"Come on! We've got the damn Yankees on the run!"

Via Billy Historic Pond Spring, General Joe Wheeler Home in Hillsboro open after restoration effort The commanders in Cuba made their reputations as generals during the American Civil War -- on opposite sides. Maj. Gen. William Shafter commanded the V Corps, which invaded Cuba. He had been a Union brigadier general. Maj. Gen. "Fighting Joe"Wheeler led a division of V Corps. During the Civil War he commanded the cavalry of the Confederate Army of Tennessee. During the charge up San Juan Hill,Wheeler forgot where he was and, as the Spanish ran from their positions, he yelled, "Come on! We've got the damn Yankees on the run!" "Come On! We've Got The Damn Yankees On The Run!"

Pond Spring, home to the historic Victorian-era home of Gen. Joe Wheeler and his family, is now open after a three-phase, $2 million restoration effort (Courtesy photo).

HILLSBORO, Alabama -- Meandering under a lush canopy of kudzu-tangled red oaks, Kara Long walked toward the resting place of three families from the 19th and 20th centuries.

"This is the family cemetery," said Long, curator of the 50-acre Pond Spring, the historic grounds best known for its final residents, the Wheelers. "But he's not buried here."

Long ends her tour of the plantation, commonly referred to as the Gen. Joseph Wheeler home, by noting that the Napoleon-sized soldier -- and later congressman -- is one of only two Confederate generals buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

"He had the honor of being buried there because of his service to the U.S. after the Civil War," said Long, a veritable encyclopedia of everything Pond Spring.

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