Patriots, Priests and Rebels

David Griffith, chaplain and surgeon in the Continental Army, counted Washington and Lafayette as friends. While rector of Christ Church in Alexandria, he played a significant role organizing the Virginia and national Episcopal Church. His daughter Sally held the family together, raising two generations of orphaned children. She also owned and rented out enslaved "servants." Her brother Llewellyn, a judge in Louisiana, requested that property he was purchasing be paid for in "young likely negroes." Sally's great niece Sallie married Alfred Randolph, Episcopal chaplain to Confederate troops and later first Bishop of the Diocese of Southern Virginia. Four of their brothers fought for the South. Two became priests. Were these people patriotic Americans, traitors, devout Christians, evil enslavers, or a mixture? Their own words tell their story.