Trained at a young age as a typesetter, Pickett founded a number of papers throughout Illinois, Kentucky, and Nebraska.
He was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1860, then raised a pair of regiments during the Civil War, reaching the rank of Colonel.
[1] Pickett was the first to formally endorse Abraham Lincoln as a presidential candidate, when he wrote an editorial in a spring 1859 issue of the Register.
[1] Upon the outbreak of the Civil War, Pickett was offered a position as brigadier general, but declined.
Later in the war, he organized the 69th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment and served as its lieutenant colonel.
He ran for United States Congress in Kentucky's 1st congressional district in 1874, but was defeated by Andrew Boone.