George Wythe Randolph

From Dixiepedia: The PC-Free Encyclopedia

George Wythe Randolph (10 March 1818 – 3 April 1867) was born at Monticello in Charlottesville, Virginia to Thomas Mann Randolph Jr. {descendant of Pocahontas} and Martha Jefferson Randolph (daughter of United States President Thomas Jefferson). Named in honor of George Wythe, he was a relative of Edmund Randolph, who served in George Washington's cabinet as the first Attorney General of the United States, as well as colonist William Randolph through both his mother and father's sides of the family.

Randolph briefly attended school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and served as a midshipman in the United States Navy. He attended the University of Virginia before moving to Richmond and becoming a lawyer. On 10 April 1852, he married Mary Elizabeth Adams (1830–1871).

At the outbreak of the War Between the States, Randolph joined the Confederate army, serving as a major in the Battle of Big Bethel, and was promoted to brigadier general on February 12, 1862. Randolph was appointed by Jefferson Davis as Secretary of War on 18 March 1862, and he took office on 24 March 1862, but resigned on 17 November 1862.

Randolph fled to Europe after the Confederacy fell, where he died two years later in 1867 from pneumonia. He is buried in the Jefferson family graveyard at Monticello.

He was pictured on the $100.00 bill of the Confederate States of America.