Unidentified Member of the Richmond HowitzersThe Richmond Howitzer Company of the 1st Regiment of Volunteers was founded on November 9, 1859, by George Wythe Randolph, a grandson of Thomas Jefferson, a U.S. Navy veteran, and a Richmond lawyer. After electing Randolph its first captain, the company, which was recruited from elite Richmond circles, marched to Charles Town, Virginia (now West Virginia), to help provide security during Brown’s trial and subsequent execution. Curious out-of-towners had flooded into Jefferson County, taxing the authorities’ ability to keep order. In addition, a series of damaging fires had swept through the area, and the locals pointed their fingers at allies of the accused. Virginia governor Henry A. Wise called for militia support, including the Howitzers, the cadets from the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington (commanded by Thomas J. Jackson and including the sixty-six-year-old “cadet” Edmund Ruffin), and the Richmond Grays, in whose rank