While he certainly had an impact on the war, thanks to patronage from Bragg and Leroy Pope Walker, there were at least two instances where he and his troops were suspected of improprieties. Only a few months after the war, a Union officer met up with Wheeler in a Nashville hotel and gave him a rather nice beating. (Which wasn't very hard as Wheeler weighted only 80 pounds!) This was supposedly for Wheeler's conduct during the war.

In a little known post war incident in Lawrence County history, Wheeler and his brother in law were indicted for murder. Wheeler, using his wife's incredible wealth, managed to get his own indictment dropped, and kept his brother in law's case from going to trial until "Little Joe" had studied law and become an attorney. (Yep, you guessed it.) Wheeler then became his former co-conspirator's lawyer! Not only that, but Wheeler managed to get political friends to establish a new court in Courtland (rather than the regular court in Moulton, the county seat), and got the case transferred. (Courtland was, of course, very near his wife's vast plantation, known as Pond Springs.) Then, to add insult to injury, Wheeler and his brother in law rented to the new court a building they owned!! Need I say the brother in law was acquitted?

In 1866, (I believe it was, but I'm writing all of this from memory as I don't have my notes at hand) Wheeler had some young black children (I believe one was 5 years old) declared to be destitute with no means of support and, under the prevailing law, generously offered to put them to work in his cotton fields in return for food and shelter. (Trying to perpetuate slavery?) Oddly enough, these same children are on the 1870 Lawrence County census with their apparent parents. Don't know the full story on this yet, but suspect that the Freemen's Bureau might have been involved.

At the war's end Wheeler was bankrupt. His home in Georgia had been destroyed. He remembered the young, fabulously wealthy widow he had met while making his headquarters at Pond Springs and married her. She was from a wealthy Lawrence County family and had married into the very richest local family, the Sherrods. Her first husband died very soon after the wedding. Her first father in law, Ben Sherrod, was possibly the richest man to ever live in Lawrence County. He owned several huge plantations in AL. He was the driving force of, and put up most of the money for, the first railroad in the state of Al. Pond Spring Plantation was merely one of the many original Sherrod plantations. Today, this historic site is owned by the state of Alabama and is open for tours. (Although at the moment it is temporarily closed for repairs.) The house contains Wheeler's swords, uniforms, original furniture, papers, etc. Everyone with an interest in the Civil War in Alabama should be sure to see it.