Joseph Wheeler Lieutenant General, Confederate States Major General, United States Army Member of Congress Born near Augusta, Georgia, September 10, 1836, he graduated from West Point in 1859 and was commissioned in Dragoons. He saw service in various Indian campaigns in Kansas and New Mexico before resigning in April 1861 to become First Lieutenant of Artillery in the Confederate Army. In September 1861 he was appointed Colonel of the 19th Alabama Infantry. He commanded a Brigade at Pittsburg Landing (Shiloh), April 6-7, 1862, where he covered the Confederate retreat on the second day, and in July was given command of the Cavalry in General Braxton Bragg's Army of Mississippi. Thereafter he was almost continuously in the field. During the remainder of the war he was to be wounded three times and had sixteen horses shot from under him. After leading Bragg's advance into Kentucky in August-September, distinguishing himself at Perryville, October 8, and covering the retreat from that battle. He was promoted to Brigadier General, CSA, at the end of October. At Stones River (Murfreesboro) from December 31, 1862 to January 3, 1863, he again distinguished himself after having skillfully delayed General William Starke Rosecrans' advance. In January 1863 he was promoted to Major General. He took a prominent part in the Battle of Chickamauga, September 18-20, 1863 and, after Rosecrans was shut up in Chattanooga, undertook a spectacular cavalry raid to the Union rear in which he and his men destroyed railroad lines by which Rosecrans was to be re-supplied, and inflicted more that $3 million in damage to support depots and other resources in and around Central Tennessee. In November he cooperated with General James Longstreet in the siege of Knoxsville and, following Bragg's defeat at Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, November 24-25, helped cover the later's retreat, taking part under General Patrick R. Cleburne in a rearguard action at Ringgold, November 27. | |
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