#OTD in 1865, as Grant sought to cut the supply lines of the besieged Rebel army, Robert E. Lee sent a message to George Pickett: “Hold Five Forks at all hazards.”

Now, when someone tells ME to hold five forks, I go to lunch.

And, folks, that’s exactly what Pickett did …

Pickett will always be known for his “charge.” But for my money, the Most Pickett Moment of the War (remember: he was last in his class at West Point) was when Lee told him, in his most desperate hour: “You MUST defend this crossroads.”

And George went to a Shad Bake instead.

Many of you are wondering: “What the hell is a shad bake? Is it an 1860s euphemism?” No, it’s a real thing -- shad are fish that spawn in rivers along the Atlantic coast, and you bake them on planks outside around a fire. If you want to get in trouble on Twitter, call it a “BBQ.”

Rebel cavalry Gen. Thomas Rosser had caught some shad, so he invited Pickett and Fitzhugh Lee (nephew of Robert E.) to lunch. Pickett should have rain-checked (“Sorry, Tom, it’s about to be the WATERLOO OF THE CONFEDERACY and I’m playing Marshal Ney again”), but he accepted.

"Some time was spent over lunch," Rosser admitted, picking shad bones out of his teeth with his saber, “during which no firing was heard ... We concluded that the enemy was not in much of a hurry to find us as Five Forks."

What is this, a Cheesecake Factory? There’s a WAR ON!!!

Thanks to a geographical quirk known as an “Acoustic Shadow” (also the name of my Goth folk-rock band), the Rebel generals couldn’t hear the cannon fire only two miles away. And Pickett hadn’t told anyone where he’d gone.

Remember: This was the era before cell phones.

(Side rant: I love how people say “this was the era before cell phones” whenever they’re telling a story that occurred prior to, like, 2013. “In Fourteen Hundred and Ninety Two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. And remember, kids: this was the era before cell phones ...”)

The first hint of trouble came when Pickett dispatched a courier to Five Forks and saw the rider get captured by Union cavalry. I’m no Last Place Graduate of West Point, but I think “eating a fish while watching your messenger fall into enemy hands” is a BAD LOOK FOR A GENERAL.

Pickett dined & ditched, but by the time he made it to his crumbling Rebel lines, the battle was all but over. The disaster never would have happened, one Southern cavalrymen grumbled, “if Pickett had been in his proper place.” Lee fired him a week later, but the war was ending.

Despite the high stakes, there was also Silly Drama on the Union side. Grant was in one of his moods (when anyone not named Sheridan or Sherman was banned from the Cool Kids' Clubhouse), and the object of his and Sheridan’s ire at Five Forks was Gettysburg hero Gouverneur Warren.

Supposedly, Warren moved too slow in supporting Sheridan’s cavalry, but the real problem seems to be Grant’s miscommunication -- and not for the first time. When Sheridan fired him, Warren was incensed and depressed, and spent the rest of his life fighting to clear his name.

But after the Civil War, accusing President Grant or the hero Sheridan of being less than truthful -- when both were BFFs with the army’s commanding general, Sherman -- was not a popular act. Finally, Grant left office, and Warren was granted a hearing -- 15 years after the war.

The military inquiry dragged on, with over 100 witnesses offering testimony, and the results were kept sealed afterwards. Sadly, Warren fell ill. Finally, three months AFTER he died, the court released its findings.

And guess what? Sheridan’s firing of Warren was unjustified.

At the end, Warren was so bitter toward Grant and Sheridan, he said: “When I am dead, see that I am not buried in uniform; have no military emblems or trappings near me. Allow no military escort. Convey me quietly to my grave without pageant or show, I die a disgraced soldier.”

So it gives me IMMENSE satisfaction to picture the ghost of Gouverneur strolling around the Gettysburg battlefield, taking a long walk on that famous ridge at sunset, and chucking softly to himself as he says: “Screw Grant and Sheridan …

“I got the coolest damn statue around.”