COL. WM. D. PICKETT 



Colonel Wm. D. Pickett was born in northern 

 Alabama, October 2, 1827. His parents, George 

 B. and Courtney (Heron) Pickett, were natives of 

 Virginia, and he was the youngest child. When 

 Wm. Pickett was ten years old, the family moved 

 to Kentucky, where he was reared and educated. 



While engaged as chainman in a party of land 

 surveyors on the northwestern frontier of Texas, 

 near the site of the present city of McKinney, in 

 January, 1847, the call was sounded for volun- 

 teers for the Mexican War, and he at once enlisted 

 in Captain Fitzhugh's Company of Bell's Regi- 

 ment of Texas Mounted Volunteers for twelve 

 months, from February 2, 1847. Their services 

 not being needed for Mexico, this company was 

 assigned to the protection against the incursions of 

 the Comanche and other hostile tribes, then very 

 active, of about one hundred miles of the north- 

 western frontier of Texas. This frontier began at 



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