Things Lincoln never said

[RJNorton]

I am posting this under "Things Lincoln Never Said" but will move the post to another category if someone can post evidence that I'm wrong. Mrs. Pickett included the following story in a book she wrote about her husband:

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Short as was Mr. Lincoln's time when he passed through Richmond after its surrender, he came to the old Pickett home to hunt up his friend and former partner, the General's uncle. I had seen the carriage and the guard and retinue, but did not know who the visitors were. The city was full of northern troops and my environment had not taught me to love them. The fate of other cities had awakened my fears for Richmond. With my baby on my arm I answered the knock, opened the door, and looked up at a tall, gaunt, sad-faced man in ill-fitting clothes who, with the accent of the North asked :

"Is this George Pickett's place?"

"Yes, sir," I answered, " but he is not here."

"I know that, ma'am," he replied," but I just wanted to see the place. I am Abraham Lincoln."

''The President!" I gasped.

The stranger shook his head and said:

"No, ma'am; no, ma'am; just Abraham Lincoln, George's old friend."

"1 am George Pickett's wife and this is his baby," was all I could say. I had never seen Mr. Lincoln, but remembered the intense love and reverence with which my Soldier always spoke of him.

My baby pushed away from me and reached out his hands to Mr. Lincoln, who took him in his arms. As he did so an expression of rapt, almost divine, tenderness and love lighted up the sad face. It was a look that I have never seen on any other face. My baby opened his mouth wide and insisted upon giving his father's friend a dewy baby kiss. As Mr. Lincoln gave the little one back to me he said:

"Tell your father, the rascal, that I forgive him for the sake of that kiss and those bright eyes."

He turned and went down the steps, talking to himself, and passed out of my sight forever, but in my memory there is a perpetual abiding place for that wonderful voice, those intensely human eyes and that strong, sad face, — a face which puzzled all artists but revealed itself to the intuitions of a little child, causing it to hold out its arms to be taken and its lips to be kissed.

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I just find the story highly improbable. As far as I know none of the folks in Richmond with the president mentioned any side trips to the Pickett home. To me, anyway, the story is fiction, unless someone knows of a corroborating account.