When: November 8th 2017
Where: La Navona, 154 North Hamilton Road. Gahanna Ohio 43230
Time: 7pm
Speaker: Wade Sokolosky COL (Ret) U.S. Army
Topic: “To Prepare for Sherman’s Coming” The Battle of Wise’s Forks
History has relegated the Battle of Wise’s (Wyse) Forks, March 7–11, to little more than an insignificant skirmish during the final days of the Civil War. Indeed, most histories mention it not at all. Wade Sokolosky’s and Mark A. Smith’s “To Prepare for Sherman’s Coming”: The Battle of Wise’s Forks, March 1865 erases this misconception and elevates this battle and its related operations to the historical status it deserves. 
By March 1865, the Confederacy was on its last legs. Its armies were depleted, food and resources were scarce, and morale was low. Gen. Robert E. Lee was barely holding on to his extended lines around Richmond and Petersburg, and Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman was operating with nearly complete freedom in North Carolina on his way north to form a junction with Union forces in Virginia. As the authors demonstrate, the fighting that is the subject of this book came about when Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant initiated a broad military operation to assist Sherman.|
The responsibility for ensuring a functioning railroad from New Bern to Goldsboro
rested with Maj. Gen. Jacob D. Cox. On March 2, 1865, Cox ordered his hastily assembled Provisional Corps to march toward Goldsboro. In response to Cox’s movement, Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston executed a bold but risky plan to divert troops away from Sherman by turning back Cox’s advance. Under the command of the aggressive but controversial Gen. Braxton Bragg, the Confederates stood for four days and successfully halted Cox at Wise’s Forks. This delay provided Johnston with the precious time he needed to concentrate his forces and fight the large and important Battle of Bentonville.
Colonel (Ret.) Wade Sokolosky, a native of Beaufort, North Carolina, is a graduate of East Carolina University and a 25-year veteran of the U.S. Army. He is one of North Carolina’s leading experts of the 1865 Carolinas Campaign. Wade has lectured throughout the Carolinas, speaking to roundtables, various societies and organizations, and at historical sites. 
He is the co-author (with Mark A. Smith) of “No Such Army Since the Days of Julius Caesar”: Sherman’s Carolinas Campaign from Fayetteville to Averasboro, released this January in an updated and expanded version, and the author of “Final Roll Call” Confederate Losses during the Carolinas Campaign.”
Wade’s most recent book, co-authored with Smith, “To Prepare for Sherman’s Coming”: The Battle of Wise’s Forks, March 1865 erases the misconception that the four-day battle was little more than an insignificant skirmish and elevates this combat action and its related operations to the historical status it deserves. Chosen as the winner of the Civil War Books and Authors Best Book of the Year for 2015, Battle/Campaign Histories – Eastern Theater category.
His next project, “Kiss Him for His Mother”: NC’s Confederate Hospitals During the 1865 Carolinas Campaign is due out in August 2017. Long term, Wade is working on a book-length study of the Confederate Army of Tennessee during the Civil War’s final months in the Carolinas.
He is the recipient of the Raleigh Civil War Round Table’s 2017 T. Harry Gatton Award for his important efforts to study, preserve and share the Civil War heritage of his native North Carolina.
Friends of Bentonville Battlefield
Wade Sokolosky COL (Ret) U.S. Army Website
Central Ohio Civil War Roundtable 