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'T' is for Trenholm, George Alfred (1807-1876)

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"T" is for Trenholm, George Alfred (1807-1876). Merchant. Financier. A native Charlestonian, as a teenager Trenholm went to work for John Frazier and Company, a well-respected firm that specialized in selling sea island cotton. By the early 1850s, he was the senior partner in the company, which had become the leading commercial house in the city and one of the most prominent in the south, with branches in New York and Liverpool. When the Civil War began, Trenholm placed the ample financial resources of the firm at the disposal of the Confederate government. His shipping interest played a vital role in running the Union blockade of the southern coast. The firm's Liverpool branch became the overseas depository for the Confederate Treasury. In 1864, George Alfred Trenholm was appointed the Confederacy's Secretary of the Treasury.

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Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.