Early Military Career
Pickett was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the U.S. 8th Infantry Regiment. He soon gained national recognition in the Mexican-American War when he carried the American colors over the parapet during the Battle of Chapultepec. Wounded at the base of the wall, Pickett's friend and colleague Lt. James Longstreet handed him the colors. Pickett carried the flag over the wall and fought his way to the roof of the palace, unfurling it over the fortress and announcing its surrender. He received a brevet promotion to captain following this action.
In 1849, while serving on the Texas frontier after the war, he was promoted to first lieutenant and then to captain in the 9th U.S. Infantry in 1855. In 1853, Pickett challenged a fellow junior officer, future Union general and opposing Civil War commander Winfield Scott Hancock, to a duel; (they had met only briefly when Hancock was passing through Texas). Hancock declined the duel, a response not unlikely as dueling had fallen out of favor at the time.
In January 1851, Pickett married Sally Harrison Minge, the daughter of Dr. John Minge of Virginia, the great-great-grandniece of President William Henry Harrison, and the great-great-granddaughter of Benjamin Harrison, a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence. Sally died during childbirth that November, at Fort Gates, Texas.
Pickett next served in the Washington Territory. In 1856 he commanded the construction of Fort Bellingham on Bellingham Bay, in what is today the city of Bellingham, Washington. He also built a frame home that year which still stands; Picket House is the oldest house in Bellingham and the oldest house on its original foundation in the Pacific Northwest. While posted to Fort Bellingham, Pickett married a Native American woman of the Haida tribe, Morning Mist, who gave birth to a son, James Tilton Pickett (1857–1889); Morning Mist died a few months later. "Jimmy" Pickett made a name for himself as a newspaper artist in his short life. He died of tuberculosis at the age of 32 near Portland, Oregon.
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