JOSEPH WHEELER
WHEELER, JOSEPH, cadet at West Point, New York, at seventeen; second lieutenant United States cavalry at twenty-two; first lieutenant Confederate States Artillery and colonel of infantry at twenty-four; brigadier-general Confederate States army at twenty-five; major-general and corps commander at twenty-six; lieutenant-general at twenty-eight; planter and lawyer in Alabama after the close of the Civil war; elected a representative from the eighth district of Alabama to the United States congress ten times, 1880-1900; major-general and corps commander United States volunteers, 1898; brigadier-general United States army 1900; was born in Augusta, Georgia, September 10, 1836; son of Joseph and Julia Knox (Hull) Wheeler. His father was a planter and merchant in Augusta, Georgia, having removed from Derby, Connecticut where his grandparents, Joseph and Lucy (Smith) Wheeler, resided. His mother who died when he was five years of age, was a daughter of General William (1753-1825) and Sarah (Fuller) Hull, of Derby, Connecticut and Newton, Massachusetts. His first American ancestors were Moses Wheeler, born in Kent, England, January 5, 1598; John and Lydia Newdigate, who came from London, England, to Boston in 1632; Richard Hull of Derbyshire, England, who was a freeman of Dorchester, Massachusetts Bay colony, in 1634, removed to New Haven Colony in 1639 "because he would not endure Puritanism," and of Thomas Clark of Plymouth said to have been a mate of the Mayflower. Joseph Wheeler was a student at the Cheshire academy, Cheshire, Connecticut, was graduated at the United States military academy with the class of 1859 and was assigned to the 1st regiment dragoons United States army. He was in the cavalry school, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 1859, and was appointed to the 3d regiment United States cavalry June 26, 1860. He resigned from the United States army April 22, 1861, and was at once commissioned first lieutenant in the Confederate States army and assigned to the artillery. On September 4, 1861, he was transferred to the infantry with the rank of colonel. He commanded the 19th Alabama regiment in the 3d
