Posted on 12/02/2013 7:25:15 AM PST by NKP_Vet
Refusing to surrender he led his men on an epic 1500 mile flight through the anarchy of a lost war to continue the fight.
Joseph Orville Shelby was born December 12, 1830 in Lexington, Kentucky. He was classically educated at Transylvania University before moving to Missouri. Before the civil war He was a hemp rope manufacturer and espoused the pro-slavery cause and took active part in several shady schemes to make Kansas a slave state. At the beginning of the war he accepted a commission as a Captain of Cavalry in the Missouri Confederate militia, being bloodied at the Battle of Wilson Creek in 1861. He was made a colonel in 1862 and raised his own regiment of cavalry. This regiment grew to the size of a brigade of which he was made the General of at the age of 32 in 1863. He led this "Iron Brigade" on a famous raid on the longest cavalry raid of the war behind Union lines in Missouri. The 43 day raid from September 22 to November 3, 1863, saw Shelby and his 600 man brigade travel over 1,500 miles, inflict more than 1,000 casualties on Union forces, and capture or destroy $2 million worth of enemy supplies. He captured the federal garrisons at Neosho, Greenfield, Stockton, Hermanville, Warsaw, Boonville and Marshall, Missouri. In 1864 the Iron Brigade fought Union troops at the Battle of the Little Blue and the Battle of Westport where it twice saved the Confederate Army it was attached to from defeat. The end of the war found Shelby; now a Major General in Arkansas recruiting for his unit now encamped in Texas awaiting re-enforcement.
(Excerpt) Read more at ar15.com ...
History is interesting and amazing.
I will never understand why they felt that was but also never fault those people who lived within the times and felt the way they did.
is this the real story on which that movie about confederate troops crossing from Texas into mexico?
On a side note he must have been a hell of a leader and great tactician
Great Guy but not the last general. Shelby died in 1897, Longstreet died in 1904.
My 3rd great grandfather was at the Battle of Prairie Grove on the Union side fighting against Gen. Joseph Orville Shelby.
I assume that Shelby County, Texas is named after him.
Nope. Just answered my own question. Named after Issac Shelby, a revolutionary was hero.
His story tells us a lot about how magnanimous the Union was to defeated Confederates.
He not only engaged in insurrection domestically, he fled to Mexico and offered to fight for a foreign emperor.
After the complete failure of his plans, he skulked his way back into the United States and was never prosecuted.
In fact, he became a US Marshal toward the end of his life, taking money from the federal government to enforce the same federal law he evaded.
A very interesting personality.
He was related to Isaac Shelby. The Shelby family was very influential in Kentucky for decades.
Except of course that Westport was a decisive defeat for the Confederates. Shelby's cavalry might well have saved the army from complete destruction, though, mainly by regard actions in the defeat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Westport
Grew up not far from the battle site.
Our local paper, The Up to the Minute News Gazette, announced Shelby’s sudden and unexpected death early this morning. He is survived by family members who were still alive.
It was decided, the paper reported, that Shelby will not be buried in one of the race cars he built.
The Up to the Minute News Gazette is on top of the news like green on a cow pond.
_____________________________
John Wayne's “The Undefeated”, wonder how Shelby would have felt with his character being played by Rock Hudson?
Shelby's Iron Brigade broke up soon after getting to Mexico, he returned to Missouri in about a year. Under Missouri's Drake constitution he would have had to of taken an oath to uphold the Union upon his return.
He also was a witness for the defense at the trial of the famed outlaw Frank James who had rode with Shelby when Quantrill had joined forces with Shelby in Missouri. According to Bob Priddy in his book Across Our Wide Missouri Shelby, “showed up a the trial intoxicated, had to be helped to the witness chair, then carried on a drunken conservation with the judge. He argued with attorneys, tried to get up and shake hands with James, and cussed out Dick Liddil, a member of the gang who had turned state's evidence. He was fined for contempt.”
Jubal Early was another great confederate general who never surrendered. Although “pardoned” by Andrew Johnson he remained “unreconstructed” to the day he died. And he never apologized for serving his country (Virginia).
Was he treated magnanimous too NKP?
LOL
Don’t they just kill you...such effing preeners
they are vomit worthy
as I grow older it’s easy to understand why if hadn’t been expansion of slavery or states rights or armed invasion it woulda been something else
two distinct personality types on the same continent
and now here they come again in their unarmed invasion
Not the last general to pass, the last C.S.A. general to quit the war.
My favorite quote from old Jube is “What a gentle institution slavery must have been to have so well prepared the Negro for the ballet box.”
His sarcasm was aimed at the carpet bagger government which saw the majority of the South Carolina legislature made up of Blacks. Both of Mississippi’s senators were Black. Many Whites were completely disinfranchised and suffered through the “reconstructed government” and its theft of their property, over-taxation, common crime unpunished and unpursued, as well as arrogant and corrupt occupation forces.
He had no command left to surrender.
He ran away to Mexico by himself and then went to Canada.
He was pardoned by Johnson, and as soon as he was sure he was pardoned he came back to the US and got his law license reinstated.
Because of his dismissal by Lee, the debate over his "greatness" as a general is ongoing.
One of the reasons why he was dismissed was because of his smallminded carping in which he blamed his own troops for his failure at Cedar Creek.
Few people could compete with John B. Gordon in terms of who was the most "unreconstructed" - and Gordon, who surrendered at Appomattox with Lee, did not have much regard for the abilities of Early.
The South Carolina population was almost 60% black at the time.
Why wouldn't the state legislature reflect that?
No doubt SC’s large black population gave the then Republicans control but it was because the blacks were influenced/ intimidated to vote for any republican running.
and the governance of the elected republicans was corrupt and destructive
which caused the white people to strengthen the Democratic party, not just in SC but in all southern states. That Dem control continued for a hundred years
and it was pretty corrupt and destructive as well.
Politics really is a cesspool
“The South Carolina population was almost 60% black at the time.
Why wouldn’t the state legislature reflect that?”
Maybe because our goal has never been a pure democracy. And illiterate carpet-bagger-controlled “officials” make for a government that is impossible to live under.
general joe wheeler died in 1906.
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