MARCH 11, 1864:
Under the headline “Military Despotism in The State,” The New York Times reported on the hangings of 53 Union POWs by the formerly dashing and dandified General George Pickett C.S.A. after Pickett’s failed attempt at defending New Bern, North Carolina on February 1st. The 53 men were members of the U.S. 2nd North Carolina. Unfortunately for these men, Pickett, on an ad hoc inspection tour, recognized several of the men, who had previously been in Confederate North Carolinian units under his command.
Beyond fury at having been defeated (again) by the Yankees, and especially enraged at these turncoats, Pickett ordered all North Carolina Unionists hanged wherever they might be. Of course, this emotional order could not be carried out in toto, but the general impossibility of fulfilling Pickett’s order did nothing to help these specific prisoners. Two were hanged on February 5th; eighteen were hanged on February 12th, and 13 more were hanged on February 15th. Of the twenty others, only two, one a Union soldier-turned-informer, and the other, an “imbecile,” were ultimately spared. To increase their torment and inflict a lesson on any men in gray who might have otherwise considered deserting, Pickett hanged the men not in groups but slowly, one by one, in front of his assembled units. Afterward, most of his men dared to openly criticize their General, who, up to that point, had been a popular commander.
Pickett’s hysterical reaction to his defeat at New Bern and the measured cruelty of the executions was criticized by everyone, North and South. Pickett’s actions played a large part in the decision to suspend Prisoner Exchanges in April 1864. Desertions from Pickett’s units skyrocketed, and North Carolinian Unionist ranks swelled. By hanging these men, Pickett probably did more to bolster the Union cause than any other Confederate General during the war.
After the Civil War ended, a group of former Confederate officers (including several
ex-Generals) brought War Crimes charges against Pickett. Although Pickett asked
Robert E. Lee to speak in his defense, Lee, fully knowledgeable about the
hangings, refused to help his former subordinate. Pickett was convicted in absentia, and fled to Canada. Ultimately,
he was pardoned by President Ulysses S. Grant, returned to Virginia, and died
of the effects of extended alcoholism in 1875.
