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Pickett, Jerome R., 6th Ohio Cavalry

Jerome R. Pickett was a sergeant in Co. K, 6th Ohio Cavalry. According to his memorial on www.FindAGrave.com, he was born 28 February 1845 in Jefferson County, New York, the son of Orrin and Elizabeth (Ruland) Pickett. Jerome's Civil War pension file described him as 5 feet, 7 1/2 inches tall with a fair complexion and blue eyes. Jerome married Margaret Elizabeth "Maggie" Saxon 16 October 1868 in Miami County, Indiana. They moved to Harrison Township, Nemaha County, Kansas, before 1880. Jerome applied for a Civil War pension because of an injury to his left knee that occurred at Davis or Hall's Farm, Virginia, in October 1864: "Whilst fighting dismounted [and] he caught his left leg between two logs of wood over which he had to step. In hastily disengaging himself, he wrenched severely and dislocated his left knee joint. He fell into enemy hands immediately thereafter but with a comrade 'cleaned out' his gun and got back to the Union lines & his own command. He ever after suffered from lament - the joint in constant danger of getting out of place." He also suffered from an injury to his right arm, piles, rheumatism and general disability. In spite of affidavits from some who witnessed his knee injury when it occurred, his pension must not have been approved immediately because in a petition dated 12 December 1882, 39 citizens of Goff, Nemaha County, urged the government to settle Jerome's case and award his pension: "Being each of us personally acquainted with his circumstances and the pain and misery he suffers from the effects of his injuries, would urge you in the cause of humanity and right to speedily press his claim." Jerome also suffered from epilepsy. He had a series of strokes about 1901, the most serious of which caused him to fall from a scaffold while papering a room and rendering him unconscious for three hours. He was adjudged insane in 1903, perhaps because of the strokes and epilepsy. Jerome died 30 June 1904 at Parsons State Hospital, Parsons, Kansas, where he had been since October 1903. Prior to that he was a patient in Osawatomie State Hospital. Maggie died 10 November 1935 in Marshall County, Kansas. They were buried in Fairview Cemetery in Goff, Nemaha County.

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