HENRY A. WISE

'Henry Alexander Wise' (December 3, 1806 – September 12, 1876) was an American statesman from Virginia. General Wise was born in Drummondtown, Accomack County, Virginia, to a family of wealthy planters. He was privately tutored until his twelfth year and then entered Margaret Academy, near Pungoteague in Accomack County, before graduating from Washington College (now Washington and Lee University), in 1825.
He was admitted to the bar in 1828, and settled in Nashville, Tenn., in the same year, but returned to Accomack County in 1830. He served in the United States Congress from 1833 to 1844.
He was elected to Congress in 1832 as a Jacksonian Democrat. On the question of the rechartering of the United States Bank he broke with the Jackson administration, and became a Whig, but was sustained by his constituents. After his first election in 1832 he fought a duel with his competitor for the seat in Congress.[1]
He was reelected to Congress as a Whig in 1837, serving till 1841, and was reelected as a Tyler Democrat in 1843. Wise was active in securing the election of John Tyler as Vice President in 1840. He was United States minister to Brazil
from 1844 to 1847. After his return he identified himself with the Democratic party, and in 1855, after a remarkable campaign, he was elected governor of Virginia over the Know Nothing candidate.
He served as the Governor of Virginia from 1856 to 1859. Wise County, Virginia was named after him shortly after he became Governor. One of his last official acts as Governor was to sign the death warrant of John Brown. He was a member of the Virginia secession convention of 1861, and opposed immediate secession. Upon the withdrawal of the State from the Union, however, he joined the Confederate army.
Wise served as a brigadier general in the Confederate Army and afterward was promoted to the rank of major general. He commanded the District of Roanoke Island during the battle of Roanoke Island. His part in the decision to cede the island when faced with much greater Union forces drew the ire of some of the Confederate government leadership.
He commanded a brigade in the Army of Northern Virginia during the siege of Petersburg, and was with Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House, where he fought bravely but urged Lee to surrender. He was the brother-in-law of Union General George G. Meade.
After the war he resumed his law practice, and wrote an historical work entitled ''Seven Decades of the Union'' (1872). His ''Life'' was written by his grandson, B. H. Wise (New York, 1899).[2]
Wise also supported the annexation of Texas into the United States; Wise County, Texas, is named in his honor.

Contents

Further reading

External links

Further reading

★ A Good Southerner: The Life of Henry A. Wise of Virginia, , Craig M., Simpson, Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1985,

External links

★ ''THE END OF AN ERA'' – by John S. Wise, at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

★ Governor Wise