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CONTEXT
Richard Aslop Wise wrote this letter to Edward Valentine in 1873 after hearing about Valentine’s new sculpture, Uncle Henry. Wise was born in Philadelphia, but raised and educated in Virginia, graduating from the Medical College of Virginia. He served in the Confederate Army under J.E.B. Stuart and then under his father and former Virginia Governor, Henry Alexander Wise. As a member of the Republican party, he served in the Virginia General Assembly, the U. S. House of Representatives and attended every state convention from 1879 until his death in 1900. At the time of this letter, he was teaching chemistry at the College of William and Mary.