Gen. Pickens' greatest legacy is peace, supporters say

Editor

jevans@pickenssentinel.com

CLEMSON - Groups dedicated to honoring the men and women who built our nation came together Sunday afternoon to honor the man who gave Pickens County its name.

Sept. 13 marked the 269th anniversary of General Andrew Pickens' birth.

Members of the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution celebrated Pickens' birth, and his ongoing legacy, with a special ceremony at Old Stone Church in Clemson, the church Pickens helped form and where he is buried.

Pendleton Mayor Carol Burdette spoke of the legacy behind from those who fought, both on the front lines and behind the scenes, in the Revolutionary War.

Burdette spoke of Constitution Week events held last week in Pendleton.

"If it had not been for the men that we are celebrating today who fought in the American Revolution, we would not be able to celebrate our Constitution," Burdette said. "I am happy to be an American and I'm happy to be celebrating with you today."

Burdette declared this week to be Founders and Veterans Week in Pendleton.

Ralph Welton, president of the Gen. Andrew Pickens Chapter of the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, shared the story of Pickens' life with the audience assembled in the church, detailing Pickens' fight against the British and against various Indian tribes.

"After the war, he served in the state assembly in Congress," he said.

But Pickens' greatest legacy is not on the battlefield, but in the way he conducted himself after the war's end, Welton said.

"What we know about Gen. Pickens in terms of the events of his life is not as significant as the character of Gen. Pickens," he said.

After leaving Hopewell, his plantation now located at Clemson University, Pickens moved near Tamassee, living among the very Indians he had once fought against, Welton said.

"He believed in forgiving his enemies and loving his neighbors," he said. "He wanted people to reconcile one to another and live in peace."

Pickens' kind treatment of former Tories and the Cherokee earned him the disbelief of his peers and probably harmed his political career, Welton said.

"He didn't hold a grudge," he said. "He figured they had fought for what they believed in, he had fought what he believed it and that they were one nation now, let's forgive each other."

That legacy can be seen in the United States' rebuilding of Japan and Germany after World War II and the current rebuilding effort in Iraq, Welton said.

"He's really the model for what we see our nation developing into in the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries," he said. "This man and his character set the course that we have followed to this day, of reconciliation and of peace. We honor him today for those attributes."

Following the church service, wreaths were laid at the Pickens Family grave site, and at the gravesides of other patriots buried in the Old Stone Church cemetery, by SAR and DAR members and by Pickens' descendants who attended the ceremony.