Background
RANDOLPH, George Wythe was born on March 10, 1818 in Monticello (near Charlottesville, Virginia), United States. Son of Governor Thomas Mann Randolph and his wife Martha (Jefferson).
RANDOLPH, George Wythe was born on March 10, 1818 in Monticello (near Charlottesville, Virginia), United States. Son of Governor Thomas Mann Randolph and his wife Martha (Jefferson).
Private school, southern university, northern university.
From 1831 to 1836, he was a midshipman in the U.S. Navy. He attended Harvard College and, in 1837-1839, the University of Virginia. He practiced law in Richmond and developed an excellent practice.
Randolph was an Episcopalian and a Democrat and married Mary E. (Adams) Pope in 1852. A secessionist, he voted for secession at the 1861 Virginia state convention. When the Civil War began, he resigned from the convention and joined the Confederate Army.
During the war, he served as a major in command of artillery under General John B. Magruder at Big Bethel in June 1861, and on February 12,1862, he became a brigadier general. On March 17 or 22, 1862, he was named secretary of war in the Davis cabinet, a position which he held until November 15 or 17 of the same year. During his brief stint as head of the War Department, Randolph antagonized President Davis, the Congress, and various Confederate generals.
He thought strategically, and his concern for the western line of defense forced Davis to focus his attention on that part of the Confederacy. He also favored a stringent conscription law and a scheme of decentralization for the army. Randolph quit his post when his scheme for the west was rejected, although it received praise from Josiah Gorgas.
During his term as secretary of war, Randolph contracted tuberculosis, resigned, and moved to the south of France for reasons of health. After the war, he returned to Virginia.
"Peculiar institution" of slavery was not only expedient but also ordained by God and upheld in Holy Scripture.
Stands for preserving slavery, states' rights, and political liberty for whites. Every individual state is sovereign, even to the point of secession.