The leader of the most famous charge in American history, George E. Pickett, was destined for immortality, but the man behind the famous name has remained a mystery. This, the first full-length scholarly biography of the general, reveals the complex personality and explores the contradictory behavior of one of Robert E. Lee's most enigmatic subordinates. What emerges is a portrait of a gallant leader who risked his life on many fields but refused to accompany his troops into the jaws of death at Gettysburg; an incisive, quick-witted tactician who graduated at the foot of his West Point Class; and a chivalrous Virginian who in 1865 barely escaped trial as a war criminal.

This biography of one of the Civil War's most celebrated commanders, a general whose career both greatness and tragedy touched, is based largely on published and unpublished primary sources. The book provides a multifaceted portrait of an officer whose career has long been obscured by error, stereotype, and myth.

As the first Pickett biography published since 1899, Leader of the Charge debunks a century of myth-making about him, exposes two postwar collections of letters reputedly written by Pickett as fiction concocted by his widow, and publishes for the first time numerous authentic Pickett letters.

“I strongly recommend this outstanding biography to all Civil War readers.”

The Civil War News, Willis R. Kocher

“First full-length biography in nearly one hundred years.... Longacre has written a highly readable biography.”

Assembly, July/August 1996

“The book will please students and irritate romanticists.... This work will rank as one of the best, despite the fact that writings by Pickett have heretofore been scarce and scattered.”

James Robertson, Richmond Times-Dispatch

About: Edward G. Longacre

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