1. George Alfred Trenholm was a South Carolina businessman, financier, politician, and slaveholding planter who owned several plantations and strongly supported the Confederate States of America.
39 Facts About George Trenholm
1. 2.
George Trenholm was appointed as its Secretary of the Treasury during the final year of the American Civil War.
3.
George Trenholm was elected to state office again in 1874 and died in office.
4.
George Trenholm was one of the few Confederate cabinet members who returned to political office in the United States after the Civil War.
5.
George Alfred Trenholm was born on February 25,1807, in Charleston, South Carolina to Elizabeth Irene Trenholm and her merchant husband, William Trenholm.
6.
George Trenholm's maternal grandfather, Comte de Greffin, was a major plantation owner in Saint Domingue.
7.
George Trenholm's paternal grandfather, William Trenholm, was born in Yorkshire, England, but he lived and worked in Charleston most of his adult life.
8.
George Trenholm was forced to leave during the American Revolutionary War due to his Loyalist sympathies and business associations.
9.
George Trenholm lived in New York, the Netherlands, and Santo Domingo but returned to Charleston in 1785, shortly after the war's end, and lived there for another 37 years.
10.
George Trenholm introduced his son William into the family business.
11.
When his father died, George Trenholm left school and went into business.
12.
At 16, George Trenholm had begun working for a major cotton broker, John Fraser and Company in Charleston.
13.
George Trenholm rose to become a partner, and by 1853, when he was 46, he led the company.
14.
George Trenholm's family enslaved about 39 persons as domestic staff George Trenholm was director of the Bank of Charleston and a South Carolina railroad.
15.
George Trenholm was appointed to South Carolina's State Marine Battery Commission, where he oversaw the construction of the Confederate ironclad Chicora.
16.
George Trenholm personally financed the construction of a twelve-vessel flotilla for Charleston's defense.
17.
George Trenholm's wealth increased as his 60 commercial ships ran the US Navy blockade.
18.
Josiah Gorgas, the Confederate chief of ordnance, estimated that by March 1863, George Trenholm's company had made $9 million by blockade running.
19.
The US consul in Liverpool, Thomas Dudley, estimated George Trenholm's fleet imported $4.5 million of cotton into Great Britain.
20.
George Trenholm served again in the South Carolina legislature from 1860 to 1863.
21.
George 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.
22.
George 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.
23.
George Trenholm advocated direct taxation, reducing the circulation of paper currency, further public subscriptions for war bonds, and purchasing blockade runners, but the Confederate Congress refused to pass those measures.
24.
George Trenholm signed off on payments for Confederate spies, including operations in Canada and Washington, DC, as well as for the defense of Richmond, Virginia.
25.
George Trenholm moved to the Confederate capital after severing ties with his businesses in Charleston.
26.
George 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.
27.
George Trenholm was supposed to take it to Liverpool to pay Confederate accounts.
28.
Some believe George Trenholm ordered the bullion dumped off railroad bridges on the journey described below, or had money smuggled to England by Sylvester Mumford, or taken to Canada.
29.
George 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.
30.
George Trenholm was said to have self-medicated with peach brandy, shared with fellow travelers, and morphine.
31.
George Trenholm asked President Davis to accept his resignation, citing his ill health, and Davis accepted with his thanks on April 27,1865.
32.
George Trenholm 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.
33.
George Trenholm was allowed guests, including many former high Confederate officials.
34.
George Trenholm's son Fred sailed home from England to attend his sister Helen's wedding to James Morris Morgan.
35.
George Trenholm created trusts and deeded plantations to his children and their spouses.
36.
George Trenholm was elected as a director of the Blue Ridge Railroad in 1868; the railroad was planned to link Charleston and the American Midwest, but it reportedly went bankrupt due to embezzlement by an official who escaped to the North.
37.
George Trenholm wrote in 1865 that emancipation of blacks was necessary and argued for their uplift.
38.
George Trenholm led an effort to invest in public welfare and infrastructure, which resulted in a trebling of state debt as there had been little public investment before the war.
39.
George Trenholm died in Charleston on December 9,1876, and was buried in Magnolia Cemetery.