Joseph Wheeler
Joseph "Fighting Joe" Wheeler was an American military officer. He was a cavalry general in the Confederate States Army during the Civil War, and then a general in the United States Army during both the Spanish-American and Philippine–American Wars near the turn of the twentieth century. For much of the Civil War, he was the senior cavalry general in the Army of Tennessee and fought in most of its battles in the Western Theater.
Between the Civil War and the Spanish–American War, Wheeler served multiple terms as a U.S. Representative from the state of Alabama as a Democrat.
Early life
Although of old New England ancestry, Joseph Wheeler was born near Augusta, Georgia, and spent some of his early childhood growing up with relatives in Derby, Connecticut while also spending about half of each year in Georgia. Joseph Wheeler and Julia Knox Hull Wheeler were his parents. He was the grandson of Brigadier General William Hull, a veteran of the American Revolution.Despite his being partially brought up in the northern United States, and being appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point from the state of New York, Wheeler always considered himself a Georgian and Southerner.
Wheeler entered West Point in July 1854, barely meeting the height requirement at the time for entry. He graduated on July 1, 1859, placing 19th out of 22 cadets, and was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the 1st U.S. Dragoons. He attended the U.S. Army Cavalry School located in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and upon completion was transferred on June 26, 1860, to the Regiment of Mounted Rifles stationed in the New Mexico Territory.
It was while stationed in New Mexico and fighting in a skirmish with Indians that Joseph Wheeler picked up the nickname "Fighting Joe." On September 1, 1860, he was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant.
Civil War
Early service
At the start of the Civil War, Wheeler entered the Confederate States Army on March 16 as a first lieutenant in the Georgia state militia artillery and then was assigned to Fort Barrancas off of Pensacola, Florida, reporting to Maj. Gen. Braxton Bragg. His resignation from the U.S. Army was accepted on April 22, 1861. He was ordered to Huntsville, Alabama, to take command of the newly formed 19th Alabama Infantry Regiment and was promoted to colonel on September 4.Wheeler and the 19th Alabama fought well under Bragg at the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862. During the Siege of Corinth in April and May, Wheeler's men on picket duty repeatedly clashed with U.S. patrols. Serving as acting brigade commander, Wheeler burned the bridges over the Tuscumbia River to cover the Confederate retreat to Tupelo, Mississippi.
Middle Tennessee
From September to October, Wheeler transferred to the cavalry branch and commanded the 2nd Cavalry Brigade of the Left Wing in the Army of Mississippi. During the Confederate Heartland Offensive, Wheeler aggressively maintained contact with the U.S. Army. He began to suffer from poor relations with Nathan Bedford Forrest, when Bragg reassigned most of Forrest's men to Wheeler, sending Forrest to Murfreesboro, Tennessee to recruit a new brigade. Wheeler fought at the Battle of Perryville in October and, after the fight, performed an excellent rearguard action protecting the army's retreat. He was promoted to brigadier general on October 30 and led the cavalry belonging to the Second Corps, Army of Tennessee, from November to December. During the action at La Vergne, Tennessee, on November 27, Wheeler was wounded by an artillery shell that exploded near him.In December 1862, the U.S. Army of the Cumberland began to advance from Nashville against Bragg's army. Now commanding all of the Army of Tennessee's cavalry, Wheeler skirmished aggressively to delay their advance. He drove into the rear of the U.S. army, destroying hundreds of wagons and capturing more than 700 prisoners. After the Battle of Stones River, as Bragg's army withdrew to the Duck River line, Wheeler struck the U.S. supply lines at Harpeth Shoals on January 12–13, burning three steamboats and capturing more than 400 prisoners. Bragg recommended that Wheeler be promoted as a "just reward", and he became a major general on January 20, 1863.
Wheeler led the army's Cavalry Corps from January to November 24, then from December to November 15, 1864. For his actions on January 12–13, 1863, Wheeler and his troopers received the Thanks of the Confederate Congress on May 1, 1863.
In February 1863, Wheeler and Forrest attacked Fort Donelson at Dover, Tennessee, but the small U.S. garrison repulsed them. Forrest angrily told Wheeler, "Tell that I will be in my coffin before I will fight again under your command." Bragg dealt with this rivalry in the Tullahoma Campaign by assigning Wheeler to guard the army's right flank while Forrest guarded the left. A Union cavalry advance on Shelbyville on June 27 trapped Wheeler and 50 of his men on the north side of the Duck River, forcing Wheeler to plunge his horse over a 15-foot embankment and escape through the rain-swollen river.
Chickamauga and Chattanooga
Wheeler and his troopers guarded the army's left flank at the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863. After the routed U.S. army collected in Chattanooga, Gen. Bragg sent Wheeler's men into central Tennessee to destroy railroads and Federal supply lines in a major raid. On October 2, his attack at Anderson's Cross Roads destroyed more than 700 U.S. supply wagons, tightening the Confederate siege of Chattanooga. Pursued by U.S. soldiers, Wheeler advanced to McMinnville and captured its 600-man garrison. There were more actions at Murfreesboro and Farmington. Still, by October 9, Wheeler safely crossed the Tennessee River at Muscle Shoals, Alabama. The extensive raid and a subsequent northern movement to assist Longstreet in his siege of Knoxville would cause the mounted arm of the army to miss the Chattanooga campaign. Wheeler covered Bragg's retreat from Chattanooga following the Union breakthrough at Missionary Ridge on November 25 and received a wound in his foot as his cavalry and Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne's infantry fought at the Battle of Ringgold Gap on November 27.Georgia and the Carolinas
During U.S. Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's Atlanta campaign, Wheeler's cavalry corps screened the flanks of the Army of Tennessee as Gen. Joseph E. Johnston drew back from several positions toward Atlanta. In July, Sherman sent two large cavalry columns to destroy the railroads supplying the defenders of Atlanta. With fewer than 5,000 cavalrymen, Wheeler defeated the enemy raids, capturing one of the two commanding generals, Maj. Gen. George Stoneman. In August, Wheeler's corps crossed the Chattahoochee River in an attempt to destroy the railroad Sherman was using to supply his force from Chattanooga. Wheeler's men captured the town of Dalton, but he failed to defeat the U.S. garrison protected in a nearby fort. Wheeler then took his men into East Tennessee, crossing the Tennessee River above Knoxville. His raid continued to the west, causing minor interruptions in the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad and then continued south through Franklin, Tennessee, until he recrossed the Tennessee at Tuscumbia, Alabama. The raid Wheeler was ordered to undertake was described by historian Ed Bearss as a "Confederate disaster" because it caused minimal damage to the United States while denying Gen. John Bell Hood, now in command of the Army of Tennessee, the direct support of his cavalry arm. Without accurate intelligence of Sherman's dispositions, Hood lost the Battle of Jonesborough and was forced to evacuate Atlanta. Wheeler rendezvoused with Hood's army in early October after destroying the railroad bridge at Resaca. That said, the blame for this defeat cannot be laid at Wheeler's feet.In late 1864, Wheeler's cavalry did not accompany Hood on his Franklin–Nashville Campaign back into Tennessee and was virtually the only effective Confederate force to oppose Sherman's March to the Sea to Savannah. However, his resistance to Sherman did little to comfort Georgia civilians, and lax discipline within his command caused great dissatisfaction. Robert Toombs said, "I hope to God he will never get back to Georgia." Maj. Gen. D. H. Hill wrote that "the whole of Georgia is full of bitter complaints of Wheeler's cavalry." A telling encounter between Wheeler and Sherman is documented in one of Sherman's reports. This incident occurred after Gen. Jefferson C. Davis decided to dismantle a pontoon bridge to distance his army from a group of escaped slaves who sought refuge and safety with the Union forces.
According to Sherman's account, Wheeler ordered his cavalry to charge the refugees. This action forced the men, women, and children into the water, where it is presumed many drowned.
Wheeler and his men continued to attempt to stop Sherman in the 1865 Carolinas campaign. He defeated a U.S. cavalry force under Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick in South Carolina at the Battle of Aiken on February 11. He was replaced as cavalry chief by Lt. Gen. Wade Hampton III and fought under him at the Battle of Bentonville on March 19–20. While attempting to cover Confederate President Jefferson Davis's flight south and west in May, Wheeler was captured at Conyer's Station just east of Atlanta. He had intended to reach the Trans-Mississippi and Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith, still resisting out west, and had with him three officers from his staff and 11 privates when he was taken. Wheeler was imprisoned for two months, first at Fort Monroe and then in solitary confinement at Fort Delaware, where he was paroled on June 8.
During his career in the Confederate States Army, Wheeler was wounded three times, lost 36 staff officers to combat, and a total of 16 horses were shot from under him. Military historian Ezra J. Warner believed that Wheeler's actions leading cavalry in the conflict "were second only to those of Bedford Forrest".