Letters to the editorPublished May 30, 1999, in The Free Lance–Star, Fredericksburg, VirginiaPickett’s Charge changed many Confederate livesRegarding Dane Hartgrove’s May 15 Free Lance–Star article on George Pickett, I recently completed a book on my family history. While researching in Fauquier County, I discovered that our family was seriously affected by Pickett’s Charge. On July 3 at Gettysburg, my great-grandfather Henry Edwards was captured and sent to Fort Delaware, under orders of Union Gen. Robert C. Schenck. He was imprisoned there until the end of the war. He nearly starved. After mustering through Point Lookout, Md., he was traded on the prisoner-of-exchange program at the Boulwares and Cox wharf on the James River in February 1865. He was then discharged at Fort Lee near Richmond, where he walked home to Morrisville. It was that day in July his older brother, Inman Edwards, took a Minié ball in the head that fractured his skull and caused him a lifetime of pain and anguish. He received a pension of $15 per year. At age 80, Inman went to the Old Soldiers Home in Richmond. He was later sent to the asylum in Williamsburg, where he died. Inman’s wife, Mary, received a widow’s pension in 1922 of $75. Three other brothers, James, John, and Joseph, survived the war with haunting memories. During my study, I detected family sympathy for the reluctant Pickett and blame toward Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee for his disastrous decision. As George Pickett never got over Gettysburg, Inman Edwards, along with many others, lived the same lifelong nightmare.
John W. Edwards Stafford
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