Wheeler, Joseph
soldier, legislator, congressman, was born Sept. 10, 1836, in Augusta, Ga. He graduated from West Point in 1859; was lieutenant of cavalry and served in New Mexico; and resigned in 1861. He was lieutenant of artillery in the confederate army; was successively promoted to the command of a regiment, brigade, division and army corps, and in 1862 was assigned to the command of the army corps of cavalry of the western army, continuing in that position till the war closed. By joint resolution of the confederate congress he received the thanks of that body for successful military operations, and for the defense of the city of Aiken received the thanks of the state of South Carolina. In 1864 he became the senior cavalry general of the confederate armies. He was appointed professor of philosophy, Louisiana State seminary in 1866, which he declined. He was lawyer and planter, and was elected to the forty-seventh, fortyninth, fiftieth, fifty-first, fifty-second, fifty-third and fifty-fourth congresses and re-elected to the fifty-fifth congress as a democrat. In 1898 he was commissioned a brigadier-general in the United States volunteer army raised for the Cuban war.