George Trenholm
George Trenholm | |
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John Reagan (Acting) | |
Member of the South Carolina House of Representatives from the Charleston district | |
In office 1852–1856 | |
Member of the South Carolina House of Representatives from the Charleston district | |
In office 1860–1863 | |
Member of the South Carolina House of Representatives from the Charleston district | |
In office 1874–1876 | |
Personal details | |
Born | Charleston, South Carolina, US | February 25, 1807
Died | December 9, 1876 Charleston, South Carolina, US | (aged 69)
Political party | Democratic |
Spouse | Anna Helen Holmes |
George Alfred Trenholm (February 25, 1807 – December 9, 1876) was a South Carolina businessman, financier, politician, and slaveholding planter who owned several plantations and strongly supported the Confederate States of America. He was appointed as its Secretary of the Treasury during the final year of the American Civil War.[1][2]
His merchant firm was estimated to have made $9 million by blockade running with its 60 ships during the war. Although he was imprisoned briefly after the war and suffered economic setbacks, Trenholm prospered. In the postwar years, Trenholm was a prominent philanthropist, aiding black and white South Carolinians. He also served on railroad and bank boards. He was elected to state office again in 1874 and died in office.
Early and family life
George Alfred Trenholm was born on February 25, 1807, in
At age 21, George Alfred Trenholm married Anna Helen Holmes on April 3, 1828. Her father, John Holmes, owned a plantation on Johns Island, South Carolina outside Charleston. The couple had thirteen children; five (including their first four) died in infancy. In 1860, their daughters Emily (b. 1839), Anna (b. 1842), Eliza (b. 1848), Christiana (b. 1851), and sons Alfred (b. 1844), Frances (b. 1846), Edwin (b. 1850) were still living with their parents. Also in the household were their married eldest son William Trenholm (b. 1846), his wife, their young sons, and Anna's mother.[4]
Career
At 16, George Trenholm had begun working for a major
A member of the Democratic Party, Trenholm was elected to the South Carolina legislature in 1852 and served until 1856. After President Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860, Trenholm strongly supported the secession of the Confederacy, which South Carolina led among the top six of the major slave states.[1]
American Civil War
When the
Trenholm and his Liverpool-based partner Charles K. Prioleau (son of a Charleston lawyer) worked with fellow American James Dunwoody Bulloch as Confederate foreign agents in Britain to manage their arrangements, especially shipping munitions home. Britain depended on the South's cotton exports. Continuing cotton exports to Britain helped the Confederacy financially and shaped British public opinion toward the Confederate cause.
Trenholm served again in the South Carolina legislature from 1860 to 1863.[1] In 1863, he purchased the Annandale Plantation from Andrew Johnstone; located south of Georgetown, it was a highly successful rice operation that had worked 230 enslaved people in the 1850s.[12]
In January 1864, Trenholm's daughter Emily married William Miles Hazzard, a Confederate scout. Trenholm deeded the Annandale and Beneventum plantations to Hazzard shortly after the war's end, trying to protect them from potential confiscation by the United States government.[13][page needed]
Confederate Treasury Secretary Christopher Memminger, a fellow Charlestonian and friend, used Trenholm as an unofficial adviser for almost four years. When Memminger resigned on July 1, 1864 (due to public outcry after he issued millions of Confederate bank notes at one-third the value of the old ones), and moved back to North Carolina, Trenholm succeeded him. He was formally appointed on July 18, 1864. Trenholm was a more charismatic figure than his predecessor. Together with his constant published updates, he had better press relations and contact with the Confederate Congress.[14] Trenholm had a "never give up the ship" personality but could do little to stop the financial havoc as the rebel government grew insolvent and printing money caused inflation.[15] Trenholm advocated direct taxation, reducing the circulation of paper currency, further public subscriptions for war bonds, and purchasing blockade runners (rather than continuing to rely on private shippers), but the Confederate Congress refused to pass those measures.[1]
He signed off on payments for Confederate spies, including operations in Canada and Washington, D.C., as well as for the defense of Richmond, Virginia. He moved to the Confederate capital after severing ties with his businesses in Charleston. Trenholm arranged for a large loan to the Confederate government from a French consortium, but the proceeds arrived too late to assist their war effort.
Trenholm's lavish entertaining in Richmond (at the house that later became the
Flight from Richmond
During the war's final days, Trenholm arranged for the Confederate treasury, archives, and bullion owned by it and Richmond banks to be transported from the imperiled capital into North Carolina by a train guarded by Captain William Howard Parker and Confederate naval midshipmen. The bullion and specie were later estimated to be worth between a quarter to a half million dollars.
Other accounts trace $40,000 used by Major Raphael J. Moses (General Longstreet's commissary officer) to assist Confederate veterans struggling to return home. Some believe Trenholm ordered the bullion dumped off railroad bridges on the journey described below (noting his son William patented a hydroscope for finding lost items in the water after the war), or had money smuggled to England by Sylvester Mumford (who later returned to Georgia, where it became an endowment to educate orphans), or taken to Canada.[13]
Trenholm sent his daughters out of Richmond on Friday, April 3, 1865, with First Lady Varina Davis by train, escorted by midshipman James Morris Morgan (who would later marry one of the Trenholm daughters). The women rode to Charlotte, North Carolina and then reached a rented house in Abbeville, South Carolina, where they met their brother William Trenholm and his family. Though ill, George Trenholm (with his wife as his nurse, the only woman among 30 male officials) evacuated Richmond on Sunday night, April 5, 1865, bound for Danville, Virginia, on the same train as the rest of the Confederate government. He was said to have self-medicated with peach brandy, shared with fellow travelers, and morphine.[17]
Days later, Trenholm was transported by ambulance to another train carrying the Confederate government into North Carolina, where they learned President
Imprisonment and parole
Trenholm had six rice plantations to manage in Georgetown County, South Carolina alone, having bought many in 1863 before assuming his public role. He traveled from Abbeville to South Carolina College in Columbia, South Carolina for the wedding on June 1, 1865, of his son Frank to Mary Elizabeth Burroughs in the house of the college president. Trenholm, his wife, and daughters moved into their newly purchased estate, now named DeGreffin, near Columbia, South Carolina. U.S. Army troops had burned it in a raid. They left the Abbeville house to William and his family.[19]
Around June 12, a U.S. officer asked Trenholm to come to them in Charleston to answer questions. Escorted by his future son-in-law James M. Morgan (or by his son William, under alternate accounts) and carrying a bag of gold pieces, Trenholm drove to Orangeburg, South Carolina. He took the train to Charleston, where he was arrested at the depot and escorted to jail by United States Colored Troops on June 13. The U.S. government accused him of making off with millions in Confederate assets.[20] He was soon joined in jail by Theodore Dehon Wagner, the manager of Trenholm, Fraser & Co.
Trenholm was briefly imprisoned at
Blockade runners Theodore Jervey and A.S. Johnson were also arrested in July. Trenholm was imprisoned at
Postwar business, charity and politics
Pardoned by President
Trenholm's son Fred sailed home from England to attend his sister Helen's wedding to James Morris Morgan. Trenholm also created trusts and deeded plantations to his children and their spouses. The U.S. government ultimately confiscated some of these properties based on the failure of the Trenholm firm to pay customs duties on the many items imported by blockade runners during the war.[13]
Trenholm's cotton brokerage firm went bankrupt in 1867. It successfully reorganized as George A. Trenholm & Son and shifted to take advantage of the state's postwar
In the postwar period, Trenholm became known for his philanthropy to blacks and whites in the South Carolina Low County. He wrote in 1865 that emancipation of blacks was necessary and argued for their uplift.
The 1874 campaign season for governor was filled with violence as white Democrats worked to suppress the black Republican vote. The paramilitary Red Shirts were armed and rode openly in groups; they were particularly militant and succeeded in intimidating many black voters. Despite the black Republican majority, Democrat Wade Hampton III, a former Confederate general, was elected governor. White Democrats retained state legislature control for most of the following century.
Death and legacy
Trenholm died in Charleston on December 9, 1876, and was buried in Magnolia Cemetery. The Library of Congress holds the Confederate Treasury's records, many created by Trenholm.[22]
North Carolina erected a historical highway marker near his estate Solitude, where he and Memminger spent summers during his final years.
Gone with the Wind
Popular legend suggests that Trenholm and his exploits inspired Margaret Mitchell's character of Rhett Butler in her Civil War novel, Gone with the Wind.[24][25]
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e f Downey, "George Alfred Trenholm", South Carolina Encyclopedia
- ^ Appleton's Cyclopedia, vol. VI, p 159
- ^ Holmes, Henry Schulz (1915-10-01). The Trenholm Family. JSTOR. The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine.
- ^ 1860 U.S. Federal Census for Charleston, South Carolina ward 6
- ^ 1860 U.S. Federal Census for Ward 6, Charleston, South Carolina.
- ^ 1860 U.S. Federal Census--Slave Schedule for Ward 6, Charleston, South Carolina. The federal census is taken by geographic locale. South Carolina's state slave schedules are unavailable online; no source is given for one estimate of Trenholm's slaveholdings as "thousands", but 230 were recorded at Annandale in the 1850s, a plantation he bought in 1863.
- ^ a b [1], North Carolina Markers
- ^ James C. Clark, Last Train South: The Flight of the Confederate Government from Richmond (McFarland & Company, Inc. 1984), p. 32
- ^ "Fraser, Trenholm and Company", Exhibit, Liverpool Museum
- ^ Patrick 1944, pp. 236–237.
- ^ a b c d http://www.chab-belgium.com/pdf/english/Trenholm.pdf [bare URL PDF]
- ^ Betty Myers (August 1973). "Annandale Plantation" (PDF). National Register of Historic Places - Nomination and Inventory. Retrieved 7 July 2012.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-89587-532-7.
- ^ Patrick 1944, pp. 237–238.
- ^ Clark pp. 32-33
- ^ Nelson Lankford, Richmond Burning: The Last Days of the Confederate Capital (Viking 2002) p. 90
- ^ Lankfort, p. 91
- ^ Patrick 1944, p. 242.
- ^ Clark p. 83
- ^ Nepveux, Ethel S. (1973). George Alfred Trenholm and the Company That Went to War. Charleston.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ ISBN 0-8262-1219-0. Retrieved 2009-03-03.
- ^ [2], Library of Congress
- ^ Robb, Charles 'Chuck' (4 August 2009). "Interview with Chuck Robb by Brien Williams". George J. Mitchell Oral History Project. Retrieved 29 October 2015.
- ISBN 1886391017.
- ISBN 978-1467100557.
External links
Bibliography
- Bulloch, James D. (2001). The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe. New York: Random House International. ISBN 0-679-64022-3.
- Patrick, Rembert W. (1944). Jefferson Davis and His Cabinet. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. pp. 234–243.
- Spence, E. Lee (1995). Treasures of the Confederate Coast: The "Real Rhett Butler" & Other Revelations. Miami: Narwhal Press. ISBN 1-886391-01-7.
- Spencer, Warren F. (1983). The Confederate Navy In Europe. University, Alabama: University of Alabama Press. ISBN 0-8173-0861-X.
- Wise, Stephen R. (1988). Lifeline of the Confederacy; Blockade Running during the Civil War. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina. ISBN 978-0872495548.
Further reading
- Nepveux, Ethel Trenholm Seabrook (1973). George Alfred Trenholm and the Company That Went to War. Anderson, South Carolina: The Author. ISBN 0-9668843-1-0.
- Nepveux, Ethel Trenholm Seabrook (1999). George A. Trenholm, Financial Genius of the Confederacy. Anderson, South Carolina: The Author. ISBN 0-9668843-1-0.