[Gutenberg 29047] • Captain Brand of the "Centipede" / A Pirate of Eminence in the West Indies: His Love and Exploits, Together with Some Account of the Singular Manner by Which He Departed This Life

Henry Augustus Wise (1819-1869) was an author and U. S. Naval Officer. He began his naval career as a midshipman. Henry served in the U. S.-Mexican War as a Lieutenant on board the razee Independence seeing action in the Gulf of California. When the American Civil War broke out he considered serving with his home state of Virginia when they left the Union but opted to stay in the U. S. Navy as a Captain. Promoted to Commander of the Niagara in 1862 he was soon ordered to destroy the Gosport Navy Yard, near his old home. In 1864 President Abraham Lincoln appointed Wise chief of the Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography, and was promoted to Captain in 1866 he held the Ordnance position until his resignation in 1868. He published several works under the pen name Harry Gringo such as Los Gringos; or, An Interior View of Mexico and California, With Wanderings in Peru, Chile and Polynesia (1849), Tales for the Marines (1855), Scampavias: From Gibel-Tarek to Stamboul (1857), The Story of the Gray African Parrot (1859) and Captain Brand, of the "Centipede" (1864).