By Walt Garlington
The South came into being during the age in Western history when the idea of man’s ability to participate directly in the life of the Holy Trinity, to know God through an actual union with His divine energies, had been rejected (see Fr. John Strickland’s very helpful book The Age of Division for an elaboration of this time period in Church history). Nevertheless, since God Himself is, as St. Dionysius the Areopagite (+1st century) says, Beauty Itself (The Divine Names, chapter IV, section VII), man has a natural inclination toward what is beautiful; he is drawn toward it and desires it, having an intuitive sense that it is connected mystically to God, the Source of all being and goodness (sections IX and X). But because of Dixie’s ignorance of the reality of participation and union found in the Orthodox Church, she, like the rest of the West after the separation from the Orthodox, had to find a way to satisfy her natural hunger and longing for beauty. She did this by trying to capture beauty in an earthly container of some kind.
Southerners found various ways to capture and express beauty: rhetoric, gardens, architecture, literature. But the most potent embodiment of beauty for Southerners by far is woman. Southern society has always been down-right enchanted by them. From Alexander Meek of Alabama’s chivalric antebellum poetry (“A Soldier’s Love Dream,” for instance, pgs. 119-20), to Poe’s mixing of death and womanly beauty in his poem The Raven (“The Philosophy of Composition,” Poe: Essays and Reviews, Library of America, New York, 1984, pgs. 16-19), to the beauty pageants and cotillions that still go on today in parts of the South, the fair and comely woman is at the heart of Dixie’s culture.
Perhaps the most beautiful of them all is Lucy Holcombe Pickens, who has been called the “uncrowned queen of the Southern Confederate States.” Born on 11 July 1832 in Tennessee, related to Austrian royalty through her Grandmother Holcombe, nearly everything about her life breathed royalty, wealth, and virtue. It also intersects with the Orthodox Church, as we shall see.
There was jewelry, silverware, and travel along the Mississippi when growing up. A visit to the Mississippi State Legislature with her family when she was 17 led to its adjournment: So many of the legislators felt it necessary to escort her to the dock as she left for New Orleans that not enough were left to gather a quorum.
Her first love, a Lt. Crittendon, was killed in an attempt to begin a revolution in Cuba to free the island from Spanish rule in 1851. She wrote a well-received fictional novel describing the events, The Free Flag of Cuba.
Her second suitor appeared in 1858, Francis W. Pickens. He was one of the South’s planter politicians, and had married twice, only to have both wives die. He was struck at once by her beauty, which was described by someone at this season of her life as “[t]all, willowy, with titian hair said to resemble a woof of sunbeams spinning out like a flower at the ends, with eyes to shade that two men could never agree upon.” He was soon asking Lucy’s father for permission to wed his daughter. She herself was agreeable to the proposal, but asked Mr. Pickens, as some stories relate, to get an ambassadorship in a foreign country out of a desire to see the wider world. He asked President Buchanan for such a one, and was appointed ambassador to Russia.
Their marriage took place on 25 April 1858 in Marshall, Texas, the Holcombe family home, and by the end of May they had reached England enroute to Orthodox Russia. They reached St. Petersburg on 6 July after stops in France and Prussia. Mr. Pickens was introduced to Tsar Alexander II that very day, but Lucy Pickens’s first meeting with him was delayed, as the 6th was a Sunday, and she did not wish to break the Sabbath. Thus, she was not introduced to him until several weeks later at a ball at his summer palace of Peterhof. He showed her great deference, with dances, a stand on a platform usually reserved for the royals, and with a half-hour talk, the latter quite out of the ordinary for a foreigner at such an event.
Though she was doted on by a number of the nobility, she was determined not to surrender her chastity. She wrote to her sister,
In a society like this, where the existence of virtue is not believed in by men, mine has not been a position free from incidents but I have conducted myself with such prudence that my husband tells me he loves me more for my dignity and goodness, than for my beauty and intellect. … I have endeavored to fulfill the duties which I owed to my position to society, but I would shrink from giving my mind, soul and body to worldly pleasures and gratifications as the people around me do.
Lucy and Francis would have their first child while in Russia, born 14 March 1859 as Eugenia Dorothea Holcombe Pickens but baptized as Frances Eugenia Olga Neva. The plan was to have a Presbyterian minister christen the child once back in Dixie, but because of the dangers of sailing the oceans in those times, she was baptized in Russia instead, as an Orthodox Christian it seems, as both the Tsar and the Tsarina were her godparents. The Tsarina Maria also gave her the nickname Douschka, “little darling,” which never left her. She in turn called her mother Lucy “Mamaska,” a Russian word for “mother.” Until the Tsar’s death, he wrote to her each year; afterwards, his son did likewise until Douschka died, unfortunately quite early, in 1894. Despite acquiring an interest in the ceremonies of the Orthodox Church, Lucy did not become an Orthodox Christian.
During her stay in Russia, Lucy took up lessons in the French language and also a study of Italian music, but as war loomed between the Yankees and the South, the Pickenses returned home. Francis Pickens wanted to calm the secession fever in South Carolina, but despite being elected governor, he was unable to do so.
During the War she helped and advised her husband, and inspired the State and her soldiers. A few bits and pieces of Orthodox Russia were found in the Pickens home during those difficult days: Some servants dressed in “Russian livery,” and Russian tea and champagne were served on occasion, per Mary Boykin Chesnut. The Holcombe Legion was named for her, in gratitude for her buying uniforms for South Carolina soldiers. The money for the purchase came from the sale of some of the jewels given her by the Tsar’s family. Lucy also tried to keep normal social life active for South Carolinians during the War at the Pickens plantation home, Edgewood.
Gov. Pickens did not seek a second term of office and retired from politics, devoting his time to the Episcopal Church of Edgefield where he attended and served in the vestry, and to which he also gave generous donations. Lucy was confirmed as an Anglican there on 29 March 1868. Francis Pickens would pass to the next life not long after this, on 25 Jan. 1869.
Despite widowhood, Lucy Pickens was able to keep up the Edgewood property by selling more of the jewels that Tsar Alexander continued to send her. She devoted her time to various charitable causes, one of the last of her life being a fundraiser to build a memorial for Confederate soldiers in Edgefield town square.
Lucy Holcombe Pickens ended her days on 8 August 1899 and was buried next to Douschka and her husband in Edgefield Cemetery.
A testament to her singular beauty is attested by the fact that, during the War, she was the only woman to appear on Confederate money, on the one dollar bill in 1862 and 1863 and the 100 dollar bill in 1864. Truly, then, we may say that she was an icon of the South, and a testament to Southerners’ exaltation of the beauty captured and expressed in women.
But just as every earthly beauty guides us to the archetypal Beauty of the Holy Trinity, so too does the womanly beauty of Lucy Pickens guide us to the archetypal beauty of all women, the All-Pure, Ever-Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, the Queen of Heaven and Earth. She is the fulfilment of all tender motherly sentiments found in the South, of all the beauty and virtues and attainments of womanhood, of all the riches accumulated by the gentlemen and ladies of the great plantations and their generosity with them.
St. Dionysius, mentioned at the outset, describes his meeting with the Panagia (“All-Pure”) in words that sound akin to the typical Southern man’s florid description of his lady love, even though they far exceed the latter:
I witness by God, that besides the very God Himself, there is nothing else filled with such divine power and grace. No one can fully comprehend what I saw. I confess before God: when I was with John, who shone among the Apostles like the sun in the sky, when I was brought before the countenance of the Most Holy Virgin, I experienced an inexpressible sensation. Before me gleamed a sort of divine radiance which transfixed my spirit. I perceived the fragrance of indescribable aromas and was filled with such delight that my very body became faint, and my spirit could hardly endure these signs and marks of eternal majesty and heavenly power. The grace from her overwhelmed my heart and shook my very spirit. If I did not have in mind your instruction, I should have mistaken Her for the very God. It is impossible to stand before greater blessedness than this which I beheld.
Regarding the greatness of her virtues, St. Ambrose of Milan (+397) writes,
She was a Virgin not only in body, but also in soul, humble of heart, circumspect in word, wise in mind, not overly given to speaking, a lover of reading and of work, and prudent in speech. Her rule of life was to offend no one, to intend good for everyone, to respect the aged, not envy others, avoid bragging, be healthy of mind, and to love virtue.
When did She ever hurl the least insult in the face of Her parents? When was She at discord with Her kin? When did She ever puff up with pride before a modest person, or laugh at the weak, or shun the destitute? With Her there was nothing of glaring eyes, nothing of unseemly words, nor of improper conduct. She was modest in the movement of Her body, Her step was quiet, and Her voice straightforward; so that Her face was an expression of soul. She was the personification of purity.
All Her days She was concerned with fasting: She slept only when necessary, and even then, when Her body was at rest, She was still alert in spirit, repeating in Her dreams what She had read, or the implementation of proposed intentions, or those planned yet anew. She was out of Her house only for church, and then only in the company of relatives. Otherwise, She seldom appeared outside Her house in the company of others, and She was Her own best overseer. Others could protect Her only in body, but She Herself guarded Her character.
A more recent Orthodox writer sums up her virtues, motherliness, and rich treasures:
These four main virtues: humility, obedience to the will of God, chastity, and love, are the principal lanterns of the pure soul of the Most Blameless Virgin Mary, in whom the fullness of virtue was so complete that they made her ‘more honourable than the Cherubim and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim,’ and enabled her to contain the Uncontainable within herself, and become the Mother of the Living God.
By these, her royal traits, her importance for us can be determined, as well. She can petition for us before her divine Son in every need and in all our sorrows and joys.
In addition, it is in great measure important for us that, by praying to her and through prayer interacting with her most holy Person, we fortify in our own souls those seedlings of virtues given to us all from birth, which by the labors of our life must be cultivated within us, but which are constantly trampled within us by sin. And so, in praying to the Mother of God, we can draw new strengths for our poor and impoverished souls from her all-perfect and immeasurable royal treasure.
And revealing one more great act of kindness by the Theotokos (“Birth-giver of God”), he says also,
In order to assure us of the reality of spiritual interaction with the Mother of God, it pleased her to reveal the strength of her visible grace through her wonder-working icons, which by their miracles confirm for us that she reigns over the laws of nature and that by her intercession and prayers before the Creator of the world, that is done which is impossible for man, but possible for God.
Thus we see all the good feminine qualities of Dixie embodied in Queen Lucy blossom into their fullness in Queen Mary.
Southerners have never been shy about placing the women they adore on a pedestal to honor them. It is the most natural thing in the world, then, for Dixians to place a hallowed icon of the Mother of our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ, the Queen of all the cosmos, in a place of honor and to reverence it.
In the same way, may all Southrons remember from now on their loving duty to pray for the soul of Lucy Pickens on the day of her repose (26 July/8 Aug.), thanking the Lord for her – she who adorned Dixie with her beauty and virtues; she who is our bridge to the proper understanding and veneration of the Panagia.
Walt Garlington is a chemical engineer turned writer and editor of the website Confiteri: A Southern Perspective. This longtime Southern Baptist, then Anglican, was united to the Orthodox Church in 2012 and makes his home in Louisiana where he attends a GOA parish.
Editor’s note: There is much lore surrounding Lucy Holcombe Pickens. This includes such legends as: she allowed her young daughter Douschka to help Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard light the fuse of the first cannon at Fort Sumter, making it the first shot of the War Between the States; she was the model for Margaret Mitchell’s Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone With the Wind;” and she was the inspiration for the fabled folk song “The Yellow Rose of Texas.” And while it is fact that a CSA regiment known as the Holcombe Legion was named in honor, and that she designed and sewed its flag, it’s claimed that she financed the unit’s equipment by selling many of her jewels like the 12-carat sapphire gifted to her by Tsar Alexander II.
