American politician
George Wythe Randolph
(March 10, 1818 – April 3, 1867) was a Virginia
lawyer
,
planter
, politician and
Confederate
general. After representing the City of Richmond during the
Virginia Secession Convention
in 1861, during eight months in 1862 he was the
Confederate States Secretary of War
during the
American Civil War
, then served in the Virginia Senate representing the City of Richmond until the war's end.
[1]
Early and family life
[
edit
]
Born in 1818 at
Monticello
near
Charlottesville, Virginia
, to
Martha Jefferson Randolph
, the daughter of
U.S. President
Thomas Jefferson
, and her husband (and future Virginia governor)
Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr.
, the couple's youngest son could trace his descent to
Pocahontas
and had many relations among the
First Families of Virginia
. His name honored
George Wythe
, a signer of the
Declaration of Independence
, law professor of his grandfather
Thomas Jefferson
, and Virginia judge who opposed slavery (which position likely caused his murder). Randolph's relations also included
Edmund Randolph
(Virginia's second governor after statehood as well as the first
Attorney General of the United States
),
colonist
William Randolph
,
Isham Randolph of Dungeness
,
Richard Randolph
and
Thomas Randolph of Tuckahoe
.
Following a private education appropriate for his class, Randolph briefly attended preparatory schools in
Cambridge, Massachusetts
(under the direction of his brother in law
Joseph Coolidge
)
[2]
and Washington, D.C., where his mother sent him to give him distance from Virginia politics and family troubles. His father had incurred much debt, and creditors foreclosed after his term as Virginia's 21st governor ended. However, his elder brother
Thomas Jefferson Randolph
managed to buy the family's Edgehill plantation at a foreclosure auction in 1826. Meanwhile, G.W. Randolph became a
midshipman
in the
United States Navy
from 1831 to 1839, sailing on the
USS John Adams
and
USS Constitution
in the Mediterranean Sea as well as training at the Naval School in
Norfolk, Virginia
. Randolph also began attending the
University of Virginia
in Charlottesville near his home during his naval service in 1837, perhaps while recovering from tuberculosis contracted during his naval voyages (which went into a very long remission but which ultimately proved fatal).
[1]
Randolph read the law with an established lawyer, probably in part guided by
George Tucker
, who was a professor of moral philosophy at the University of Virginia (at which his eldest brother Thomas Jefferson Randolph was rector) and also wrote the first widely read biography of Thomas Jefferson (in 1837) and various treatises about economics and slavery before retiring from the faculty and moving to Philadelphia in 1845.
Marriage and family
[
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]
On April 10, 1852, George W. Randolph married the young widow Mary Elizabeth (Adams) Pope (1830–1871). Like Randolph, she descended from the First Families of Virginia. However, they had no children.
[3]
His wife Mary Randolph later became active in the Richmond Ladies Association, which organized welfare and relief for the Confederate war effort.
[1]
Slaveholdings
[
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]
Several of the Randolphs, like Jefferson's teacher George Wythe, opposed slavery and freed slaves either during their lifetimes or in their wills. Following Nat Turner's Rebellion, his brother
Thomas Jefferson Randolph
introduced a
gradual emancipation
plan as a bill in the
Virginia House of Delegates
but it was soundly defeated. In the 1860 federal census, George Wythe Randolph owned one slave, a 78-year-old woman.
[4]
However, like other
plantations
in Virginia, Edgehill plantation used enslaved labor.
Career
[
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]
After admission to the bar in 1840, Randolph practiced law in
Charlottesville, Virginia
, and he and Mary lived at the family's
Edgehill
plantation. They moved to the capital of Richmond between 1849 and 1851. Randolph became active in the community as well as continued a law practice. He founded the Richmond Mechanics' Institute and was an officer in the
Virginia Historical Society
.
[1]
Following John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry, rumors arose that abolitionist raiders would raid the jail at
Charles Town
to free him. Randolph responded by organizing the
Richmond Howitzers
, which were among the troops that Virginia Governor
Henry A. Wise
sent to secure the town until Brown's execution. On their return, they received the naval howitzers that gave their unit their name, and first paraded in Richmond on July 4, 1860. Late in 1860, they received the designation, Company H of the First Regiment of Volunteers in the Virginia militia.
[5]
As the
Confederacy
formed after southern states began seceding from the Union following the election of
Abraham Lincoln
as president, the United States divided into two hostile camps and the sections moved toward open conflict. Richmond voters elected Randolph and fellow attorneys
William H. McFarland
and
Marmaduke Johnson (Lawyer and Soldier)
as their representatives to the
Virginia Secession Convention of 1861
.
[6]
Despite Randolph's speech in favor of secession, the first secession vote failed (Randolph among the ayes, McFarland and Johnson among the nays). Randolph's brother Thomas Jefferson Randolph was one of the Albemarle County delegates.
[7]
A special delegation, composed of G.W. Randolph,
William B. Preston
and
Alexander H.H. Stuart
, traveled to
Washington, D.C.
where they met newly inaugurated
President
Abraham Lincoln
on April 12, 1861, the same day that South Carolina artillery militia fired at
Fort Sumter
. Finding the President firm in his resolve to hold the Federal forts in the South, the three men returned to Richmond on April 15.
[1]
On April 18, the day after President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to suppress the Confederate show of force, the Convention approved a secession resolution, which was sent for voter approval at a referendum the following month.
On April 21 Governor Wise called the Richmond Howitzers into state service and sent them down the
James River
to stop the
USS Pawnee
, allegedly en route to shell Richmond. They were then sent to barracks established at
Richmond Baptist College
under Col.
John B. Magruder
, who had fought as an artillery officer in the Mexican War and who requested ten cadets from the
Virginia Military Institute
as drill instructors. When enlistments proved heavy, the unit expanded into a battalion at the suggestion of Col.
Edward Porter Alexander
(who would later become CSA General Longstreet's artillery commander). On May 1, 1861, Randolph accepted a commission as
major
and command of the Richmond Howitzers, with three companies designated (a fourth company was started in July but disbanded in August when recruitment lagged). He sent Lt. John Thomson Brown with several militiamen to
Gloucester Point
, where on May 7 they fired on the
USS Yankee
, thus the first hostile shot fired in that conflict in Virginia. On May 13, the battalion left the college and encamped on the Mechanicsville Turnpike for a while until moving to
Chimborazo Hill
, where they posted their guns overlooking the James River at
Rockett's Landing
, where many slaves disembarked. Later in the month, First Company was sent to Manassas Junction (and returned for the battle below, but were then sent to Fairfax Court House where they were involved in a friendly fire incident on July 4, and were not actually called into action at the
First Battle of Manassas
, only experienced hostile fire); Second Company to Yorktown (where they joined General Magruder's forces on May 27 and did not return, being reassigned) and Third Company to the lower Peninsula, where Randolph became General Magruder's artillery commander and designed fortifications to secure Yorktown and the
Hampton Roads
area. On June 10 Randolph's Howitzers fought the
Battle of Big Bethel
near Yorktown, their only engagement as a battalion during the war, and in which three men were wounded.
[8]
His defenses anticipated Union General George McClellan's campaign of the following spring.
[1]
On September 13, 1861, General Magruder organized ten artillery companies (including the Richmond Howitzers) into a regiment, with Major Randolph promoted to
colonel
. It was initially called the 2nd Regiment Virginia Artillery but by January 1862 became the 1st Regiment Virginia Artillery. He was promoted to
brigadier general
on February 12, 1862, but saw no combat as such, initially assigned to plan the defense of
Suffolk
.
[9]
He was officially mustered out on December 18, 1864.
[10]
Confederate President
Jefferson Davis
appointed Randolph as
Secretary of War
on March 18, 1862, and he took office on March 24, 1862. Randolph helped reform the department, improving procurement and writing a conscription law similar to one he had created for Virginia. He strengthened the Confederacy's western and southern defenses, but came into conflict with Jefferson Davis. He also was involved in a controversy over the use of hidden shells, which Union troops found upon capturing Yorktown; Randolph argued the explosive devices contravened the laws of civilized warfare but were acceptable if left on a parapet of a fort to prevent its capture or allow defenders to retreat more safely.
[11]
With weakening health due to
tuberculosis
(TB), he resigned on November 17, 1862.
However, Randolph did accept election as Richmond's state senator, and served in the
Virginia Senate
during the remainder of the conflict.
[12]
Post-Civil War
[
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]
In 1864, Randolph ran the U.S. naval blockade and took his family to Europe, receiving medical treatment in England and southern France. He took the oath of allegiance to the United States in April 1866 in
Pau, France
.
[13]
The Randolphs then returned to Virginia. Randolph died of
tuberculosis
on April 3, 1867, at
Edgehill
.
[1]
He is buried at
Monticello
in the Jefferson family graveyard.
[1]
Legacy and honors
[
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]
- Randolph was portrayed on the
$100 bill
printed by the Confederate States of America.
See also
[
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]
List of American Civil War generals (Confederate)
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
Goldberg, David E. "George Wythe Randolph (1818?1867)."
,
Encyclopedia Virginia
, Ed. Brendan Wolfe. 6 Apr. 2011. Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, accessed 19 October 2020
- ^
Biographies of Notable Americans (1904) available on ancestry.com
- ^
Genealogy of the Page Family in Virginia
by Richard Channing Moore Page
- ^
1860 U.S. Federal Census for Ward 1, Richmond, Henrico County, Virginia p. 50 of 53
- ^
Lee A. Wallace, Jr. The Richmond Howitzers (Lynchburg, H.E. Howard Inc. 1993 p. 1
- ^
Cynthia Miller Leonard, The Virginia General Assembly 1619-1978 (Virginia State Library 1978 p. 476
- ^
Leonard p. 474
- ^
Wallace pp. 1-2
- ^
Wallace pp. 3, 122
- ^
Civil War soldier records on ancestry.com
- ^
Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography (1915) available on ancestry.com
- ^
Leonard p. 487
- ^
ancestry.com
Further reading
[
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]
- Eicher, John H., and
David J. Eicher
,
Civil War High Commands.
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001.
ISBN
978-0-8047-3641-1
.
- Daniels, Jonathan.
The Randolphs of Virginia: America's Foremost Family
, Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1972.
- Janney, Caroline E.
Burying the Dead but Not the Past: Ladies' Memorial Associations and the Lost Cause
, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008.
- Moore, Richard Channing.
Genealogy of the Page Family in Virginia.
- Sifakis, Stewart.
Who Was Who in the Civil War.
New York: Facts On File, 1988.
ISBN
978-0-8160-1055-4
.
- Shackelford, George.
George Wythe Randolph and the Confederate Elite
, Athens, Georgia and London: University of Georgia Press, 1988.
- Warner, Ezra J.
Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders.
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959.
ISBN
978-0-8071-0823-9
.
External links
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