Andrea Rosser
Gen. Joseph "Fightin' Joe" Wheeler
A photo of Gen. Joseph "Fightin' Joe" Wheeler - Civil War Confederate Lieutenant General, United States Army General, US Congressman. A statue of him represents the state of Alabama in Statuary Hall of the United States Congress. A professional soldier, he attended the United States Military Academy after being appointed from New York, graduating with the Class of 1859. He was the 1843rd graduate of USMA, with a class rank of 19 out of 22. Wheeler was commissioned a Second Lieutenant of the Mounted Rifles (forerunner of the Cavalry), and assigned to New Mexico territory, to enforce peace with the Indians. On February 27, 1861, with the Civil War about to start, he resigned his United States Army commission, and requested a commission with the Confederate States Army. He was appointed Lieutenant of Artillery on April 3, 1861. Subsequently, he was appointed Colonel and commander the 19th Alabama Infantry Regiment, and was commended for his actions at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862. In addition to Shiloh, he fought in the Kentucky Campaign, at Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, and Knoxville, and was appointed Cavalry General of the Confederate Armies on May 11, 1864, where he opposed General William T. Sherman's March to the Sea until the war's end. In October 1862, he was promoted to Brigadier General, PACS, and promoted again to Major General, in January 1863. He was promoted to Lieutenant General, in February 1865. At the end of the Civil War, he studied law, was admitted to the bar, and opened a law practice in Wheeler, Alabama. From 1881 to 1900, he served as a Democratic Congressman from Alabama in the United States House of Representatives. In 1898, when the Spanish American War broke out, he was appointed Major General, US Volunteers, and commanded the Cavalry Division of the Cuban Expeditionary Force, which gave him command over the Rough Riders of Teddy Roosevelt fame. He was head of the committee that negotiated the surrender of Santiago and the Spanish Army in Cuba. Following that war, he remained in the United States Army, and from September 1899 to January 1900, he was the commanding General in the field, with the rank of Brigadier General, during the Philippine Insurrection, commanding the First Brigade, Second Division, in the Tarlac Campaign and in the central Luzon. He was commissioned a Brigadier General, Regular Army on June 16, 1900, and retired on September 10, 1900. He died in Brooklyn, New York in 1906. (bio by: Kit and Morgan Benson)
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