A Black Confederate.
The Atlanta Constitution (1881-1945); Aug 4, 1889;
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Atlanta Constitution (1868-1945)
The application of Eli Pickett, a colored man, for a confederate pension from the State of Georgia. If this clever Negro really rendered service and was disabled in the military branch of the confederacy it seems a pity to shut him from the pension list on the account of some irregularity. Perhaps many people north and south are not aware, or have forgotten, that an act of the confederate congress, passed in the spring of 1865, authorized the enlistment of colored troops. Under that act colored men were enrolled. The work of organizing them commenced, and doubtless some old confederates in Georgia remember seeing them drilling in the streets of Richmond. But the confederacy was then tottering to its fall. The black confederates never had a fighting chance. Appomattox wound up the whole business. The act refereed to made it lawful for Eli Pickett to be regularly enlisted, but as the surrender came only a few weeks after its passage it is possible that he failed to come from a legal point of view technically within its limited operations. it is a case however which will excite sympathy and Pickett will find he has plenty of confederate friends.
another blog reported he was from Bartow County Georgia http://genealogical.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/eli-pickett-bartow-co-ga/
The following item was published in the 8 August 1889 issue of the The Franklin Press of Franklin, Macon Co., NC (Volume 4, Number 21, 2nd page, 1st column):
Eli Pickett, of Bartow county, Ga., a negro Confederate soldier who was severely wounded in the Georgia campaigns, has appealed to the State of Georgia for a pension. He was free-born and fought bravely for the Confederacy.
Bartow county is my stomping ground so I will look for Eli's grave site and data where I can find, The pension records site does not hold any more info.