag. The request was rejected.

Determined to have a recognizable battle flag, Johnston and Beauregard met with Quartermaster General William L. Cabell at Fairfax Courthouse, Virginia, in September 1861 to finalize the design of a new battle flag. Johnston originally favored an ellipse with a red field and blue St. Andrew’s cross containing a white star for each Confederate state. Beauregard suggested a square or rectangle flag with a blue field and a red cross with gold stars.

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Congressman Miles preferred a red field with a blue cross with white stars. Quartermaster General Cabell pointed out that Beauregard’s design would be quicker and easier to make with no waste of fabric. Beauregard’s design was adopted as a square flag with Miles’ color choice. The sizes would be 4x4 for infantry, 3x3 for artillery, and 2 1/2x2 ½ for cavalry.

They had hoped to keep the design of the new battle flag a secret in order to prevent Federal forces from counterfeiting the flag to cause confusion on the battlefield.

About seventy-five women were given the design in order to start making the flags. The next day, the ladies handiwork, the “secret” flags were on display all over Richmond! So much for the element of surprise!

Cabell issued orders for quartermasters through out the Army of the Potomac to provide the new flags to all fighting units. On October 1, 1861, the Confederate War Department authorized the use of the new battle flag by the Army of the Potomac, which was later renamed the Army of Virginia by General Robert E. Lee.

The War Department did not direct other Confederate armies to adopt the new design, although many did eventually used the battle flag. The Beauregard battle flag was never made the official flag of the Confederate Army but today is the most recognizable emblem of the Confederacy.

Second National Flag

Adopted May 1, 1863
In the spring of 1863, the Confederate Congress took up the issue of a new national flag. After much controversy over incorporating the Beauregard battle flag emblem into the design, the congress adopted the Second National Flag of the Confederate States of America on May 1, 1863. The new flag has a white field; with its length double the width, and the Beauregard battle flag in the canton corner.

The first time the new flag had been seen by the public it was draping the coffin of Lt. General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson. The day after the adoption of the new flag, Jackson was shot by his own men who mistook him and his staff for enemy cavalry as they were returning to camp after the day’s fighting at Chancellorsville, Virginia. He died from complications on May 10, 1863.

Robert E. Lee mourned the death of the man he called his right arm. The entire south mourned as Jackson’s body was brought to Richmond to lie in repose and then to Lexington for interment. By order of President Jefferson Davis, the new flag draped his casket. The white field flag soon became known as the Stainless Banner or the Jackson flag.

The Second National Flag had hardly been adopted before critics complained about its design and shape. To some, it looked like a white flag of surrender, others disliked its shape. The proportions of the flag’s length to width prevented it from flying properly, since it was twice as long as wide instead of two thirds as wide. In fact, the flag had to be modified in order to wave more gracefully.

Third National Flag

Adopted March 4, 1865
By fall of 1864, yet another flag was being considered. The design by Maj. Arthur L. Rogers was a slight modification of the Second National Flag with a red vertical stripe added to the fly end. The dimensions of the flag were length two-thirds the width. The Confederate Congress adopted the Third National Flag on March 4, 1865, exactly four years after the first flag flew over Montgomery and just over a month before Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. General Bradley T. Johnson later wrote: “I never saw this flag, nor have I seen a man who did see it.”

The BattleFlag holds a special place in the hearts of those of us who are descendants of the men who fought under it. It is the flag of the soldiers themselves. It should always be treated with respect and reverence. It may be displayed along with the other confederate flags at meetings and ceremonies.

It is flown at the graves of Confederate soldiers and at Confederate monuments. All four flags of the Confederacy may be displayed at meetings and ceremonies.

Remember that we are patriotic Americans first and Confederate descendants second. According to flag etiquette, when the Confederate flag is displayed, the flag of the United States of America must always be displayed with it; this includes on platforms and parades. The U.S. flag is always given prominence.

Before the shot at Fort Sumter

Since I’m from Kansas I thought I would tell you a little about Kansas in the Civil War. Do you know where the Civil War actually started, before the shot at Fort Sumter?

Kansas was considered part of the Union. By 1863, it had long been the home of strife and warfare, from both sides of the slave state versus free state issues. In the summer of 1856, the first sacking of Lawrence, Kansas sparked a guerrilla war that lasted for months. Lawrence, Kansas had, by the beginning of the American Civil War, already become the target for proslavery fire, having been seen as the anti-slavery stronghold in the state.

In a bid to put down the Confederate raiders operating in Kansas, General Thomas Ewing Jr. issued a General Order No. 10, which ordered the arrest of anyone giving aid of comfort to Quantrill’s raiders. This mainly meant women and children. Ewing confined those arrested in a makeshift prison in Kansas City. On august 13, 1863, this building collapsed, killing five women, including 14 year old Josephine Anderson, sister of William T. “Bloody Bill” Anderson. There was a debate as to the nature of this collapse, with some claiming that it was known that the structure was very unsound, and others claiming it was from lingering fury over the Union’s attack on Osceola, Missouri in September of 1861, lead by James H. Lane. In this raid, nine Osceola men were executed after a farcical trial and the town was looted and burned.

From the summit of Mount Oread, leading between three and four hundred raiders, Quantrill descended on Lawrence in a fury. A four-hour session of pillaging, executions, arson, and other mayhem ensued. By the time Quantrill’s men rode out of town, one in four buildings in Lawrence had been burnt to the ground, including all but two businesses. As well, most of the banks and stores had been looted. Left behind were between 185 and 200 dead men and boys. By 9 am, they were on their way out of town, evading the few units that came in pursuit.

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Senator James H. Lane managed to escape death by racing through a cornfield in his nightshirt. However, three years later he would commit suicide. While the Battle of Lawrence was one of the bloodiest events in the history of Kansas, it was not alone. A day after the attack, the surviving citizens of Lawrence lynched a member of Quantrill’s Raiders caught in the town. On August 25, General Ewing authorized General Order No. 11, evicting thousands of Missourians in four counties from their homes near the Kansas border. Virtually everything in these counties was then systematically burned to the ground.

There was also the Baxter Springs Massacre and the Battle of Osage. More on these later; but the Lawrence Massacre was the true beginning of the Civil War.

As of today there is still a very strong rivalry between Kansas University (located in Lawrence, Kansas) and the Missourians during sports competition.


If you would like to read more on the Lawrence Massacre you should purchase the book called Bloody Dawn: The Story of the Lawrence Massacre by: Thomas Goodrich

Huck Finn Saves Family Finances.

On May 5, 1884, Ulysses S. Grant walked into his plush Wall Street office. For the ex-president and indispensable general who had, more than any other soldier, won the Civil War, this day was not at all like a day twenty years earlier. On May 5, 1864, Grant first clashed with Robert E. Lee in the Wilderness in central Virginia. Unlike several other Union generals, who fell under Lee’s spell, of “fight hard then retreat,” never did Grant call retreat.

Two decades later, Grant was no longer the fearless fighter. Two scandal-ridden terms as U.S. president had taken their toll on the Grant family. Though the family had fame, it had not secured fortune – and one of Grant’s vices was a need to live an opulent lifestyle.

Grant’s son Buck had become business partners with a young tycoon named Ferdinand Ward, who epitomized the Gilded Age. Eager to make a fortune, the Grants became party to the “buy low, sell high” schemes of Ward. When the business became mired in debt by the spring of 1884, Grant wrote Ward a check. That same day in 1884, Ward fled. The business went belly-up; the Grant family was near penniless.

Only a few weeks later, Grant was eating a peach when he felt a dastardly pain in his throat. After several months of barely being able to eat, he visited his doctor, who diagnosed throat cancer. Bankrupt and nearing death, Grant began writing about his war experiences at the urging of editors from American Century Publishing. Grant’s first article, some 20,000 words, was about the Battle of Shiloh in western Tennessee – a great battleground that nearly witnessed the demise of Grant’s reputation. “The Battle of Shiloh was a case of Southern dash against Northern pluck and endurance,” Grant wrote. So true, but more dash and less pluck would have domed Grant’s career.

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Famous writer Mark Twain had long admired U.S. Grant and the two were friends, though not close. The Midwesterner admired Grant’s meteoric rise in the war. Began in 1876, Twain was working on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when he got stuck on Chapter 16. Some nine years later, Twain finished his masterpiece and the model for the character of Huck Finn was Grant himself.

Incredible, Twain was walking by Grant’s New York apartment in the rain when he heard the publishers from Century Company discussing how they had finally come to terms with Grant on publishing his memoirs. Twain butted into the conversation and soon learned all the details. Twain’s vice was also a love of money. The next day, Twain was sitting in Grant’s apartment offering to publish the general’s memoirs for triple the royalties that Century had offered. Grant was stunned at his friend’s generosity.

Later, Grant told his son, “Give the book to Twain.” Grant literally finished the memoirs just days before he died. At times he was barely able to swallow, but he kept writing. The book was Grant’s work, entirely blunt, emotional, and honest-and more than 300,000 American bought a copy of his memoirs in the first year after it was published. America’s greatest writer, Mark Twain, saved Huck Finn’s family finances.

Star of the West

“Why did that green goose Anderson go into Fort Sumter? Then everything began to go wrong,” famous Charleston, South Carolina, diarist Mary Boykin Chesnut penned after the firing on Fort Sumter.

Historians have long argued as to whether the South was goaded into war by a wily North. The answer is as murky as the morning was on April 12, 1861, when provoked Confederate-minded south Carolinians began lobbing shells into the exposed ramparts of Fort Sumter.

In late November 1860, just weeks after Abraham Lincoln was elected president, Major Robert Anderson was appointed commander of three federal forts surrounding the secessionist hotbed of Charleston. Anderson was a man of good Kentucky stock who had married a Georgia dame and had once owned slaves. For those in the outgoing Southern-sympathizing Buchanan cabinet, these were perfect credentials for a commander of a delicate situation. Nonetheless, outnumbered in congress and the White House, these southerners could see no alternative to war.

The astute Anderson viewed his assignment with healthy trepidation. One miscalculation could ignite was-a chilling and grave burden to bear. South Carolina state legislators voted to secede from the Union 169-0 on December 21 and deemed all federal property to be theirs, including the central piece of Charleston Harbor-Fort Sumter. But Anderson took his oath to the U.S. government seriously and viewed surrendering federal property to South Carolina as treason. “The clouds are threatening,” he warned Washington,” and the storm may break at any moment.” A disloyal war department continued to send Anderson mixed messages, hoping to dupe him into surrendering. Anderson’s capitulation would mean that the south would not be blamed for starting a bloody war.

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Anderson, suspecting treason in Washington, acted on his own. On Christmas night he moved his garrison secretly into Fort Sumter under the cover of darkness. When the Stars and Strips were raised over the ramparts, the secessionists viewed the bold move as an act of aggression. Anderson had created a diplomatic showdown from which neither side could be down.

“My God,” the ill-informed, aloof President Buchanan said to Senator Jefferson Davis. “Are calamities never to come singly?” Buchanan finally decided to defend Sumter. “Good God, am I in the midst of a revolution?” he said to a friend. “Yes sir, you have been there for a year and have not yet found it out.”

On January 5, 1861, the Star of the West, a merchant vessel hired by the Buchanan administration for $1,250 a day, was ordered to Sumter. It was a tricky, clandestine operation designed to re-supply the fort. A few days later the frigate eased into Charleston Harbor, but word had leaked from Washington: gunners opened on the steamer from surrounding shorelines. Unable to dock under fire, the Star of the West was hit by two shots and limped back to New York. A war of wills would now be fought for several months with both sides holding firm.

“The firing on the Star was the opening ball of the Revolution,” the Charleston Mercury proclaimed in its headlines. The Albany Atlas and Argus declared, “Put down this obnoxious insurrection!”

Little Phil

Philip Henry Sheridan was born to Irish-immigrant parents on a wintry March 6, 1831. Growing up in Somerset, Ohio, he obtained an appointment to West Point through Congressman Thomas Ritchie, who knew the Sheridan family. In his third year at the academy, Phil was suspended after fighting with a fellow cadet, William Terrill, a future Confederate brigadier general. In fact, Sheridan chased Terrill with a bayonet, hell-bent on killing him. After a one-year suspension, Sheridan returned and graduated thirty-fourth in his class of 1853.

The diminutive officer was then assigned to outposts in Texas and Oregon. When the Civil War broke out, the Union army was in great need of aggressive, tough-minded generals, and his stock rose quickly as he served in the western theater, where several bloody battles gave him hero status.

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In the war’s last year, Sheridan came east with his good friend, U.S. Grant, who quickly dispatched him to “whip” the Confederates under Jubal Early. “Turn the Shenandoah Valley into a barren waste . . . so that the crows flying over it will have to carry their own provender with them,” Grant exhorted Sheridan. General Sheridan won several crucial victories in the fall of 1864, but more importantly he destroyed more than 2,000 barns filled with hay and wheat. By the winter of 1864-65, little was left in the valley to sustain the Confederate army defending Richmond.

“The Confederate people must be left nothing but their eyes to weep over the war,” he coldly said. This was war at its worst and Sheridan was the man for the job. Indeed, Sheridan was often prickly, and judged harshly any subordinate who did not follow his orders to the letter. Ironically, Sheridan had been insubordinate earlier in the war numerous times, but his aggressiveness saved his reputation. At the Battle of Cedar Creek just a few weeks after Fisher’s Hill, Sheridan rallied his straggling army when they cheered his arrival on the battlefield. “God damn you, don’t cheer me,” he yelled. “If you love your country, come up to the front! There’s lots of fight in you men yet! Come up, God damn you.”

Vintage Sheridan. He died in 1888 and was buried just feet from the entrance at Arlington Mansion—the former home of Confederate chieftain Robert E. Lee.

Even in death, Sheridan could best his detested foe.

This Day in History - April 14: 1865 : Lincoln is shot

On this day in 1865, John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate
sympathizer, fatally shoots President Abraham Lincoln at a play at
Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. The attack came only five days
after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army
at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the American
Civil War.

Booth, a Maryland native born in 1838, who remained in the North
during the war despite his Confederate sympathies, initially plotted
to capture President Lincoln and take him to Richmond, the Confederate
capital. However, on March 20, 1865, the day of the planned
kidnapping, the president failed to appear at the spot where Booth and
his six fellow conspirators lay in wait. Two weeks later, Richmond
fell to Union forces. In April, with Confederate armies near collapse
across the South, Booth hatched a desperate plan to save the
Confederacy.

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Learning that Lincoln was to attend a performance of "Our American
Cousin" at Ford's Theater on April 14, Booth masterminded the
simultaneous assassination of Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson
and Secretary of State William H. Seward. By murdering the president
and two of his possible successors, Booth and his conspirators hoped
to throw the U.S. government into disarray.

On the evening of April 14, conspirator Lewis T. Powell burst into
Secretary of State Seward's home, seriously wounding him and three
others, while George A. Atzerodt, assigned to Vice President Johnson,
lost his nerve and fled. Meanwhile, just after 10 p.m., Booth entered
Lincoln's private theater box unnoticed and shot the president with a
single bullet in the back of his head. Slashing an army officer who
rushed at him, Booth leapt to the stage and shouted "Sic semper
tyrannis! [Thus always to tyrants]--the South is avenged!" Although
Booth broke his leg jumping from Lincoln's box, he managed to escape
Washington on horseback.

The president, mortally wounded, was carried to a lodging house
opposite Ford's Theater. About 7:22 a.m. the next morning, Lincoln,
age 56, died--the first U.S. president to be assassinated. Booth,
pursued by the army and other secret forces, was finally cornered in a
barn near Bowling Green, Virginia, and died from a possibly
self-inflicted bullet wound as the barn was burned to the ground. Of
the eight other people eventually charged with the conspiracy, four
were hanged and four were jailed.

Lincoln, the 16th U.S. president, was buried on May 4, 1865, in
Springfield, Illinois.


Here is a picture that I took when I visited the Brockenbrough-Peyton house, July 2007, where fugitives John Wilkes Booth and David Herold accompanied the three former Confederate soldiers arrived about 2:30 pm April 24, 1865, 10 days after Booth shot Lincoln.
The owner, Randolph Peyton was not at home when the troop arrived. His sister, Sarah Jane Peyton, admitted the men. Booth was described as a wounded Confederate soldier looking for a place to stay.
Booth made himself at home in the parlor, but Miss Peyton soon reconsidered and told the group that it would be improper for them to stay when the man of the house was not home. She directed them to the Garrett Farm.

I was told that the windows had been boarded within the past year. During its day it was a beautiful home. It’s a shame to see it in such bad condition.

Every TEN Minutes our Country loses an Acre of Historical Ground

I’m venturing off the subject of the stories of brave men for a moment to tell you something that just tears me up when every I read about the loss of our hallowed ground. Please read on.

Saving Civil War battlegrounds has become a great task in recent times. Many preservationists are desperately fighting to win as many sites as possible before the development war is lost. Every ten minutes our country loses an acre of historical ground, gobbled up by commercial development.

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Few Americans realize how important preserving our past is. By saving battlefields, we not only save the physical history, we save ground where life lives. On the idyllist crest of Fisher’s Hill near Strasburg, Virginia, in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley, stands a centuries-old chestnut tree that witnessed the Battle of Fisher’s Hill in September 1864. Confederate scouts and officers used the tree as a lookout as the battle raged on the hillside below.

Not only has the tree survived a great Civil War battle, but it has also withstood hundreds of violent thunderstorms, crippling snowstorms, and torrid summer days. This tree is a remarkable, living piece of history.

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Confederate Generals killed in battle – Valor more important than death

No war ever fought had more officer causalities than the Civil War. Numerous high-ranking generals were killed on the battlefield and that was especially so for Confederate chieftains. Valor was arguably the most important character trait in nineteenth-century America, particularly in the South. Being labeled a coward was a stain worse than death. For this reason, many generals took enormous risks in battle.

So often Civil War enthusiasts focus on the high profile generals who fell on both sides during the war but there are lesser-known leaders who also fell at ill-timed moments as the battle tide ebbed. One such general is Confederate Lloyd Tilghman. Killed at Champion Hill in May 1863, about ten miles east of Vicksburg. Tilghman’s death occurred at the height of one of the war’s most crucial moments. “If one insists on designating a single battle as the decisive one, my nominee for the honor is the relatively little-known action fought on May 16, 1863, on and around Champion Hill. The battle proved crucial in terms of both the results and what flowed from it,” historian Richard McMurray wrote.

Confederates bear a hasty, disorganized retreat into the fortifications surrounding the key Mississippi port town of Vicksburg. After the loss of our beloved commander, that line was so neglected that the enemy had almost cut our retreat off from Vicksburg,” L.S. Flatan of the 1st Mississippi Light Artillery wrote after the war. “We were huddled that night in a creek bottom…we hardly knew what we were doing or who we were following. If this splendid officer had lived, we would have gone into Vicksburg in good order.”

Most historians believe the loss of Vicksburg was a blow the Confederacy could ill afford. The spot where Tilghman was killed is marked by a small stone erected in front of a once-beautiful Greek revival house then owned by a popular citizen named H.B. Coker. Today that house is a dilapidated shack.

In February 1862, General Tilghman was also in an untidy position. Asked to defend the exposed Fort Henry along the border of Kentucky and Tennessee, Tilghman experienced a commander’s worst fear---surrender. Facing a large invasion force and naval fleet under the command of General Ulysses S. Grant, Tilghman had some 2,800 half-sick, poorly armed men to defend the fort. “I feel confident that we can whip three times our number,” one of the soldiers wrote home.

Knowing the fort was untenable due to its low ramparts, Tilghman nevertheless decided to make a stand. The Union navy’s mightily iron flotilla soon began pounding the fort with heavy, lethal projectiles. Scores of armless and decapitated comrades caused a sickened Tilghman to seek terms. “No sir, your surrender will be unconditional,” Union midshipman Adam Footed replied.

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Civil War Sites: The Official Guide to Civil War Discovery Trail

A humiliated Tilghman handed over his sword and became a prisoner of war. After spending nearly a year in a Northern war prison, he was exchanged just in time to fight for Vicksburg. Standing beside his horse with his sword hoisted high to rally his troops, a Yankee cannonball suddenly tore a large hole in his midsection. “Tell your Mother; God bless her,” the dying general said to his son, who was fighting beside him in his dad’s very shadow.

In 1916 that son donated a magnificent action monument to Vicksburg National Military Park to memorialize his father’s all but forgotten valor.

General George Pickett - The Bugles of Gettysburg

Of all the hallowed places of the Civil War, few spots attract more eager visitors than the open fields south of Gettysburg where Confederate General George Picket led his disastrous charge up Seminary Hill in 1863.

George Pickett was born into a wealthy plantation life on a cold day January 28, 1825, not far from Richmond, Virginia. By the time he was an adolescent, his parents were worried that young George showed little gumption to achieve in life. Having grown up on a plantation, George was never worried about his financial prospects. But when the tobacco markets plummeted, George’s parents decided to send him off to Quincy, Illinois, to study law with his uncle.

George took little to law and the study that it required, so his parents sought an appointment to West Point as a way of instilling the discipline and focus that was sorely missing in the young man’s life. After four years of bucking every protocol that was possible at the strict military school, Pickett graduated dead last in his class.

But Picket found himself as the Mexican War broke out in 1847. In one of the most exhilarating moments of his life, Pickett snatched up the American flag from his comrade, James Longstreet, who was badly wounded during the assault on Chapultepec, and hoisted the colors upon the ramparts amid a hail of bullets. It was Pickett’s first taste of glory.

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Historic Replicas


Back in Virginia in January 1851, Pickett married fellow Virginian Sally Minge. Ten months later, Sally died giving birth to a stillborn baby. Inconsolable, the twenty-seven year old army officer went on leave. While he was brooding upon a Virginia beach, Pickett met a nine-year-old girl. The little girl, LaSalle Corbell, claimed later that she saw Pickett reading under an umbrella looking sad. The young Sallie asked him if he was sick, He said “no”, he told her “God broke my heart when he took my loved ones.” The soldier and child spent the rest of the day building sand castles and playing games on the beach.

Picket soon returned to the army, stationed at a fort in the Pacific North-west where he remarried to an Indian woman. He built his Haida Indian wife a modest house and settled into a quiet life. Tragically, his second died soon after giving birth to a healthy baby boy. Distraught, Picket gave the son to a white foster family, and after Pickett joined the Confederacy he never saw his son again.

The Civil War ultimately defined George Pickett. When he returned to Richmond in 1861, he again crossed the path of Sallie Corbell, now a beautiful, vivacious eighteen-year-old southern belle. When George was slightly wounded in the battles around Richmond in 1862. Sallie nursed him back to health. Then just two months after Pickett led the immortal charge up Seminary Ridge, at Gettysburg, he and Sallie wed in Richmond. For the remainder of her long life, Sallie embellished her husband’s importance to numerous writings. Outliving her husband by several decades, Sallie Pickett never remarried but instead focused her attention on the myth making of George Picket.

“Time has not lessened the fame of Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg, and it never will. Gettysburg was the greatest battle of the western continent,” Sallie wrote long after the war. Perhaps her most unrestrained embellishment came in her book, the Bugles of Gettysburg. “For over each dead form that lay on that blood-crimsoned field, his heart mourned as a father-heart mourns over the grave of his son. The tiger eyes that had flamed with fire were softened in a gray tender light sadder than tears.”