George W . Randolph George Wythe Randolph ( March 10 , 1818 – April 3 , 1867 ) was a lawyer , planter , and Confederate general . He served for eight months in 1862 as the Confederate States Secretary of War during the American Civil War , when he reformed procurement , wrote the conscription law , and strengthened western defenses . He was President Thomas Jefferson ' s youngest grandson by his daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph . Biography . Randolph was born in 1818 at Monticello near Charlottesville , Virginia , to Martha Jefferson Randolph , the daughter of U . S . President Thomas Jefferson , and Thomas Mann Randolph , Jr . , a descendant of Pocahontas and John Rolfe ' son , Thomas Rolfe . Their youngest son , he was named in honor of George Wythe , a signer of the Declaration of Independence and law professor of his grandfather Thomas Jefferson . He was also related to 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 ' s and father ' s sides of the family . Randolph briefly attended preparatory schools in Cambridge , Massachusetts and Washington , DC , where his mother sent him for distance from family troubles . His father had incurred much debt . He served as a midshipman in the United States Navy from 1831 to 1839 and began attending the University of Virginia while in the service . Marriage and family . On April 10 , 1852 , he married the young widow Mary Elizabeth Adams Pope ( 1830 – 1871 ) . They had no children . Career . After studying at the University of Virginia , Randolph " read the law " with an established firm and was admitted to the bar in 1840 . He practiced law in Charlottesville , Virginia , and he and Mary lived at his plantation of Edgehill . They moved to the capital of Richmond in 1849 . He became active in the community as well as having his law practice . He founded the Richmond Mechanics ' Institute and was an officer in the Virginia Historical Society . As the Confederacy formed after southern states ' secession , the United States divided into two hostile camps and the sections moved toward open conflict . A special delegation , composed of Randolph , William B . Preston and Alexander H . H . Stuart , traveled to Washington , D . C . where they met President Abraham Lincoln on April 12 , 1861 . Finding the President firm in his resolve to hold the Federal forts in the South , the three men returned to Richmond on April 15 . Randolph was commissioned a major in the Confederate Army , and later served as a colonel of the artillery in the Battle of Big Bethel . He was promoted to brigadier general on February 12 , 1862 . Mary Randolph was active in the Richmond Ladies Association , which organized welfare and relief for the war effort . Randolph was appointed by Jefferson Davis as Secretary of War on March 18 , 1862 , and he took office on March 24 , 1862 . He helped reform the department , improving procurement and writing a conscription law similar to one he had created for Virginia . He was most well known for his strengthening the Confederacy ' s western and southern defenses , but came into conflict with Jefferson Davis over this . With weakening health due to tuberculosis ( TB ) , he resigned on November 17 , 1862 . Post - Civil War . In 1864 , Randolph took his family to exile in Europe , staying in England and France . They returned to Virginia in 1866 . He died of tuberculosis in March 1867 at his Edgehill plantation . He is buried at Monticello in the Jefferson family graveyard .