Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/746

690 was appointed to Brazil in 1844, and remained there until 1847. He was a Democratic elector in 1848 and 1850, and a member of the constitutional convention in 1850. In 1855 he made a brilliant campaign for the governorship against the Know-Nothing party and was elected. In 1859 he published a treatise on territorial government, upholding the doctrine of congressional protection of slavery in the new territories. The execution of the servile insurrectionist, John Brown, December 2, 1859, was one of the last events of his administration. In 1861 he sat in the Virginia convention, and as a member of the committee on federal relations, presented one of three reports upon the position Virginia should take in the crisis. He entered heartily into the military defense of the State, and obtained permission to raise an independent partisan command. In May he was advised by President Davis to take a commission as brigadier-general of provisional forces with command in the Kanawha valley. Reaching Charleston from a sick bed in June, he completed the organization of Wise's Legion, in command of which, with the Kanawha volunteers, he endeavored patriotically to withstand the superior forces sent against him. He fought with intelligence and skill in the vicinity of Charleston, and selected the position at Sewell mountain, where Lee took command, confronting Rosecrans until that officer retreated. In the fall of 1861 he was assigned to command at Roanoke island, N. C., where, in his absence, many of his legion were captured, and his son, Capt. O. Jennings Wise, of the Richmond Light Infantry Blues, was mortally wounded. His feeble health now kept him from the field for some time, but in 1863, he was given command of the district between the Mattapony and the James, with his brigade, the Twenty-fourth, Thirty-fourth and Forty-sixth infantry, a battalion of artillery and a squadron of cavalry. While at Chaffin's farm, he conducted some gallant attacks upon the enemy, and recovered Williamsburg from General Dix. He subsequently served under Beauregard at Charleston, with his command drove the enemy from John's island, and took part in two battles in Florida. Returning to Virginia in May, 1864, on June 1st he was assigned to command the First military district, including Petersburg. He participated in the defeat of Butler at Drewry's bluff, and on June 15th his brigade alone held