Anecdotal material only.

He was born on his family plantation located in Richmond County, Georgia, four or five miles from what was then Augusta, but now of course swallowed up by urban/surbaban sprawl. The location of his family plantation is marked by a historical marker in what is now a purely residential enghborhood on, of all things, Wheeler Road, named, if not for Joe, for his family, and a major transportation artery in the Augusta area. For golf aficianados, the home would be no more than one and a half or two miles, at most, from the Augusta National Golf Course -- The Masters.

I have just finished going over some material on the Campbell's Station engagment, and Wheerler's cavalry, which had been lent to Longstreet by Bragg, was operating east of the Tennessee while Longstreet with the infantry was west fo the river. G.; Moxley Sorrell, one of Longstreet's staff officers, made the comment that Wheeler liked to call himself "the War Child," as in "the War Child rides tonight."

What I've always considered peculiar and refelctive of his ability is that he actually served as a general in two different armies. He of course granduated form the U. S. Militayr Academy, and served as a junior lieutenant until the outbreak of war. When Georgia seceded, he resigned his commission, and joined the Confederate armies, and was eventually promted to Major General.

When the Spanish-American War broke out, the Federal government commissioned (or would it be, re-commissioned) a handful of former Confederate commanders -- W. H. F. Lee, Matthew Calbraith Butler, and Joseph Wheeler immediately come to mind -- who had formerly served as Copnfederate generals. To my knowledge, Wheeler is the only one, however, who held a psot of commanding actual fighting troops; he was commanding a divison, if I recall correctly, in the Santiago Campaign.