Wheeler hit Garrard first at Flat Shoals on July 28, turning him back 15 miles from his starting point. Wheeler then split his force, sending half of it after Stoneman. The rest of the troopers he led against McCook, whom he spotted at Lovejoy Station on July 30. Having already done considerable damage, McCook fled at Wheeler’s approach. In a running battle, McCook lost about 500 men, his entire pack train and two guns.

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Stoneman’s column reached Macon on July 30, but the troopers were held on the outskirts of town by the Georgia Militia. Three of Wheeler’s brigades, under Brig. Gen. Alfred Iverson, arrived the next day and cut Stoneman off at Sunshine Creek. Like McCook, Stoneman ran for it — and like McCook, he did not make it. Stoneman made a stand with one brigade at Hillsboro, hoping to slow the Southern horsemen long enough for his other two brigades to get away. He was overrun, and instead of freeing the Union prisoners, he and 700 of his troopers joined them. One of Stoneman’s other bri-gades was also caught and destroyed.

Hood, full of praise for Wheeler, sent the cavalryman forth again in less than a week. At the same time, he sent Forrest in another direction. Hood was hopeful that this combined movement would compel Sherman to retreat for want of supplies, and thus allow me an opportunity to fall upon his rear with our main body.

In five days, Wheeler’s men ripped up 30 miles of railroad track and burned a bridge on the Etowah River. They ordered Union troops in Dalton to surrender on August 14, but Colonel Bernard Laiboldt’s men held off two assaults in two days. After that, Wheeler headed northeast, almost to Knoxville, burning a second bridge at Strawberry Plains. Then he crossed the Tennessee River and turned southwest.

Wheeler tore up more railroad tracks on the way to Tuscumbia, Ala. On his 28th birthday, he crossed back to the south side of the river, saying later that he averaged 25 miles a day, swam or forded 27 rivers and seized 1,000 horses and mules, 200 wagons, 600 prisoners and 1,700 head of beef cattle. Wheeler’s cavalry force also captured, killed or wounded three times the greatest effective strength it has ever been able to carry into action. He lost 150 men killed and wounded, along with a number of stragglers who were captured.

But all of Wheeler’s efforts were not enough. Hood now learned the same lesson Sherman had: Cavalry raids alone could not compel an enemy to retreat. Worse, while Wheeler and Forrest were away, Hood was driven out of Atlanta on September 1. When Hood marched north, Wheeler was left behind, becoming the only major force opposing Sherman in his March to the Sea. For the most part, he was not strong enough even to make Sherman pay attention to him.

But Fightin’ Joe Wheeler’s men continued to fight — first under Maj. Gen. Wade Hampton, then under Joe Johnston — holding off the Federals as best they could until they heard of Lee’s surrender on April 9, 1865. Wheeler fled for Texas, hoping to keep up the fight from there. It was not to be. His party was caught just east of Atlanta.

Wheeler spent two months in prison. After his parole, he married a woman he had met during the war. They moved to Loui-siana and opened a hardware store. Four years later, he sold the store and bought a farm in Alabama, near his wife’s family. He then passed the bar and set up a law practice. In 1880 Wheeler ran for a seat in the House of Representatives and lost, but he won in 1883, serving for the next 16 years. The Army remained his first love, and he kept up with it through an appointment to the House Military Affairs Committee.

When war with Spain came in 1898, President William McKinley commissioned a number of ex-Confederates, Wheeler among them. Now a major general of U.S. Volunteers, Wheeler commanded the Cavalry Division in the invasion of Cuba. Malaria compelled Wheeler to relinquish command of the division to brevet Brig. Gen. Samuel S. Sumner before the assaults up San Juan Hill and Kettle Hill on July 1, but Wheeler managed to rise from his sick-bed in time to participate in the battle. At the sight of blue-coated Spaniards retreating, he reportedly yelled: Hurrah! We’ve got the damn Yankees on the run!

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