Excerpt from John Randolph of Roanoke, 1773-1833: A Biography Based Largely on New Material

St. George Tucker, his step-father, Fanny Bland Coalter, his sister, Elizabeth T. Coalter, his niece, Joseph H. Nicholson, James M. Garnett, Francis W. Gilmer, Nathan Loughborough and Littleton Waller Tazewell, all intimate friends of his, John Randolph Clay, his protégé, Andrew Jackson, James Monroe and many other persons, to say nothing of the great number of letters written to or about Randolph which were also either unknown or inaccessible to Garland. Indeed, apart from a few early letters, no letters of any importance written by Randolph appear to have been available to Garland for the purposes of his task except the very valuable ones which Randolph wrote to Key and Dr. Brockenbrough.

The biography (so-called) of Randolph by Lemuel Sawyer is but a mere memoir, though by no means negli giblo, because Sawyer served for many years in the House of Representatives with Randolph, and, while sharing the prejudice against him, felt by all the fervid Jeffersonians, after the breach between him and Jefferson, was an ardent but not an indiscriminate admirer of Randolph's genius, and was an admirer, in many respects, of his character too. But, even if Sawyer's book were a much more extensive one, he had a failing which is enough to destroy, or all but destroy, the value of any book, brief or otherwise, that is, gross inaccuracy. He was, we are told by John Quincy Adams, a writer of poems and plays, as well as a Congress man, and no playwright or poet ever deliberately took more license with historical facts than Sawyer did in the loose statements of his memoir.

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