I45252: Mildred COMPTON (ABT 1710

Notes

"Local group: Don't lose Wheeler's contribution to the Confederacy By Deangelo McDaniel DAILY Staff Writer [email protected] · 340-2469

"WHEELER — A local chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans is concerned that Gen. Joe Wheeler's contribution to the Confederacy may be lost at his historic home near Hillsboro.

"We are worried that General Wheeler's life and contributions will be put second," said Leland Free, who is camp commander of the Lt. J.K. McBride Camp 241.

The Alabama Historical Commission owns the property that is going through a multimillion-dollar restoration. The state plans to open the plantation as an interpretive tourist site.

A group of descendants of confederate veterans were to meet in Moulton with former state Rep. Angelo Mancuso last week. Mancuso is a member of the Alabama Historical Commission, but he did not attend the meeting.

Free showed promotional leaflets the state printed that changed the name of the site from Wheeler Plantation in 1999 to Pond Spring in 2000.

"The man is what makes the site and by changing the name (it) makes it easy to minimize his contributions or phase him out," Free said.

Site Director Melissa Beasley did not attend the meeting, but she stated previously that the decision to use Pond Spring was not designed to exclude Wheeler and his family. She said the name change is designed to include all of the families that have inhabited the historical site in Lawrence off Alabama 20 at Wheeler.

The historical name of the property is Pond Spring, but the Wheelers were the last family to own the site before Lucy LeGrand, the general's granddaughter, deeded 50 acres to the state in 1995.

Myers Brown is an AHC curator at Pond Spring. He attended the meeting at the Stockyard Steakhouse in Moulton and took questions from the audience.

Brown, a Civil War historian, said Wheeler would be the center of attention at Pond Spring, but added that other stories about the plantation will be told.

"We know that the big drawing card will be Joe Wheeler," he said.

Bill Carraway questioned Brown about the "Big House." He wanted to know why the state is not restoring the home to the 1870 period when Wheeler lived in Lawrence County.

Brown said Wheeler's daughter, Annie Wheeler, opened the house to the public in the 1920s and made it a shrine to her father. "She put his property on display," Brown said.

He said visitors would see Wheeler the way his daughter wanted him to be seen.

"You can't get a more perfect picture than the one Annie presented of him," Brown said.

By restoring the site to the 1920 period, Brown said the state would be able to keep the boxwood gardens, restore buildings workers constructed after Wheeler's death and tell the general's life through his daughter.

Carraway said he is concerned that the state will remove all signs of the Confederacy.

"Will there be a (Confederate) flag in the home?" he asked.

Brown said he has not seen any evidence that there was a Confederate flag visible in the home.

Pond Spring has 12 historical buildings, three family cemeteries and a slave cemetery.

John Hickman, one of the earliest settlers in Lawrence County, was the first owner of Pond Spring. Col. Ben Sherrod, who built the first railroad in Alabama, purchased the 1,760-acre plantation from Hickman. Sherrod's grandson inherited the plantation. He married Daniella Jones, who lived at nearby Caledonia plantation. After the death of her husband, Jones married Wheeler in 1866.

Wheeler constructed the "Big House" in the 1870s and most of the items in the home belong to the Wheeler family. Beasley said the pre-Civil War furnishings probably belonged to the Hickmans and Sherrods." Src: THE DECATUR DAILY 201 1st Ave. SE P.O. Box 2213
Decatur, Ala. 35609 (256) 353-4612 [email protected]

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.com/jwheeler.htm "Born near Augusta, Georgia, September 10, 1836, he graduated from West Point in 1859 and was commissioned in Dragoons. He saw service in various Indian campaigns in Kansas and New Mexico before resigning in April 1861 to become First Lieutenant of Artillery in the Confederate Army.
In September 1861 he was appointed Colonel of the 19th Alabama Infantry. He commanded a Brigade at Pittsburg Landing (Shiloh), April 6-7, 1862, where he covered the Confederate retreat on the second day, and in July was given command of the Cavalry in General Braxton Bragg's Army of Mississippi. Thereafter he was almost continuously in the field.

During the remainder of the war he was to be wounded three times and had sixteen horses shot from under him. After leading Bragg's advance into Kentucky in August-September, distinguishing himself at Perryville, October 8, and covering the retreat from that battle. He was promoted to Brigadier General, CSA, at the end of October. At Stones River (Murfreesboro) from December 31, 1862 to January 3, 1863, he again distinguished himself after having skillfully delayed General William Starke Rosecrans' advance. In January 1863 he was promoted to Major General.

He took a prominent part in the Battle of Chickamauga, September 18-20, 1863 and, after Rosecrans was shut up in Chattanooga, undertook a spectacular cavalry raid to the Union rear in which he and his men destroyed railroad lines by which Rosecrans was to be re-supplied, and inflicted more that $3 million in damage to support depots and other resources in and around Central Tennessee. In November he cooperated with General James Longstreet in the siege of Knoxsville and, following Bragg's defeat at Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, November 24-25, helped cover the later's retreat, taking part under General Patrick R. Cleburne in a rearguard action at Ringgold, November 27.

In 1864, he was active in opposing General William T. Sherman's advance toward Atlanta, engaging Union cavalry of George Stoneman on several occasions. During Sherman's March to the Sea, Wheeler fell back slowly in advance of him. He kept a close watch on Federal raiders and foragers on the flanks and thereby confined the destruction to as narrow a front as possible. In February 1865 (aged 28) he was promoted to Lieutenant General. He fought under General Joseph E. Johnston against Sherman in the Carolinas and, after Johnston's surrender, was captured near Atlanta.

After the war, he entered business in New Orleans; moved in 1868 to Wheeler, Alabama, to practice law and plant cotton. He entered Congress in march 1881, but in June 1882 his seat was successfully contested. His successor soon died and he was elected to the same seat in January 1883 for the last two months of the term. He was again elected to Congress in 1884 and served from March 1885 until his resignation in April 1900. As he rose to the Chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee, the high rank and personal popularity he had achieved in the Civil War made him something of a symbol of the reunion of the North and South in that period.

At the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898, he offered his services and was appointed a Major General of U.S. Volunteers by President William McKinley in May and was given command of a Cavalry Division (largely unmounted) in William R. Shafter's V Corps. Troops under his command (including Leonard Wood's and Theodore Roosevelt's 'Rough Riders') won the Battle of Las Guasimas, June 24, and took part in the assault on San Juan Heights before Santiago de Cuba on July 1, where they formed the U.S. right while Jacob F. Kent's Infantry Division formed the left. At the conclusion of that campaign, he commanded briefly the convalescent camp at Montauk Point, New York, and also briefly commanded a Brigade in the Philippines, August 1899-January 1900. He was mustered out of the volunteer service and was appointed Brigadier General, United States Army in June 1900. He then commanded the Department of the Lakes until his retirement in September 1900.

He died at his sister's home in Brooklyn, New York, on January 25, 1906 and was buried in Section 2 of Arlington National Cemetery, one of only two former Confederate generals to be buried in Arlington, the other being Marcus Joseph Wright.

Photo Courtesy of the National Archives

Courtesy of the U.S. House of Representatives:
Representative from Alabama; born in Augusta, Ga., September 10, 1836; attended local schools and the Episcopal Academy, Cheshire, Conn.; was graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, 1859; attended the Cavalry School at Carlisle, Pa., 1859-1860; transferred to the Mounted Rifles June 26, 1860; second lieutenant September 1, 1860, and served in New Mexico; resigned from the United States Army February 27, 1861; appointed lieutenant of Artillery in the Confederate Army on April 3, 1861; successively promoted to the grade of colonel, brigadier general, and major general, and was commissioned lieutenant general in February 1865; in 1862 was assigned to the command of the Army Corps of Cavalry of the Western Army, continuing in that position until the war closed; senior Cavalry general of the Confederate Armies May 11, 1864; studied law; was admitted to the bar and engaged in practice at Wheeler, Ala., and also became a planter; presented credentials as a Democratic Member-elect to the Forty-seventh Congress and served from March 4, 1881, to June 3, 1882, when he was succeeded by William M. Lowe, who contested his election; subsequently elected to the same Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of William M. Lowe and served from January 15 to March 3, 1883; elected as a Democrat to the Forty-ninth and to the seven succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1885, to April 20, 1900, when he resigned; chairman, Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Treasury (Fiftieth Congress), Committee on Territories (Fifty-third Congress); served in the Spanish-American War; commissioned major general of Volunteers May 4, 1898, and assigned to command of a Cavalry division, United States Army; senior member of the commission which negotiated the surrender of Santiago and the Spanish Army in Cuba; during the Philippine Insurrection commanded the First Brigade, Second Division, Eighth Army Corps, in the Tarlac campaign and in several other operations in central Luzon from July 8, 1899, to January 24, 1900; commissioned brigadier general in the United States Regular Army June 16, 1900; retired September 10, 1900; died in Brooklyn, N.Y., January 25, 1906; interment in Arlington National Cemetery.

Statue of Joseph Wheeler which is located in the National Statuary Hall In The US Capitol Building. It represents the State of Alabama.

Photo by Michael Robert Patterson
Photos Courtesy of Ron Williams"

[351445]
at his sister's home

[351446]
one of only two former Confederate generals to be buried in Arlington, the other being Marcus Joseph Wright.

My Southern Family

Mildred COMPTON

ABT 1710 - ____

ID Number: I45252

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Edward P. GRAVES

5 May 1824 - 20 Jun 1918

ID Number: I93231

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Rebecca HITE

ABT 1760 - ____

ID Number: I89315

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Anne HOLMES

19 Dec 1695 - 11 Mar 1736

ID Number: I22477

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James Ludlow HOYT

21 Apr 1903 - 21 Nov 1985

ID Number: I20107

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Eliza LANE

ABT 1800 - ____

ID Number: I41931

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Jasper O. MCCANTS C.S.A.

22 Apr 1846 - 25 Sep 1861

ID Number: I7946

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Gen. Hon. Joseph WHEELER C.S.A.

10 Sep 1836 - 25 Jan 1906

ID Number: I70456

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