of Johnston's army in April, 1865. He had shortly before been promoted to the highest rank, being made a lieutenant-general February 28, 1865. Forrest, his rival raider, received the same honor at the same time. General Wheeler was not an imposing figure of a soldier to look at, being a short, thin man, of not over one hundred and ten pounds' weight. But he was active, wiry, and hustling, a storehouse of energy, and in field service was without a rival. It is said that during the war he was under fire in more than eight hundred skirmishes and commander in over two hundred battles. The war ended, Wheeler went quietly back to the ordinary business of life, settling in Alabama, where he became a planter and a lawyer. He engaged also actively in politics and in 1881 became a member of Congress, in which he remained until 1900, with the exception of the two years 1884-85. His Congressional service did not prevent his coming to the aid of the Government when a new war broke out, that with Spain in 1898, in which the veteran trooper took an active part. 66 It was in the evening of the 21st of April, 1898, that the startling message, War is declared!" was flashed over the wires from Washington to Key West, and at an early hour of the next morning a fleet of warvessels waiting there was on its way to sea to blockade the Cuban coast. On the 23d President McKinley issued a call for a volunteer force of one hundred and twenty-five thousand men. This force was much increased at a later date, and was divided into infantry corps and a cavalry division, the latter being put under command of General Wheeler, appointed major-general of volunteers. The old war-horse of the Confederacy, now over sixty years of age, responded with alacrity to the call for his services, and was quickly at work at Tampa, Florida, engaged in organizing the recruits as they came in. The most notable of the regiments in his command were those popularly known as the "Rough Riders," they being made up principally of cowboys from the West, and partly of expert horsemen from the East. One of these three regiments had been recruited by Theodore Roosevelt and was known to the people as "Roosevelt's Rough Riders," though it was commanded by Colonel Wood, Roosevelt serving under him as lieutenant-colonel. The first troops to reach Cuba, over fifteen thousand men, included eight troops of the Roosevelt regiment. With these were four troops each of the first and the tenth cavalry, making a total of less than a thousand men under General Wheeler's command. To these men, cavalry in name, but without horses, fell the honor of opening the war in the Santiago campaign. While the work of landing the army and its supplies was still going on, General Wheeler, inspired by his old impetuosity, had led his men to the front and brought them into battle. The Spaniards, outnumbering Wheeler's force, had taken a strong position on a hill covered with dense undergrowth, and had fortified their position with hastily constructed intrenchments, flanked by block-houses. At daybreak on the 24th of June Wheeler ordered an attack on this position. One road ran up the hill, a second wound round its base. The first was taken by the Rough Riders under Wood and Roosevelt, the second by the regulars under General Young. In the fight that followed there was some very hot work. While the cowboys and athletes toiled up the hill under the hot Cuban sun, the regulars forced their way up from the lower road, driving the Spaniards back, step by step. They finally took refuge in the block-house in front of the Rough Riders. The latter had meanwhile been losing men under the Spanish fire, and now made a furious charge upon the block-house, Wood leading the right, Roosevelt the left, leaders and men rushing on with the cowboy yell. That rush did the work. Before the block-house could be reached the Spaniards broke and fled, followed by a hail of bullets from the victors. The first land battle of the war was at an end. It had opened the way to Santiago. In this, their first victory on Cuban soil, sixteen Americans were killed and sixty-two wounded, the Spanish loss being considerably heavier. A week later, on July 1, came the principal battle of the war. The army now lay spread out in a curving line about five miles long, fronting a range of hills and valleys which the Spaniards had strongly fortified. One of their strongest positions was at the old town of El Caney, faced by General Lawton and his infantry corps. A second was at the village of San Juan, crowning a steep hill which was well fortified, and defended by cannon. In front of this lay General Wheeler's force, consisting of three regiments and one battalion of cavalry, of which only two troops were mounted. Colonel Wood was in immediate command. The men were obliged to wade the San Juan River to get into line, and this was done under heavy fire from the Spanish works on the hill, which rose before them about three hundred feet high. A charge by these troops was not contemplated, but they were losing severely where they stood, and it was necessary either to advance or to retreat. Under these circumstances General Wheeler gave the word to advance. Instantly, with a yell of vengeance, the men sprang forward and charged in fury, soon reaching the foot of the hill and then rushing up it in face of a severe fire from the works. In front of the Rough Riders rode Roosevelt, the only mounted man in the line, filled with the battle fury, and waving his hat and shouting to his men as he led on. Nothing could stop the gallant fellows. A murderous fire swept their ranks, but on up the hill they went, their lines thinning, but every man on his feet pressing upward, until the crest was reached, and they swarmed over the breastworks and into the block-house, driving out the defenders in wild haste and revenging their own losses upon them as they fled down the opposite slope. It was like the charge at Missionary Ridge, as sudden and unexpected, and as successful. There was fighting on the following two days, and then the siege began which ended on the 18th in the surrender of Santiago. General Wheeler took part in the negotiations which led to this result, and with this his service in Cuba was practically at an end. But the fighting spirit was not yet taken out of the old dragoon. He was reëlected to Congress after the war, but in 1899 he went to the Philippine Islands, where he took part in the fighting against Aguinaldo and his army. His campaign here was a brief but active one, he fighting in twelve engagements in ten days. In 1900 he was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general in the United States army, and shortly afterwards was placed on the retired list of army officers, having passed the legal age of retirement. He died on the 25th of January, 1906. |