On Sunday, January 11th at 3 P.M., the Franklin Civil War Round Table will present Gregory L. Wade, who will speak on “Divided Loyalties” and the incredible challenges for civilians during the Civil War.

While Civil War battles are well researched, documented and discussed, life behind the lines has not been as deeply explored. The home front was often an atmosphere of divided loyalties and tensions where citizens were not united in their political views. Soldiers home on furlough were often hunted down by neighbors loyal to the other side. Foraging was usually a polite term for “stealing,” with starvation a real threat in many areas of the South before the war ended.

Gregory L. Wade was raised in Chattanooga, where stories from his grandmothers ignited his love of history, especially the Civil War. After graduation from Middle Tennessee State University, most of his adult life has been in the mid-state area where he is very active in battlefield preservation, especially in Franklin. He has served as president of Save the Franklin Battlefield and currently serves on the board of Franklin’s Charge. He founded the Franklin Civil War Round Table in 2008, which now has over 125 members and presents lectures and tours on mostly Western Theatre topics. He has spoken to numerous history-related groups, including this past April as a guest historian at the Civil War Trust’s annual meeting in Nashville.

Wade published his first historical novel, Broken Valley, in 2014 which deals with a family’s trials behind the lines in the Sequatchie Valley of East Tennessee. He has written as a staff member for the Civil War News for several years and has been published in historical publications such as Sea Classics and North and South. He currently writes a monthly guest column on the Civil War for the Franklin Home Page. Wade and his wife, Beth, reside in Franklin. He has three children, two of which serve in the military and the other is a police officer.