Cassandra's Circle #5: Russian Sunflower for Lucy Pickens

Cassandra's Circle, Block #4

Russian Sunflower for Lucy Holcombe Pickens by Becky Brown

Lucy Petway Holcombe Pickens, a sometime member of Cassandra's Circle, is pictured on a Confederate dollar bill from 1862. 

If you are looking for Confederate cliches you'll find many references to her as the "Queen of the Confederacy," Lucy Holcombe Pickens is often described as the only woman to be featured on Confederate money.

Lucy Petway Holcombe Pickens (1832-1899)

with daughter Frances Eugenia Olga Neva 

Pickens born in 1859

I know of a few women who might dispute that "Queen of the Confederacy" crown; you'll meet some of them here over the next few months. But no one would dispute that Lucy Petway Holcombe was what we'd call a trophy wife, born in Tennessee and living in Texas when she wed.

Lucy must have been fond of her profile, which was considered classic

Southern beauty 

In 1858 at 25 she married 53-year-old wealthy South Carolina politician Francis Pickens who owned Edgewood plantation near Augusta, South Carolina. In the 1860 census the twice-widowed Pickens is listed as being worth about $290,000 with much of that wealth in his 276 slaves. He had long been an ally of nullifier and state's rights advocate John C. Calhoun, a relative. 

Francis Wilkinson Pickens (1805-1869)

"Old Pick was there with a better wig [and his] silly and affected wife....Poor goose."

Mary Chesnut, April 1861.

Mary Boykin Chesnut had little respect for Lucy or Frank Pickens, who was at that point Governor-elect of South Carolina. Frank's courtship of Lucy had included the promise of an ambassadorship in Russia, which friend President James Buchanan bestowed when they married. Lucy loved the Russian court where she became friends with the Czar and his wife who gave her jewelry and names for her daughter.

Czar Alexander II & Maria Andropovna

were godparents to the Pickens's only child

Eugenia Frances Dorothea Olga Neva

The baby, here with her American nurse Lucinda,

kept her Russian nickname Douschka all her life. 

Lucinda traveled with Lucy from Texas to South

Carolina to Russia and back despite Russian

marriage proposals.

Russian Sunflower by Pat Styring

Buchanan begging Pickens not to start a war "till I get out of office."

Library of Congress

As disunion threatened, Pickens to Lucy's chagrin, was anxious to return to South Carolina where he was elected Governor, inaugurated just in time to authorize shelling at Fort Sumter, demand the Union commander surrender and oversee secession. Few had confidence in Pickens during the crisis. Mary's husband James Chesnut was appointed to a five-man commission to oversee his governance, a political move that did nothing for the Chesnut/Pickens friendship.

Lucy "young, lovely and clever--- and old Pick's third wife. She cannot fail to hate us. Mr. C. put as [a] sort of watch and ward over her husband."

Lucy was clever (she'd boarded at the Moravian school in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and published a novel when she was 23). Mary occasionally complimented her brains, but "affected" was a description she repeated. They spent much time together in Columbia, South Carolina's capitol early in the war, politely conversing although occasionally furious with each other.

Frank Pickens spent the last year of his two-year term as "a great old horse fly," according to Mary:

"Buzzing & fuming & fretting & doing nothing but hir[ing] & brib[ing] newspaper people to write & abuse friends & enemies."

The new governor's wife reviewing the troops.

Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, February 1861

Lucy is remembered for funding a regiment by selling some the jewels given her by the Czar. The troops were named the Lucy Holcombe Legion.

Private Jackson A. Davis, Co. E, a soldier in the Lucy Holcombe Legion.

Photo by Charles Rees, Library of Congress, Liljenquist Collection

In the case three fabric fragments glued to paper

The Pickenses moved to the plantation in Edgefield when his only term ended. After Frank died in 1867 Lucy spent her post-war years engaged, as many elite Southerner women were, in working to fund Confederate monuments and getting her name in the newspapers for charity work. She was among the elite of the elite, the Vice-Regent for South Carolina in the Mount Vernon Ladies Association.

Postwar Gossip: Lucy Pickens and Governor Wade Hampton of South Carolina an item? They did not wed, but Lucy did provide financial support for Hampton's Red Shirts, a group of vigilantes out to win him office in 1876 by preventing African-American men from voting for his Republican opponent.

Edgewood in the Edgefield District fell into disrepair after Lucy's death in 1899.

A short obituary remembering her legendary beauty was copied by many newspapers: "With the passing away of Mrs. Pickens the South loses one of its most striking antebellum characters."

Edgewood has been moved and restored as the Pickens-Sally House on the 

Aiken Campus of the University of South Carolina

The Block

Sunflowers with their symmetries are natural subject for applique

and piecing. The Russian Sunflower (reminding us of Lucy's hobnobbing

with Russian royalty) was inspired by several traditional blocks.

Pat Styring added a checkerboard ring and a few berries

in applique and embroidery.

Applique to an 18-1/2" square or cut it larger and trim later.

Add seams.

To Print the Pattern

·         Create or a new empty JPG file that is 8-1/2" x 11" or a word file.

·         Click on the image above.

·         Right click on it and save it to your file.

·         Print that file out 8-1/2" x 11". Note the inch square block for reference.

·         Adjust the printed page size if necessary. Do not use tools like "Fit to page."

·         Make templates.

·         Add seams when cutting fabric.

Postscript

The Confederate Money Portrait

Lucy is often recalled as being the only female pictured on any Confederate notes. There are two female portraits, the one on the left dated 1864 on a hundred dollar bill; the other on a one dollar bill in 1862 when Lucy was first lady of South Carolina.

1934 newspaper feature

The earlier etching seems quite a bit like her .

The other: Is she an abstraction of Miss Liberty?

Another portrait of Lucy Pickens, former First Lady?

Or did Warrington Dawson editing his mother's diary know something about that portrait? He wrote in a footnote to Sarah Morgan's A Confederate Girl's Diary (published in 1913) that his Uncle Jimmy had married one of the six daughters of  George Trenholm who had been adviser to Treasury Secretary Christopher Memminger and succeeded him in in June, 1864:

"Colonel James Morris Morgan... married Mr. Trenholm's daughter Helen, whose portrait appears on an issue of Confederate bank notes."

 Anna Helen Trenholm Morgan (1842-1866)

The women look alike, with the pale skin, patrician nose, expressive eyes and oval faced deemed the standard for beauty at the time.

Forgot to add this picture of Becky's set. Block 5 along the left hand side.

Extra Reading

Emily Bull's 1982 biography for the Proceedings of the South Carolina Historical Association
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/civil-war/Lucy-Pickens.pdf
Lest you guess that Lucy's daughter Douschka was fathered by the Czar, Bull has done the arithmetic. Not possible despite all the rumors at the time.

James Petigru, Charleston Unionist, on the new Governor & his Texas wife.

Mine, minimalized to fit 9" block