PASSIONATE TO THE END

UNION GENERAL JOSHUA LAWRENCE CHAMBERLAIN led the 20th Maine at Gettysburg and brigades in the 5th Corps during the Army of the Potomac’s final campaign against Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. On April 12, 1865, Chamberlain received a new responsibility—command over the formal surrender of Lee’s army at Appomattox Court House. As Chamberlain described the scene years later, he had his men snap to attention when Confederate Maj. Gen. John B. Gordon and his men passed to stack their weapons. Gordon’s soldiers responded with their own salute, “honor answering honor” in Chamberlain’s words. Chamberlain also wrote about another, less hopeful encounter at Appomattox. Later that day Chamberlain overheard a Confederate general berating his own men and he rode over to investigate. He found Brig. Gen. Henry A. Wise. Rail-thin and gray-haired, Wise would not listen to Chamberlain’s talk about peace, forgiveness, and reunification. “You are mistaken, sir, we won’t be forgiven, we hate you, and that is the whole of it,” Wise snapped.

Henry A. Wise was born in 1806 in Accomac County on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Even as a boy he had an “excitable disposition” and was “wayward and impetuous.” He also displayed oratorical skills that made him a natural politician. Wise ran for Congress in 1833, winning both the election and a duel with his opponent, whom he shot in the shoulder. His sharp tongue and impetuosity made Wise enemies and a reputation for being politically undependable.

After the death of his first wife, in 1840, Wise married Sarah Sergeant, the daughter of Whig Congressman John Sergeant. Sarah’s sister, Margaretta, later married a young lieutenant named George Gordon Meade, making Wise the brother-in-law of the future commander of the Army of the Potomac. (Sarah died in 1850, and Wise married for a third time in 1853.) Wise left Congress in 1844 to become the American minister