Henry A. Wise

Henry Alexander Wise (December 3, 1806 – September 12, 1876) was an American lawyer and politician from Virginia. He was a U.S. Representative and Governor of Virginia, and US Minister to Brazil. During the American Civil War, he was a general in the Confederate States Army. He was the father of U.S. Representatives Richard Alsop Wise and John Sergeant Wise.

Wise was born in Drummondtown, Accomack County, Virginia, to Major John Wise and his second wife Sarah Corbin Cropper, whose families had long been settled there. Wise was of English and Scottish descent. He was privately tutored until his twelfth year, when he entered Margaret Academy, near Pungoteague in Accomack County. He graduated from Washington College (now Washington & Jefferson College) in 1825. He was a member of the Union Literary Society at Washington College.

After attending Henry St. George Tucker's Winchester Law School, Wise was admitted to the bar in 1828. He settled in Nashville, Tennessee, in the same year to start a practice but returned to Accomack County in 1830.

Wise was married three times. He was first married in 1828 to Anne Jennings, the daughter of Rev. Obadiah Jennings and Ann Wilson of Washington, Pennsylvania. In 1837, Anne and one of their children died in a fire, leaving Henry with four children: two sons and two daughters.

Wise married a second time in November 1840, to Sarah Sergeant, the daughter of U.S. Representative John Sergeant (Whig-Pennsylvania) and Margaretta Watmough of Philadelphia. Sarah gave birth to at least five children. She died of complications, along with her last child, soon after its birth on October 14, 1850. Sarah's sister Margaretta was married to future Union Maj. Gen. George G. Meade.

In nineteen years of marriage to his first two wives, Wise fathered fourteen children; seven survived to adulthood.

Henry married a third time, to Mary Elizabeth Lyons in 1853. After serving as governor, Wise settled with Mary and his younger children in 1860 at Rolleston, an 884-acre (3.58 km2) plantation which he bought from his brother John Cropper Wise, who also continued to live there. It was located on the Eastern Branch Elizabeth River near Norfolk, Virginia. It had first been developed by William and Susannah Moseley, English immigrants who settled there in 1649.

After Wise entered Confederate service, he and his family abandoned Rolleston in 1862 as Union troops were taking over Norfolk. Wise arranged for residence for his family in Rocky Mount, Franklin County, Virginia. After the Civil War, Henry and Mary Wise lived in Richmond, where he resumed his law career.

Henry A. Wise served as a U.S. Representative from 1833 to 1844. He was elected Representative in 1832 as a Jackson Democrat. After this election, Wise fought a duel with his defeated opponent. Wise was re-elected in 1835, but then broke with the Jackson administration over the rechartering of the Bank of the United States. He became a Whig, but was sustained by his constituents. Wise was re-elected as a Whig in 1837, 1839, and 1841.

In 1840 Wise was active in securing the nomination and election of John Tyler as Vice President on the Whig ticket. Tyler succeeded to the presidency and then broke with the Whigs. Wise supported Tyler, and was re-elected as a Tyler Democrat in 1843.

In 1844, Tyler appointed Wise as U.S. Minister to Brazil. Wise resigned as Representative to take up this office. He served from 1844 to 1847. Two of his children were born in Rio de Janeiro. In Brazil, Wise worked on issues related to trade and tariffs, Brazilian concerns about the US annexation of Texas, and establishing diplomatic relations with Paraguay. (Wise supported the annexation of Texas by the United States and Wise County, Texas, was named in his honor.)

Wise returned to the United States in 1847, and resumed the practice of law. He identified with the Democratic Party, and was active in politics. A delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850, Wise opposed any reforms, insisting on the protection of slavery came first. In the statewide election of 1855, Wise was elected Governor of Virginia, defeating Know-Nothing candidate Thomas S. Flournoy. He was the 33rd Governor of Virginia, serving from 1856 to 1860. Wise County, Virginia, was named after him when it was established in 1856. One of his last official acts as Governor was to sign the death warrant of John Brown.

During the secession crisis of 1860-61, Wise was a vehement advocate of immediate secession by Virginia. He was a member of the Virginia secession convention of 1861. Frustrated with the convention's inaction through mid-April, Wise helped plan actions by Virginia state militia to seize the Federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry and the Gosport Navy Yard in Norfolk. These actions were not authorized by incumbent Governor Letcher or the militia's commanders.

These plans were pre-empted by the bombardment of Fort Sumter on April 12–14 and Lincoln's call for troops to suppress rebellion on April 15. After a further day and half of debate, the convention voted for secession. During the latter stage of the debate on April 17, Wise revealed the plans which would have forced the issue.

Electoral history

• 1843: Wise was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives with 57.24% of the vote, defeating Whig Hill
• 1850: Wise was elected delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1850
• 1855: Wise was elected governor of Virginia with 53.25% of the vote, defeating Thomas Stanhope Flournoy.
• 1861: Wise was elected delegate to the Secession Convention of 1861

• "Henry A. Wise", New International Encyclopedia,
• ^
• Shade, William G., Democratizing the Old Dominion: Virginia and the Second Party System, 1824-1861. 1996 ISBN 978-0-8139-1654-5, p. 276-277
• Simpson, p. 57.

Gen. Wise during the American Civil War.

After Virginia declared secession, Wise joined the Confederate States Army (CSA). Because of his political prominence and secessionist reputation, he was commissioned as a brigadier general, despite having no formal military training. He was assigned to the western Virginia region, where it was thought his political support would be helpful. Brigadier General John B. Floyd, another former Governor of Virginia, was also sent there. In summer 1861, Wise and Floyd were feuding over who was the superior officer. At the height of the feud General Floyd blamed Wise for the Confederate defeat at the Battle of Carnifex Ferry, stating that Wise refused to come to his aid. The feud was not resolved until Virginia Delegate Mason Mathews, whose son Alexander F. Mathews was Wise's aide-de-camp, spent several days in the camps of both Wise and Floyd. Afterward he wrote to President Jefferson Davis urging that both men be removed. Davis subsequently removed Wise from his command in western Virginia.

In early 1862, Wise was assigned to command the District of Roanoke Island, which was threatened by Union sea-borne forces. He fell ill with pleurisy and was not present for the Battle of Roanoke Island, when the island was stormed by the Union. He was blamed for the loss, but for his part complained bitterly about inadequate forces to defend the island.

He commanded a brigade in the division of Maj. Gen. Theophilus H. Holmes during the Seven Days Battles. For the rest of 1862 and 1863, he held various commands in North Carolina and Virginia.

In 1864 Wise commanded a brigade in the Department of North Carolina & Southern Virginia. His brigade defended Petersburg and was credited with saving the city at the First Battle of Petersburg and to an extent at the Second Battle of Petersburg. Wise commanded a brigade in the Army of Northern Virginia during the final stages of the Siege of Petersburg. He was promoted to the rank of major general after the Battle of Sayler's Creek. He was with Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House, where he fought bravely but urged Lee to surrender.

Wise (top row, second from right) with Robert E. Lee and Confederate officers, 1869.

After the war, Wise resumed his law practice in Richmond, and settled there for the rest of his life. In 1865 he was unable to reclaim Rolleston, his plantation outside Norfolk. He was told that he had abandoned that residence when he moved his family to another plantation at Rocky Mount, Virginia. The U.S. commander in Norfolk, Maj. Gen. Terry appropriated it and other plantations for the Freedmen's Bureau, to establish schools for the newly emancipated slaves and their children. Two hundred freedmen were said to be taking classes at Rolleston.

Nonetheless, Wise became a Republican and strong supporter of President Ulysses S. Grant. He did not emphasize his Confederate service as did many other politicians, nor did he ever seek a pardon.

Along with working at his law career, Wise wrote a book based on his public service, entitled Seven Decades of the Union (1872).

Wise died in 1876 and was buried at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond.

His son Capt. Obediah Jennings Wise died in 1862 under his father's command at Roanoke Island. Another son, Richard, after service in the Confederate army, studied medicine and taught chemistry, and became a Virginia legislator and US Representative, as did his younger brother, John, who served in the Confederate army as a VMI cadet, also later became a US Representative. Both Richard Wise and John Wise were Republicans like their father. Another son, Henry A. Wise, Jr. (1834-1869) entered the ministry and served as an assistant to family friend Rev. Joshua Peterkin at St. James Episcopal Church before resigning in 1859, a decade before his death.

Henry A. Wise's grandson Barton Haxall Wise wrote a biography of the former governor entitled The Life of Henry A. Wise of Virginia (New York, 1899). Another grandson, the lawyer and soldier Jennings Cropper Wise (1881-1968, son of John Sergeant Wise), wrote The Early History of the Eastern Shore of Virginia and dedicated it to his grandfather, with Governor Wise's quote: "I have met the Black Knight with his visor down, and his shield and lance are broken."

Counties were named in his honor in Virginia (Wise County, Virginia) and Texas (Wise County, Texas).