Washington Barrow was an American politician and a member of the United States House of Representatives for Tennessee's 8th congressional district.
He was born in Davidson County, Tennessee on October 5, 1807. He received a classical education, became a lawyer, and entered private practice. In 1837, he served a term in the Tennessee House of Representatives. From 1841 to 1844, he served as the U.S. Minister to Portugal. He also worked as a newspaper editor.
He was elected as a Whig to the Thirtieth Congress, but he was not a candidate for renomination to the Thirty-first Congress in 1848. He served from March 4, 1847 to March 3, 1849. He worked as a businessman and was a member of the Confederate faction of the Tennessee Senate in 1861 and 1862. He was captured by Union forces and charged with treason. He refused to take an oath of allegiance, but was later parolled in an exchange of prisoners. He served as a private in the Army of Tennessee in 1863. During the American Civil War, he was imprisoned at Ohio and Mackinac Island, Michigan, which gravely weakened his health. Following the war, he died at the home of a brother in St. Louis, Missouri during a visit on October 19, 1866. He was interred in the family vault of Dr. John Shelby, his father-in-law, at the Nashville City Cemetery in Nashville, Tennessee.
Barrow was the half-brother of Alexander Barrow, a U.S. Senator from Louisiana, whom was the son of Washington Barrow's father and his first wife.