American naval officer and author, son of George Stuart Wise, U.S.N.; born at Brooklyn, on the 12th of May 1819, appointed a midshipman 1833, served on the Florida coast in the Seminole war, and as a lieutenant on the Pacific during that with Mexico. He married a daughter of Edward Everett, and secured hosts of friends by his geniality and gayety. He was flag-lieutenant of the Mediterranean fleet 1852–55. Out of his wanderings came Los Gringos (1849), an account of adventures in Mexico and elsewhere, and Tales for the Marines (1855), of which the “Jack Percy” was his first captain, Percival. Still under the name of “Harry Gringo” appeared Scamparias from Gibel-Tarek to Stambovl (1857), which is an excellent book of travel; Story of the Gray African Parrot (a juvenile, 1859), and Captain Brand of the Centipede (1860), an entertaining and vivacious story of the seas. Wise escorted the Japanese ambassadors home in 1861, served in the ordnance bureau from 1862 to 1868, being chief of it for the last two years. He died at Naples on the 1st of April 1869.
