LaSalle "Sallie" Corbell Pickett (May 16, 1843 - March 22, 1931) was an American author. LaSalle "Sallie" Corbell was born in Chuckatuck, Virginia, on May 16, 1843, the daughter of David John Corbell and Elizabeth Phillips, slaveholders and plantation owners near Suffolk. [1] [2] She attended the Lynchburg Female Seminary in Lynchburg, Virginia. [2] Pickett obtained a professorship in belles-lettres and taught French, Latin and piano in Sherbrooke, Canada. She also sold her jewelry to maintain the family. After General Ulysses S. Grant insisted that the cartel which granted privileges to her husband should be honored, General Pickett and his family returned to their home in Virginia. General Grant then tendered General Pickett the position of Marshal of Virginia, but he chose to accept a work position with the New York Life Insurance Company in Norfolk, with a large salary. [1] [2] Her husband died of scarlet fever in 1875. The sympathy of the South was aroused, and a subscription was started with eight-thousand dollars from one State, and pledges of thousands more from the devoted comrades of her dead hero. Hearing of that plan to put her above the anxiety of temporal want, Pickett resolutely declined to accept financial aid, and soon secured a position as a government clerk in the Federal Pensions Office sufficient to support herself and son. In the 1880s, she became a popular writer and speaker. Her first book was published in 1899, "Pickett and His Men". Between 1899 and 1931 she toured America and wrote for Cosmopolitan, McClure's and other popular magazines; and published more than a half dozen books. [1] [2] In 1891, after recovering from a distressing accident, she was threatened with total blindness. As with one heart, the South gave her assurances of sympathy and support, and messages flashed over the wires that she had only to command Pickett's old comrades, and they would rally to her aid. To her belongs the honor of uniting the Blue and the Gray in fraternal bonds. She has been the messenger of peace, trying to reconcile the two factions and ridge over the chasm once so broad and deep. No woman at the time was more widely known and honored than Pickett. With health broken and the almost total loss of her sight, she retained her position in the clerical service of the government, in Washington, and honestly earned her own living, when she could have been heir to the liberality of the South. [1] Less