On New Battlegrounds

"General, don't let down any of the people. Remember all of our citizens, Sir," counseled Professor W. H. Councill, the most important African-American leader in North Alabama and president of Alabama Normal College in Huntsville, Alabama. A leading Republican, Council, like most practical leaders, accepted the shifting of power after Rutherford B. Hayes and the GOP abandoned black empowerment in the old Confederacy. Allies were needed in all sorts of camps to keep some of the blood purchased rights African-Americans had practiced for over a decade, active participatory citizenship.

Joseph Wheeler, one-time career soldier, now forty-four year old planter - lawyer and Democratic candidate for the US Congress representing the 8th District of north Alabama, shook hands with the dignified and well-spoken professor.

Joseph Wheeler II, by heritage and education: Connecticut Yankee merchants, early schooling there and at West Point, NY; and experience - US Army service in the southwest, Confederate General all over the mid-south, New Orleans businessman, Alabama planter and lawyer - was given the opportunity to be an agent of reconciliation and renewal for his region and nation. The "calling" of clergy is but one way of being. Others are called to be for life or against it in a huge variety of ways. Joseph Wheeler was about being and doing that which he saw as right and good. As everyone he wasn't always successful or his path straight but he was faithful to his call.