Joseph "Fighting Joe" Wheeler (10 September 1836-25 January 1906) was a Confederate States Army Lieutenant-General during the American Civil War and a US Army Major-General during the Spanish-American War and Philippine-American War. He also served as a member of the US House of Representatives (D-AL 8) from 4 March 1881 to 3 June 1882 (interrupting William M. Lowe's terms), from 15 January to 3 March 1883 (succeeding Lowe and preceding Luke Pryor), and from 4 March 1885 to 20 April 1900 (succeeding Pryor).
Biography[]
Joseph Wheeler was born in Augusta, Georgia in 1836 to a family of New Englander ancestry, the grandson of William Hull. He was raised in Connecticut, but he was appointed to West Point from Georgia and always considered himself a Southerner. He graduated from West Point in 1859 and served in the US Army mounted rifles in New Mexico, where he earned the nickname "Fighting Joe" while fighting the Native Americans.
Civil War[]
When the American Civil War broke out, he sided with the Confederacy and became colonel of the 19th Alabama Infantry Regiment, fighting at the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862 and covering the Confederate retreat from Corinth to Tupelo, Mississippi. Wheeler performed an excellent cavalry rearguard action at the Battle of Perryville in October 1862, commanding several of Nathan Bedford Forrest's former cavalrymen who had been transferred to his command by Braxton Bragg in a move that caused consternation between Forrest and Wheeler. After capturing 400 prisoners in a raid following the Battle of Stones River, Bragg justly rewarded Wheeler with a promotion to the rank of Major-General on 20 January 1863. During the Tullahoma Campaign in June, he was forced to plunge his horse over a 15-foot embankment and escape through the rain-swollen river when he and 50 troops were surrounded by the Union Army. In October 1863, he led a major raid into central Tennessee to destroy Union railroads and supply lines, and he later covered Bragg's retreat from the Chattanooga Campaign, being wounded in the foot at the Battle of Missionary Ridge. During the Atlanta Campaign, he secured the flanks of Joseph E. Johnston's retreating Confederate army, and his raid behind the Union forces in Georgia was actually detrimental to the Confederate army, as John Bell Hood was now without the intelligence that Wheeler's cavalry scouts could offer him. Wheeler did not accompany Hood up to Tennessee, instead opposing Sherman's March to the Sea to Savannah. However, the people grew hostile to Wheeler due to his inability to halt Sherman and due to the lax discipline of his command, and, while he defeated Judson Kilpatrick's Union at Aiken, South Carolina on 11 February 1865, he continually failed to halt Sherman's advance north. Wade Hampton III replaced him as cavalry chief in March, and he was captured at Conyer's Station, Georgia. During the war, he had been wounded thrice, lost 36 staff officers, and had 16 horses shot from under him.
Postwar[]
Wheeler in 1898
Wheeler became a planter and lawyer near Courtland, Alabama after the war, and he went on to serve as a Democrat in the US House of Representatives intermittently from 1881 to 1900. He championed economic policies that would rebuild the American South, and he supported reconciliation with the North. In 1898, the 61-year-old Wheeler volunteered to return to the US Army during the Spanish-American War, serving as a Major-General and taking command of the cavalry division (which included Theodore Roosevelt's "Rough Riders"). During the Battle of Las Guasimas, the excited Wheeler accidentally told his men that, "We've got the damn Yankees on the run again," recounting his old Civil War days while charging against the Spanish Army. Wheeler fell ill during the campaign and gave Samuel S. Sumner command of his brigade, although he later returned to divisional command during the Siege of Santiago. From 1899 to 1900, he commanded a brigade in Arthur MacArthur's division during the Philippine-American War, and he was mustered out on 16 June 1900. He died in New York City in 1906 at the age of 69.
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