SerpApi.Org
President Donald Trump is scheduled to deliver remarks Wednesday afternoon at Wheeler High School in Marietta, Georgia, a campus named after Confederate Gen. Joseph Wheeler. The Trump administration restored the historic names of several Army installations previously associated with Confederate generals through a legal workaround, redesignating the bases to honor different U.S. service members who shared the same surnames.
Wheeler High School students have attempted to change the name of the school for years in order to remove the Confederate general's name from the school. Student activists arguing for a name change uncovered the school's original 1965 yearbook, which explicitly identified the school's namesake as "Confederate General Joseph Wheeler," rebutting any suggestion that the school had been named in honor of other facets of Wheeler’s legacy.
The campaign also noted that Wheeler High opened in 1965, the same year Cobb County integrated its public schools. A Cobb County School Board committee formed to study potentially problematic school names and mascots was later dissolved, leaving the school's name unchanged despite petitions signed by thousands of supporters.
Beyond serving as a Confederate general, Joseph Wheeler has drawn historical scrutiny for his role in the 1864 Ebenezer Creek tragedy. After Union Gen. Jefferson C. Davis ordered a pontoon bridge removed, leaving thousands of formerly enslaved people stranded, Wheeler's Confederate cavalry advanced on the refugees.
Eyewitnesses described Wheeler's troops pursuing the fleeing civilians as hundreds attempted to cross the creek, with many drowning while others were shot, cut down, captured, or returned to slavery. Those accounts have become part of the case made by students and historians who argue that public institutions should not continue honoring Wheeler's name.
