WISE, John Sergeant, (Son of Henry Alexander Wise, grandson of John Sergeant, brother of Richard Alsop Wise, and cousin of George Douglas Wise), a Representative from Virginia; born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, December 27, 1846, while his father was United States Minister to that country; attended preparatory schools in Goochland and Princess Anne Counties, Va., and the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington in 1862; participated with the institute cadets in the Battle of New Market during the Civil War; subsequently became a lieutenant in the Confederate Army; was graduated from the law department of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville in 1867; was admitted to the bar the same year and commenced practice in Richmond, Henrico County, Va.; unsuccessful candidate for election to the Forty-seventh Congress in 1880; United States attorney for the eastern district of Virginia from May 1882 to March 1883, when he resigned, having been elected to Congress; elected as a Readjuster to the Forty-eighth Congress (March 4, 1883-March 3, 1885); was not a candidate for renomination in 1884; unsuccessful Republican candidate for Governor of Virginia in 1885; moved to New York City and engaged in the practice of his profession; died near Princess Anne, Somerset County, Md., May 12, 1913; interment in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Va.
View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress
[ Top ]Barnes, Brooks Miles. "The Congressional Elections of 1882 on the Eastern Shore of Virginia." Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 89 (October 1981): 467-86.
Campbell, Otho Carlino. "John Sergeant Wise: A Case Study in Conservative-Readjuster Politics in Virginia, 1869-1889." Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia, 1979.
Davis, Curtis C. "Very Well-Rounded Republican: The Several Lives of John S. Wise." Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 71 (October 1963): 461-87.
Wise, John Sergeant. Centralization by construction. [N.p., 1907]
------. Contested election--O'Ferrall vs. Paul Speech of Hon. John S. Wise, of Virginia, in the House of Representatives, Monday, May 5, 1884. [Washington: Government Printing Office, 1884].
------. Diomed; the life, travels, and observations of a dog. Boston, London and New York: N.p., 1897.
------. The end of an era. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1902.
------. Family of Beverley of Berverly. New York: N.p., 1890.
------. The family of Douglass or Douglas of Garrallan in Virginia. [New York: N.p., 1894].
------. Speech of Hon. John S. Wise. New York: M. B. Brown, printer, 1887.
