Henry A. Wise

Henry Alexander Wise (December 3, 1806 – September 12, 1876) was an American attorney, diplomat, politician and slave owner^[1] from Virginia. As the 33rd Governor of Virginia, Wise served as a significant figure on the path to the American Civil War, becoming heavily involved in the 1859 trial of abolitionist John Brown. After leaving office in 1860, Wise also led the move toward Virginia's secession from the Union in reaction to the election of Abraham Lincoln and the Battle of Fort Sumter.

In addition to serving as governor, Wise represented Virginia in the

Wise was considered a dependable family man.[6] He 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.^[7] 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

In the nineteen years of marriage to his first two wives, Wise fathered fourteen children; seven survived to adulthood.[9]

Henry married a third time to Mary Elizabeth Lyons in 1853.^[10] 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.^[11] It was located on the Eastern Branch Elizabeth River near Norfolk, Virginia. The property was first owned and developed by William and Susannah Moseley, English immigrants who settled there in 1649. Their descendants owned the property into the 19th century.^[12]

After Wise entered Confederate service, he and his family abandoned Rolleston in 1862 as U.S. Army soldiers took over Norfolk. Wise arranged for his family to reside in Rocky Mount, Franklin County, Virginia. After the Civil War, Henry and Mary Wise lived in Richmond, where he resumed his legal career.

Political career

U.S. Representative

Henry A. Wise served as a U.S. Representative from 1833 to 1844. He was elected Representative in 1832 as a Jackson Democrat. To settle this election, Wise successfully fought a duel with his opponent.^[13] Wise was re-elected in 1834, 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 1836, 1838, and 1840.

While in Congress, Wise was the "faithful" opponent of John Quincy Adams in the latter's attempt to end the gag rule and force Congress to respond to the many petitions asking it to end slavery in the District of Columbia. Adams described Wise in his diary as "loud, vociferous, declamatory, furibund, he raved about the hell-hound of abolition".^[14]

On February 24, 1838, Wise served as the second to

In 1840 Wise was active in securing the nomination and election of

Wise returned to Virginia after leaving his minister post in Brazil. While in Brazil, Wise condemned the slave trade between the U.S. and Brazil. He thought it was the work of "hypocritical Yankees" and against American law. With such harsh criticism, he had given up his usefulness as a U.S. minister and was withdrawn. The Brazilian government practically kicked him out of office.[20]

After Wise returned to Virginia, he planned to sell the people he enslaved. In 1849, Wise enslaved 19 people, one shy of planter status, and considered them his "children" and "responsibility". He knew that farming was not profitable in soil-depleted Virginia. Nevertheless, rather than emancipation, Wise intended to profit from selling the people he enslaved to California after gold had been discovered there in 1849. An enslaved person in Virginia was worth $1,000, but in California, an enslaved person would be worth $3,000 to $5,000 digging gold.^[20] Wise's plan, however, was thwarted when California joined the United States as a free state in the Compromise of 1850.^[21]

Wise's plantation comprised 400 acres, and only about half were productive. Wise grew corn, oats, and

Wise was intensely interested in the case of

However, Governor Wise did many things to augment rather than reduce tensions: by insisting he was tried in Virginia and turning Charles Town into an armed camp full of state militia units. "At every juncture he chose to escalate rather than pacify sectional animosity."[31]

Some sources say that Wise signed John Brown's

One option Wise considered was to find Brown insane, which would have avoided the death penalty and sent him to an insane asylum. He had been given 19 affidavits from relatives and friends about the alleged madness of Brown and several of his relatives. This would have de-escalated the crisis, not turning Brown into abolition's martyr and hero, as he immediately became. However, after his interview with Brown in the engine house, Wise had said publicly that Brown was not insane at all. Before the trial, Brown had insisted that he did not want an insanity defense.

The prevailing political sentiment in Virginia was against de-escalation and strongly in favor of executing Brown. Wise was emerging as a national figure and had presidential ambitions. To take any action that would have prevented Brown's execution would have damaged Wise politically more than it could have helped him. On the contrary, the popularity Wise gained in the South for executing Brown, and the other captured members of his party led to Southern support for him as a presidential candidate in 1860.^[18][38] Advertisements promoting Wise as a presidential candidate started to appear immediately after Brown's execution.^[39]

John Brown's body had to pass through Philadelphia on the way to his burial site at the John Brown Farm, near Lake Placid, New York. As this provoked indignation among the many Southern medical students studying there, Wise sent them a telegram, assuring them of a hearty welcome if they came to Richmond or other Southern cities to complete their education. So many accepted that there was a special train to take two hundred of them from Philadelphia to Richmond, where they were addressed by Wise and enjoyed an elegant banquet.^[40]

Secession crisis

In 1857, during the incoming Presidency of James Buchanan, Wise served as one of Buchanan's chief Southern advisors. Other Southern advisors to Buchanan included Senator John Slidell of Louisiana and Robert Tyler of Virginia. Tyler was the son of President John Tyler. Buchanan, although a Pennsylvania Democrat, held Southern sympathies, was a strict constructionist and detested abolitionists and "Black Republicans". ^[41]

During the secession crisis of 1860–61, Wise was a fervent advocate of immediate secession by Virginia. He was a member of the

These plans were pre-empted by the bombardment of Fort Sumter on April 12–14 and Lincoln's call on April 15 for troops to suppress the rebellion. After a further day and a half of the debate, the convention voted for secession 85 representatives in favor and 55 against.^[42] On April 17, during the latter stage of the debate, Wise irrupted into the debate a gun in hand, declared Virginia was now at war with the United States, and that he would kill anyone who would try to shoot him for treason.^[42]

Electoral history

• 1843: Wise was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives with 57.24% of the vote, defeating Whig Hill^[43]
• 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

Civil War

After Virginia declared secession, Wise joined the

In early 1862, Wise was assigned to command the District of Roanoke Island, threatened by U.S. Navy forces. He fell ill with pleurisy and was not present for the Battle of Roanoke Island when U.S. Army soldiers stormed the island. He was blamed for the loss, but for his part, complained bitterly about inadequate forces to defend the island.^{[citation needed]}

He commanded a brigade in the division of Maj. Gen.

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. From June 17 until November 1864, Wise commanded the Military District of the City of Petersburg. He resumed command of his brigade in November and led it during the final stages of the Siege of Petersburg.

He was with Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House, where he fought bravely but urged Lee to surrender. With other Confederate officials, he was taken prisoner after the surrender.

Postwar political statements

Stating he was "a prisoner on parole", Wise summarized his view of slavery thus:

[T]he chief consolation I have in the result of the war is that slavery is forever abolished, that not only the slaves are in fact, at least freed from bondage, but that I am freed from them. Long before the war indeed, I had definitely made up my mind actively to advocate emancipation throughout the South. I had determined, if I could help it, my descendants should never be subject to the humiliation I have been subject to, by the weakness, if not the wickedness, of slavery; and while I can not recognize as lawful and humane the violent and shocking mode in which it has been abolished, yet I accept the fact most heartily as an accomplished one, and am determined not only to abide by it and acquiesce in it, but to strive by all the means in my power to make it benificent to both races and a blessing especially to our country. I unfeignedly rejoice in the fact, and am reconciled to many of the worst calamities of the war, because I am now convinced that the war was a special providence of God, unavoidable by the nation at either extreme, to tear loose from us a black idol from which we could never have been separated by any other means than those of fire and blood, sword and sacrifice.^[48]

The Confederate Constitution (CC), adopted on March 11, 1861, banned the international slave trade. However, the CC prohibited passing laws that would make illegal "the right of property in negro slaves." According to historian Stephanie McCurry of Columbia University, the CC was a product of White men who held all the political power for themselves. Under the CC, Black people and women were not entitled to political power.^[49]

Postbellum activities

After the war, Wise resumed his law practice in Richmond and settled there for the rest of his life. In 1865 he tried to reclaim Rolleston, his plantation outside

Wise became a Republican and strong supporter of President Ulysses S. Grant. Unlike many other politicians, he did not emphasize his Confederate service or ever seek a pardon.^[56]

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

Death and legacy

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

His son Capt. Obediah Jennings Wise

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).[60] 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. He quoted Governor Wise: "I have met the Black Knight with his visor down, and his shield and lance are broken."^[61]

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

Archival material

The Wise family papers, 1836-1928 (350 items, available on microfilm), and the Henry A. Wise papers, 1850-1869 (90 items), are held by the Library of Congress. The numerous documents from his service as Governor are in the Library of Virginia.

Writing

• Wise, Henry A. (1881). Seven decades of the Union. The humanities and materialism, illustrated by a memoir of John Tyler, with reminiscences of some of his great contemporaries. The transition state of this nation – its dangers and their remedy. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co.

See also

• List of American Civil War generals (Confederate)
• Senator James Mason

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Henry Alexander Wise.

References

Studies of Wise

• Bladek, John David. "'Virginia Is Middle Ground': The Know Nothing Party and the Virginia Gubernatorial Election of 1855." Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (1998) 106#1: 35–70 online
• Eaton, Clement. “Henry A. Wise, A Liberal of the Old South.” Journal of Southern History, 7#4 (1941), pp. 482–494. online
• Eaton, Clement. “Henry A. Wise and the Virginia Fire Eaters of 1856.” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 21#4 (1935), pp. 495–512. online.
• Eicher, John H., and
  ISBN 978-0-8047-3641-1
  .
• Rice, Otis K. (1986) A History of Greenbrier County. Greenbrier Historical Society, p. 264
• Richards, Leonard L. (2007). The California Gold Rush and the Coming of the Civil War. New York: Vintage Books Random House Inc.
  ISBN 978-0-307-27757-2
  .
• Sifakis, Stewart. Who Was Who in the Civil War. New York: Facts On File, 1988.
  ISBN 978-0-8160-1055-4
  .
• Simpson, Craig M., A Good Southerner: A Life of Henry A. Wise of Virginia, Raleigh: University of North Carolina Press, 1985
• ISBN 978-0-8071-0823-9
  .
• Wise, Barton Haxall (1899). The life of Henry A. Wise of Virginia, 1806-1876. New York: Macmillan.
• Wise, Jennings Cropper. Ye Kingdome of Accawmacke: or the Eastern Shore of Virginia in the Seventeen Century (Richmond: The Bell, Book and Stationary Co. 1911)
• Yonge, J. E. Davis (1934). "Henry A. Wise and the Presidency".
  JSTOR 30150193
  . Retrieved April 2, 2021.

Other sources

• "California Admission Day September 9, 1850". ca.gov. California Department of Parks and Recreation. Retrieved November 21, 2022.

• Reeves, Jay (March 10, 2021). "160 years later, Confederate constitution an ignoble relic". apnews.com. AP News. Retrieved November 11, 2021.

External links

New International Encyclopedia article about "Henry A. Wise

".

• Henry A. Wise in Encyclopedia Virginia

• United States Congress. "Henry A. Wise (id: W000649)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved on 2008-02-13
• "Governor Henry Wise, Ghotes of Virginia
• "A Guide to the Executive Papers of Governor Henry A. Wise, 1856–1859", Library of Virginia
• John Sergeant Wise, The End of an Era, 1899, Documenting the South, University of North Carolina, online text of memoir
• Henry A. Wise at Find a Grave

Party political offices
Preceded by Joseph Johnson	Democratic nominee for Governor of Virginia 1855	Succeeded by John Letcher
U.S. House of Representatives
Preceded by Richard Coke, Jr.	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia's 8th congressional district March 4, 1833 – March 4, 1843	Succeeded by Willoughby Newton
Preceded by William L. Goggin	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia's 7th congressional district March 4, 1843 – February 12, 1844	Succeeded by Thomas H. Bayly
Political offices
Preceded by Joseph Johnson	Governor of Virginia 1856–1860	Succeeded by John Letcher
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by George H. Proffit	United States Minister to Brazil August 10, 1844 – August 28, 1847	Succeeded by David Tod