Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/759

Rh the retreat to Tupelo, he was sent on a raid in West Tennessee in command of a cavalry brigade, as preliminary to the advance into Kentucky. His battles during Bragg’s Kentucky campaign; his resistance to Buell’s advance upon Munfordville, which enabled Bragg to capture the fort and garrison with over 4,000 prisoners; his skillful fighting and gallant charges at Perryville, driving the enemy and capturing a battery, won for him at once an enduring reputation as a cavalry leader. On July 13th Bragg appointed this young colonel chief of cavalry of the army of Mississippi, with authority to give orders in the name of the commanding general, and the duty of covering the rear of the army and holding the enemy in check. During the retreat he fought his men in mounted charge, dismounted behind stone fences or rail breast works, displaying wonderful fertility of resource, and as the result of his efforts, instead of the disaster which seemed inevitable, the army reached Middle Tennessee without losing any of its immense and slow moving trains. From August 2yth to October 226. his cavalry was in almost daily fighting. After this &quot; Wheeler’s cavalry&quot; were household words, and &quot;Little Joe&quot; Wheeler, as his men affectionately called him, was the pride of the Central South. At Murfreesboro, a brigadier-general in division command of all the Confederate cavalry brigades, he made a raid around the Federal army, and, in the fierce attack upon Rosecrans left, led his men in a resistless charge over cavalry, infantry and artillery. Two weeks later, he made another raid in the enemy s rear, capturing four large transports and four hundred prisoners on the Cumberland river, and also capturing and destroying a gunboat which pursued him. General Bragg immediately asked &quot; his promotion as a just reward to distinguished merit, and the rank of major-general was conferred. He ably covered Bragg’s retreat to Chattanooga, and after distinguished service in command of the cavalry at Chickamauga, and the