Still a student when the American Civil War began, Wise served with the VMI Corps of Cadets at the Battle of New Market.

[2] After the war, Wise studied law at the University of Virginia, where he was initiated as a Brother of Beta Theta Pi fraternity in 1867.

The former was on behalf of voters in Virginia's 3rd congressional district against Virginia's Governor Andrew Jackson Montague as well as the Secretary of the Commonwealth and the Auditor of Public Accounts, and sought a writ of prohibition against counting the November 1902 election returns and also complained that the party in power sought to disenfranchise colored voters.

[3] The federal courts ruled they had no jurisdiction and relied upon a South Carolina constitutional convention case, "Mills v. Green", 159 U.S. 651 (1895).

John Wise wrote several books, most notably a memoir entitled The End of an Era (1899), which has been reprinted in numerous editions since its first publication.

[6] It describes his boyhood in the last days before the Civil War, while he was living on his father's plantation "Rolleston" in Virginia, with a childhood slave companion and friend.

Wise was portrayed by Luke Benward in the 2014 film Field of Lost Shoes, which depicted the Battle of New Market.