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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.

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) 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). His wife Mary Randolph later became active in the Richmond Ladies Association, which organized welfare and relief for the Confederate war effort. However, like other plantations in Virginia, Edgehill plantation used enslaved labor.

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. 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. 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. 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. His defenses anticipated Union General George McClellan's campaign of the following spring. He was officially mustered out on December 18, 1864. 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. 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.

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. The Randolphs then returned to Virginia. Randolph died of tuberculosis on April 3, 1867, at Edgehill. He is buried at Monticello in the Jefferson family graveyard.

Randolph was portrayed on the $100 bill printed by the Confederate States of America.