Frank Wheaton-Union Army
(1833 - 1903)
Frank Wheaton was the youngest of the Rhode Islanders to become general, but he saw the most combat. Born in Providence in 1833, he was studying engineering when he left Brown University at age seventeen to take a position on a survey of the Mexican-American Boundary Commission. For five years he surveyed in the southwest and encountered hostile Comanches and Apaches. He was in Sonora, Mexico, when he received an appointment as lieutenant in the 1st United States Cavalry. Until the Civil War, Wheaton served throughout the West in Indian campaigns and on other duty. When the war broke out, the parents of Wheaton’s wife, Maria, sided with the Confederacy. On July 16, 1861, Wheaton was appointed lieutenant colonel of the 2nd Rhode Island Volunteers and five days later was promoted to the colonelcy at the Battle of Bull Run by Governor William Sprague, who was on the battlefield, following the death of Colonel John Slocum. Wheaton led his Rhode Islanders in the battles on the Peninsula and he was commended for his conduct at the Battle of Williamsburg. At Antietam his horse was hot dead under him, the first of five to share that fate during the war. Promoted in November 1862 to command a brigade in the 6th Corps, Wheaton fought with the Army of the Potomac at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg. He led a division to the relief of Washington during the Confederate raid of 1864 and in General Philip Sheridan’s subsequent campaign in the Shenandoah Valley. For his services with Sheridan, Wheaton was brevetted major general in the regular and volunteer armies.
After Appomattox, he was mustered out of the volunteers in 1866, and became lieutenant colonel of the 39th Infantry. He saw extensive service in the West. He led the 1873 expedition against Captain Jack and his band of Modocs in the Lava Beds of northern California. After an army career of 48 years, 55 battles or skirmishes, and successive promotions to the rank of major general, Frank Wheaton died in Washington, D.C., in 1903. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, where a monument erected by the State of Rhode Island marks his grave.
The monument was dedicated on October 19, 1904, the fortieth anniversary of the Battle of Cedar Creek, in which action General Wheaton had distinguished himself. The monument committee, in its report to the Rhode Island General Assembly, declared, “In honoring the memory of General Wheaton our State has honored itself. General Wheaton was a Rhode Island man, with all the pride in his native State that every true son of Rhode Island should feel. His career in the service of our country was a noble one, and won the reward that comes to a brave and faithful soldier.”
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After Appomattox, he was mustered out of the volunteers in 1866, and became lieutenant colonel of the 39th Infantry. He saw extensive service in the West. He led the 1873 expedition against Captain Jack and his band of Modocs in the Lava Beds of northern California. After an army career of 48 years, 55 battles or skirmishes, and successive promotions to the rank of major general, Frank Wheaton died in Washington, D.C., in 1903. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, where a monument erected by the State of Rhode Island marks his grave.
The monument was dedicated on October 19, 1904, the fortieth anniversary of the Battle of Cedar Creek, in which action General Wheaton had distinguished himself. The monument committee, in its report to the Rhode Island General Assembly, declared, “In honoring the memory of General Wheaton our State has honored itself. General Wheaton was a Rhode Island man, with all the pride in his native State that every true son of Rhode Island should feel. His career in the service of our country was a noble one, and won the reward that comes to a brave and faithful soldier.”
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