MAJOR GENERAL JOSEPH "FIGHTIN' JOE" WHEELER - AUTOGRAPH CIRCA 1898 - HFSID 40155

JOSEPH WHEELER
Card signed in brown ink
Signature: "Jos Wheeler.", 3¼x2. Dated at lower left in unknown hand: "Apr 12, 1898". In the year he signed this autograph, "Fighting Joe" Wheeler (1836-1906) would leave his Congressional seat after being commissioned by President William McKinley as Major General of Volunteers in Cuba during the Spanish-American War (Wheeler's troops would include those of Leonard Wood and Theodore Roosevelt's "Rough Riders"). Wheeler, who graduated West Point in 1859, had enlisted in the Confederate cause and by late 1862 was commander of cavalry for the Army of Mississippi. He served as operations leader of the Western theater for the duration of the war and became Lieutenant General of the Army of Tennessee in February of 1865. Wheeler earned his nickname because he was usually in the thick of the battle. It is estimated that he engaged in some 500 skirmishes and commanded 127 battles, resulting in Wheeler being wounded three times and having 16 horses shot from beneath him. His troops were almost alone in opposing General William T. Sherman's march through Georgia. After the war, Wheeler served intermittently from 1881 to 1900 as a U.S. Congressman from Alabama. During the Spanish-American War, he was a senior member of the commission that negotiated the surrender of Santiago and the Spanish army in Cuba, and he also led a brigade in the Philippines. He was promoted to Brigadier General in the U.S. Army in June 1900. Fine condition. Framed to an overall size of 21¼x16¼.