Thomas H. Pickett was blind in his left eye. This would explain why he was rejected on physical examination at Camp Mary, Motgomery AL, July 3, 1862, and not mustered with Hilliard's Alabama Legion. Evidently the conscript officer for Barbour County was willing to send him to Camp Watts in May 1863. According to his service record, Sgt. Pickett may hve missed Early's march on Washington in July 1864, but present for the fall campaign in the Shenandoah Valley. He was released on oath at Camp Lookout MD after the war ended.

Richard Abner Pickett appears on roll in Capt. Lovard Lee's Company which organized for Local Defense at Clayton AL, Oct. 3, 1863. Members included men over or under the conscript age, Pickett being carried on roll as age 17. Local Defense companies mustered for six-month terms but rarely if ever performed any actual military service.

The military law passed by Congress on Feb. 17, 1864, absorbed most of the men on Lovard Lee's roll, placing them in either Junior or Senior Reserve organizations. Pickett next appears on roll in a company organized by another teenage from Clayton, Alto Velo Lee, Jr. This command held elections at Clayton on Mar. 24, 1864, later serving as Co. “E” of the 2nd Alabama Reserve Battalion. On Aug. 16, 1864, it reorganized as the 2nd Alabama Reserve Regiment, almost all members being classified as junior reserves. Capt. Lee had been a cadet at the University of Alabama, class of 1864. He and his men were captured at Blakely AL Apr. 9, 1865; sent to Ship Island MS, exchanged at Vicksburg MS, May 6, 1865, and paroled at Meridian MS, May 11, 1865.

According to the law of Feb, 17, 1864, after a year's service junior reserve commands became regular military organizations of the Confederate army. By this time all seventeen year olds were supposed by be eighteen. The 1st and 2nd Alabama Reserve Regiments appear to have 'graduated' to regular service shortly before the end of the war, paroles being recorded as 62nd and 63rd Alabama Regiments, respectively.