You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hey everyone. Welcome to episode number 528 of our Civil War podcast. I'm Rich.

And I'm Tracy. Hello, y'all. Thanks for tuning into the podcast.

As you guys will recall, at the end of the last episode, we said that we'd been asked to speak on one of those

American cruise lines historical tours, a riverboat cruise up the Tennessee River from Shiloh to

Chattanooga, and, well, we're back.

It was our first cruise of any kind and our first time participating in a tour like that,

so it was a completely new experience for us.

We have to say the American Cruise Lines staff on the ship, the American Symphony, was fantastic.

We're talking top-notch customer service.

Yep, and the folks who had us drop into the middle of their Civil War tour package were lovely.

They were very gracious and patient with us with everything that went on while we were with them.

And for us, it was definitely, you know, a working vacation. And I have to admit, we were

ridiculously glad to get home. And so full disclosure, with just getting home from that trip,

and with this being a holiday weekend, with Memorial Day, we were looking for the path of least resistance as far as

getting a new episode out to everyone. And we thought, hey, why not just use one of the presentations

we gave on the cruise? So this is a talk that Rich gave on the cruise about Joe Wheeler.

And it was neat because the next day, when the ship was docked in Florence, Alabama,

the Civil War Group took a short bus ride to visit Wheeler's home at Pond Spring.

All of that is a long way to say that this week you guys are getting an episode on the life of Joe Wheeler.

And we'll get back to the Atlanta campaign with the next show.

To say that Joseph Wheeler led a remarkable life is a bit of an understatement.

He was a Confederate cavalry general during the Civil War, and later was a U.S.

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