Queen of the Confederacy: The Innocent Deceits of Lucy Holcombe Pickens

Epilogue

199 1894–1899 Epilogue Theodore Holcombe continued to live at Edgewood at the invitation of Lucy’s granddaughters. He wrote to his brother, Philemon, saying he had little to do but “superintend with the general charge of the place and things.” He rented out the parcel of land that Lucy gave him but regretted that he hadn’t the means to develop it. Theodore missed his sister and dreamt very often of her, “always lovely dreams. I feel as if she and Effie [perhaps companion] are my guardian Angels.” In Lucy’s will her granddaughters, Lucy Francis Pickens Dugas and Adrienne Dorothea Rebecca Dugas, were named to receive in equal shares, “All and singular my personal property of every kind and description whatsoever—including my diamonds and other jewelry . All my silverware and china plate and paintings and pictures and my library and my household and kitchen furniture and all other species of personal property which I may own at time of my death and all which may be useful for agricultural purposes such as horses and mules, cows and sheep and goats and wagons and harness and agricultural implements of every kind.” Lucy bequeathed to “John Theodore Hunt Holcombe, my faithful brother, land enough for a two-house farm not to exceed seventy acres wherever he designates to cut it off from my realty. To be held and worked for his own use.” The rents, issues and income from her property were to be used for the education of her granddaughters. The two granddaughters later married and moved away from Edgewood and the beautiful house and grounds lay vacant for a number of years. In the 1920s Miss Eulalie Salley of Aiken, South Carolina , bought the house. According to the Aiken Standard, 24 May 1991, Edgewood became known as the Pickens-Salley house. In 1928–29, Mrs. Salley had it taken down, board by board and moved to Gregg 200 Epilogue Avenue in Aiken. Sometime after this—in the 1930s—the house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and known as the “Pickens House.” Over the years changes were made to update this house which became the Salley family home for about fifty years. Mrs. Salley transformed Lucy’s bedroom into her guestroom, and soon tales of ghosts began to circulate. Some said that Lucy, recognizable by the lingering fragrance of honeysuckle blossoms and the swishing sound of her silken skirts, awakened them. Others felt a strong presence in the room along with a beguiling fragrance. Legend though it may be, the beautiful and talented Lucy Petway Holcombe Pickens continued to make an impact on peoples’ lives, if only in memory. Some years later, possibly in the 1970s, the Salleys sold this historic home to the Aiken developer, Ronald B. Bolton. Mr. Bolton donated the house to the University of South Carolina at Aiken in 1989. Edgewood, the former home of Governor and Mrs. Pickens, is currently used by the University for its Studies in Southern History program. The life of Lucy Petway Holcombe Pickens continues to fascinate. In the 1950s a spate of undocumented articles lauded Lucy with such titles as, “Uncrowned Queen of the Confederacy,” “Fluer de Lucy,” and as the “Texas Girl Pictured on Currency.” Research has shown that much of the information given was imagined. Lucy does not need such publicity to be celebrated. As a romantic young woman, Lucy Petway Holcombe championed filibusters, gained literary recognition, entered the political field, and all the while held her own as a Southern belle. She was not a “woman’s rights woman” yet she advocated higher education for women insisting that with intellect a woman could better the conditions in America by taking a rightful place in politics and government. Later, as Lucy Holcombe Pickens, she used her wit and charm to champion another cause, the Confederacy. Cognizant of the political situation, she became the driving force behind her husband in his role as Governor of South Carolina the first state to secede from the Union. Mary Chesnut noted in her Civil War diary, “He [Governor 201 Epilogue Pickens] will outwit them all yet, with the aid of the lovely Lucy, who is a host in herself.”1 Lucy advanced the cause of the Confederacy holding the South to be a “kingdom” and by 1862, her portrait was chosen to be on Confederate currency, the only woman of her time to be...