Editor’s note: part of a series on Civil War notables.
“Fighting Joe” Wheeler was a Confederate cavalry general who led Wheeler’s Raid on a Federal supply train in Sequatchie County in October 1863.
Young Joseph was born near Augusta, Georgia, in September 1836 to Joseph Wheeler, Sr., a New Englander, who worked as a banker, cotton broker and real estate speculator, and Julia Knox Wheeler. After his mother’s death in 1842 and his father’s financial setback following the
Panic of 1837, the family returned to Connecticut, where he spent much of his youth, attending the Episcopal Academy in Cheshire, Connecticut, and still regarding himself a Georgian.
In 1854, at age 17, he entered West Point. He barely met the height requirement of 5 feet, measuring 5 feet 2 inches (and weighing about 120 pounds), and graduated July 1859, ranked 19th of 22 cadets. He was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the U.S. Dragoons, hybrid mounted soldiers trained and equipped to fight both from the saddle and dismounted as infantry.
Stationed in the New Mexico territory, he saw action against Apache warriors, earning the name “Fighting Joe.”