Dueling Archive - 6 Letters, 1 Broadside, 1 Leaflet & News Articles

Henry A. Wise of Virginia

Proponent of the Code Duello

Scapegoat of Jacksonian Democratic Party

Peace maker

  WISE RESPONDS TO AN INVITATION TO THE FIELD OF HONOR

 

[Dueling] [Congress] Wise, Henry A. Autograph Letter Signed. Dec. 13th, 1834. Washington. 25 x 19-3/4 cm. One page. Ink spot on signature. Very good. Reply to a challenge (duel) by Richard Coke of Hampton, VA. In part: “I am now & shall always be ready to be shot by him at any time between this and the resurrection day...”

 

COUSIN ELISA SHARES NEWS OF HENRY WISE'S DUEL

WITH HER SEA CAPTAIN BROTHER

 

[Dueling] [Virginia] [Henry A. Wise] Gible, Elisa W. Autograph Letter Signed. Feb. 2nd, 1835. Drummond Town. 25-1/2 x 20-1/4 cm. 4 pages. Tears at folds. Very good. Addressed to her brother: Capt. Thomas B. Cropper, Packet Ship Susquehanna, care of Messrs. W. and J. Brown, Liverpool. / Acco(mack) C. H. Va. / Stamped: “LIVERPOOL / SHIP LETTER” In Part, “ . . . . I suppose you have seen by the papers, that Henry Wise and R. Coke have fought a duel near Bladensburgh. Henry wounded him in the right arm which prevented the ball from entering his side which must have killed him – they both fired at the same / Coke fell, which ended the affair, Henry was unhurt, and they shook hands on the ground – it has caused a good deal of excitement here – but it is now over ...” - - - Elizabeth C. Gibb & Captain Thomas B. Cooper (brother & sister), were cousins of Henry Wise. - UNC. . . . Wise defeated the incumbent, Richard Coke, in April 1833 to win election to the House of Representatives from the district consisting of the counties of Accomack, Gloucester, James City, Mathews, Northampton, Warwick, and York and the city of Williamsburg. Two years later when Coke sought to regain his seat, Wise charged that Coke had spoken both in favor of and in opposition to South Carolina's attempt to nullify enforcement of a federal tariff law. The accusation provoked a duel in which Wise severely wounded Coke in the shoulder. Reelected in 1835 and to four subsequent terms, Wise acquired a reputation as a formidable debater and effective orator.

- Brent Tarter, John T. Kneebone et al., eds., Dictionary of Virginia Biography (Richmond: The Library of Virginia, 1998).

 

GRAPHICLY EMPHATIC CHARGE OF MURDER

 

[Dueling] [Maine] Cilley, Jonathan. Broadside. 41-1/2 x 15-9/10 cm. Bold lined coffin shape 29 x 10-1/4 cm. With 6 x 8 cm. Skull & Crossed Bones. (line) Text below: “IN MEMORY OF JONATHAN CILLEY, The Independent Democratic Representative in Congress from the state of Maine, Who was deliberately murdered in open day, BY HENRY A. WISE, (Whig leader in Congress, from Virginia,) February 23rd, 1838. (line) Democrats of New Hampshire! The blood of the murdered Cilley cries to you from the ground for vengeance! Remember that the Whig party are all implicated in this most atrocious MURDER, for they openly approve of it! Vote then the Democratic ticket, and prostrate the Whigs as low as they have the LAMENTED CILLEY.” Very good. - - - Pencil notation at top, “Perhaps printed in Concord by Isaac Hill. Found in Ambrose Cossits' papers, Claremont, N.H. 1929.

 

WISE RESPONDS TO CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE

 

[Dueling] [Congress] Wise, Henry A. Autograph Letter. March 3, 1838. Washington. 25-1/4 x 20-1/4 cm. 3 pages. Very good. Marked: “Copy,” Secretarial signed, Henry A. Wise. To: “Hon. Mr. Toucey, Chairman of the Committee appointed Feb 28, 1838 to investigate the causes which led to the death of the Hon. Jonathan Cilley ..” In Part: “I appear, and am ready to furnish the originals of the correspondence between the Hon. Wm. J. Graves and the Hon. Jonathan Cilley and their seconds in the late duel &c., in my possession. In thus appearing, Sir before the committee of which you are chairman, I am not to be understood as admitting the right of the House of Reps. Or it's Comtee., however constituted, to hold an inquest over my private and individual conduct, except so far as that conduct may affect the privileges of the House, and its jurisdiction over its own members. But, waiving all objections for the present, I respectfully insist that, if the committee does go into the investigation of my conduct in any respect or to any extent, it will do so fully and not partially. . . .” - - - “24th Feb. 1838 - duel - Two members of Congress . . . the sad termination of the affair, created more excitement, perhaps, than has ever been aroused in consequence of a similar catastrophe, in this country, with the single exception of the notable meeting between Burr and Hamilton. - Barton Haxall Wise's The Life of Henry A. Wise of Virginia, 1806-1876. p.80

 

 

DEEDS OF DARKNESS & TREACHERY

 

[Dueling] [Congressman Jonathan Cilley] [Murder] Pamphlet/Leaflet. Public Meeting at Augusta, Maine. March 9th 1838. 23-1/2 x 18-1/2 cm. 4 pages. Democratic members of the Legislature in Augusta, Maine. “Meeting for the purpose of noticing in a suitable manner the atrocious murder of Hon. Jonathan Cilley, late member of Congress from this State, and of adopting such APPROPIATE MEASURES in relation thereto, as the importance of the occasion may demand” - “Addressed to: Mr. Henry A. Wise of Virginia, now at Washington, D. C. Postmarked in red: “Augusta, Me. Mar 14.” “FREE”

 

“THE HONORABLE PART YOU TOOK IN THE LATE DUEL . . .”

 

[Dueling] [Virginia] [Henry A. Wise] Waples, Wm. D. Autograph Letter Signed. March 24, 1838. Sans Souci, Near Dagsboro, Delaware. 24-1/4 x 19-3/4 cm. 3 pages. Very good. Addressed to Hon. H. A. Wise in Congress, Washington City. Letter of support. In Part: “. . . why so much sympathy for Cilley, was he not a murderer in every sense of the word . . . if Jackson should be President, members of Congress would have to legislate with pistols by their side . . .”

 

HENRY WISE THE MEDIATOR

“SETTLED WITH DUE REGARD TO THE HONOR & CHARACTER OF THE PARTIES”

 

[Dueling] [Congress] Wise, Henry A. Autograph Letter Signed. June 24th, 1838. Washington. 25-1/2 x 20-1/2 cm. 8 pages. Very good. Step-by-step events of Henry Wise's arbitration and thus stopping a duel between Mr. Savage and Mr. Segar. Mentions seconds and other involved parties: General Felix Huston (commander of the army of the Republic of Texas); Mr. Key (District attorney); Bishop Meade (Episcopal Church of Virginia); Judge Thurston; Mr. Almond of Norfolk; Robert Taylor Esq.; Honorable F. W. Pickens; Dr. Martin; Mr. Whiting; Hon. S. S. Prentiss. This letter is to the two gentlemen involved in “the affair of honor” and informs them that it is now “terminated.” In part: “They have saved your consciences from bloodshed & your character from all reproach. . . . For myself permit me to say that I shall ever count it a consolation for the character of “duelish”, which I despise, which I thought had nothing to recommend it, but which has un-deservedly in the estimation of some attached to me, that it had an influence, perhaps, in drawing your affair of honor within the control of a disposition . . .”

 

 

CONGRESSMAN GRAVES OFFERES APPOINTMENT

 

[Congress] Graves, W. J. & Andrews, L. W. Autograph Letter Signed. March 30, 1840. House of Rep(resentatives). (Washington, D. C.). 24-3/4 x 20 cm. One page. To Hon. Felix Grundy, Senate Cham(bers). Written and signed by W. J. Graves, the victor in the Graves-Cilley duel. Offer to procure a midshipman's appointment for the son of Judge Hewett. The recipient, Grundy, was a U. S. Senator from Tennessee and former U. S. Attorney General. - - - William Jordan Graves (1805 – September 27, 1848) was a U. S. Representative from Kentucky. Graves was born in New Castle, Kentucky, and pursued an academic course early in life, choosing to study law. He was admitted to the bar and practiced law in Kentucky before serving as member of the State house of representatives in 1834. Graves was elected as an Anti-Jacksonian to the Twenty-fourth Congress and reelected as a Whig to the Twenty-fifth, and Twenty-sixth Congresses (March 4, 1835 – March 3, 1841). He engaged in a duel at the Bladensburg dueling grounds on the Marlboro Road in Maryland with Congressman Jonathan Cilley in 1838. Graves was a stand-in for New York newspaper editor James Webb, whom Cilley had called corrupt. Cilley was inexperienced with guns, and Graves was allowed to use a powerful rifle. A shot to an artery in Cilley's leg caused him to bleed to death in ninety seconds. This duel prompted passage of a congressional act of February 20, 1839, prohibiting the giving or accepting, within the District of Columbia, of challenges to a duel. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1840. He was again a member of the State house of representatives in 1843. He died in Louisville, Kentucky, September 27, 1848. He was interred in the private burial grounds at his former residence in Henry County, Kentucky.

 

 

FIRST AMERICAN DUEL FOUGHT WITH RIFLES

 

[Duel] [Reports] Two clipped articles, one from a magazine, and the other from a newspaper. Both discuss the Graves-Cilley duel. Early 20th century. Very good. - - - (1846). Wise, whose relations with Clay were no longer friendly, published the circumstances of the duel in the Madisoran and Intelligencer, and called on Clay to declare the part which he had taken in it. This the latter admitted, in a letter over his signature, of which full use was made by the New England Democratic press in the ensuing presidential campaign, and it was instrumental in defeating him for that office. - Barton Haxall Wise's The Life of Henry A. Wise of Virginia, 1806-1876. p.86

 

Historical Note:

 

-   - WISE, HENRY ALEXANDER. (b. Drummondtown, Va., 1806; d. Richmond, Va., 1876), lawyer, Confederate general. Congressman, Jacksonian Democrat, from Virginia, 1833-44; chief antagonist of John Quincy Adams in effort to repeal “Gag Law” against anti-slavery petitions. Breaking with President Jackson on the Bank question, Wise went over to the Whigs. A close friend of President John Tyler, he led Tyler adherents in Congress. U. S. minister to Brazil, 1844-47. An outspoken defender of slavery, he was liberal and progressive in other matters; in the Virginia constitutional convention, 1850-51, he played an important part in securing compromise suffrage and taxation reforms. Influential in transferring the Virginia delegation's support to Franklin Pierce at the Democratic convention of 1852, he helped secure the presidential nomination for Pierce. As Democratic candidate for governor, he conducted an exciting campaign against a Know-Nothing opponent; his victory broke the force of the Know-Nothing wave in the South. As governor, 1856-60, he was active in quelling John Brown's raid and advocated internal improvements. He was largely responsible for James Buchanan's nomination at the Democratic convention, 1856. Delegate to the Virginia convention, 1861, he became a fiery advocate of the Southern Confederacy. Made brigadier-general, 1861, he served through-out the Civil War and was promoted major-general by Gen. Robert E. Lee, 1865. Wise was one of the last great individualists in Virginia history. - Concise Dictionary of American Biography. p. 1237-8.