"Fightin' Joe" Wheeler. By John P. Dyer.
University, La.: Louisiana State University Press, 1941. Pp. ix,
417. Illustrations. $3.00.

"Fightin' Joe" Wheeler was a curious mixture of a man. An
audacious cavalry raider like Moseby when operating as one
unit of a larger force, he proved time and again his inability
to "successfully conduct large scale, independent cavalry oper-
ations." Timid in imaginative planning, he was daring in the
execution of others' plans.

A West Pointer, Wheeler began his military career in the
Confederacy in North Alabama as a lieutenant. He rose rapidly
to a major-generalship and did most of his fighting in Ten-
nessee and Georgia, serving ably under Johnston and Hood. He
harassed Sherman's rear through Georgia and South Carolina
and on into North Carolina, where at the close of the war
he was captured by Federal forces.

Sometime after the war and his imprisonment, Wheeler en-
tered politics in Alabama as a somewhat unorthodox Bourbon.
Elected to Congress, he served until the Spanish-American war,
when he volunteered for service, even though it meant donning
the uniform of the United States Army; as he said to one of
his friends, he was almost afraid he'd shoot himself. As Major-
General of Volunteers, he saw actual service in Cuba; his
sixty-one years proved more than equal to the hardship of the
tropical campaign. His closing years, like those of many heroes,
were embittered with a controversy over his management of
Camp Wikoff after the war.

The career of General Wheeler is clearly and simply outlined
in this contribution to the Southern Biography Series of the
Louisiana State University Press. Dyer, a great story-teller in
his own right, has enlivened a rather factual treatment with
many Wheeler stories. Wheeler was primarily a man of action,
and his extant manuscripts give the biographer little insight
into the person. There is necessarily, therefore, relatively little
on Wheeler's personal life; it is the public character, the mili-
tary commander, the politician whom we meet in these pages.

The book itself is an attractive addition to the growing issues
of the Louisiana State University Press. There is a good index
and a critical bibliography of the useful type.

Agnes Scott College.

Philip Davidson.

How to cite:
""Fightin' Joe" Wheeler", Volume 45, Number 4, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v045/n4/review_DIVL6963.html
[Accessed Tue Nov 24 1:32:05 CST 2009]