Early Life
Jo Shelby was born on December 12, 1830 to Orville Shelby and his second wife, Anna. The Shelbys were a large, aristocratic family that was closely connected to the leading families of Kentucky. Men from the family had been fighting in various conflicts for the past hundred years, most notably Isaac Shelby, who was a key leader at the battle of King's Mountain during the American Revolution and later became governor of Kentucky. Since both Shelby's father and grandfather died when he was young, his greatest influence was likely his mother's second husband, Benjamin Gratz, who had formerly been her aunt's husband. While growing up with Gratz's sons, Shelby became close friends with John Hunt Morgan, Benjamin Gratz Brown and Francis Preston Blair, Jr., who would all play key roles in the Civil War.

Like most wealthy young men in Kentucky, his youth was spent riding and hunting in the countryside. He had little interest in studying, but he listened to his step-father's advice and did sufficiently well to earn admission to college. After graduation, he began working in his step-father's hemp factory until his step-brother Howard Gratz convinced Shelby to move to Waverly, Missouri, and found their own hemp empire. The young partners were so successful that they bought a huge farm of 700 acres and even founded a town called Berlin near Waverly. As one of the leading men in Missouri, Shelby came to know pro-slavery leaders like Claiborne Jackson and General David Atchison.

Bleeding Kansas
Shelby threw himself into the thriving social life at Waverly until the federal government opened Kansas Territory to settlement and everything changed. Slavery was an extremely divisive issue in the United States, therefore the Missouri Compromise had been adopted in 1820 to prevent conflict. New states above the southern boundary of Missouri (excluding Missouri) would join the Union as a free state, while states located below Missouri automatically became slave states. However, the compromise was broken when Kansas Territory was opened to settlement in 1854. Since the residents of Kansas would vote whether to enter the Union as a slave or free state, this threatened the delicate balance between the two sides. The territory soon became a national issue as abolitionist and pro-slavery groups competed to send more settlers to Kansas in order to tilt the balance in their favor.

Many southerners believed that the existence of their world was endangered by the steady stream of settlers from the east arriving in Kansas, who were nicknamed free soilers because they wanted the territory to become a free state. Their growing numbers and their opposition to slavery could only be considered a threat by someone like Shelby, who had grown up immersed in slave-owning culture. Furthermore, most people in Missouri had originally come from Kentucky, settling the state slowly, and they had expected to repeat the process in Kansas. Instead, Shelby was able to sit on his front porch and watch settler groups from the east, organized by societies such as the Emigrant Aid Society of New England, as they made their way up the Mississippi River to Kansas.

Since they could not match the numbers of eastern settlers, pro-slavery leaders would have to rely on the threat of violence to impose their will on the territory by controlling the elections. Shelby conspired with Jackson, Atchison, General Benjamin Stringfellow and other wealthy Missourians to recruit as many men as possible to cross the border and vote in the election for the territorial legislature on March 30, 1855. Enough money was raised to pay the volunteers a dollar a day and all of the whiskey they could drink. They hoped that if they intimidated the free soil voters and gained control of the legislature, then the free soil settlers would become discouraged and abandon their attempt to make Kansas a free state. Convinced that their overwhelming numbers would deter resistance, the ringers crossed the border as a loud, festive horde the day before the election. Since the Missouri men clearly outnumbered the actual residents of Kansas, no official effort was made to prevent free soil men from voting, although drunk, violently inclined Missouri ruffians may have taken matters into their own hands. Although the pro-slavery leaders left Kansas satisfied in the belief that the matter was solved, the blatant vote rigging filled easterners with fury, while free soil settlers formed armed companies to defend themselves.

Since the free soilers remained in Kansas, another invasion was organized in October 1855. Although the small army of 1,500 Missourians was persuaded to spare Lawrence, the center of the free soilers, a number of Free State homes were looted on the return trip. As one of the leaders of the invasion, Shelby became a target for retaliatory raids by free soilers and his new saw mill was burned to the ground in December, which caused him to develop a hatred of free soilers. Aside from running the hemp business, Shelby became captain of a company of border ruffians. The pro-slavery men achieved their greatest victory in May 1856 when they sacked Lawrence, destroying much of the town, including the offices of two abolitionist newspapers. Unfortunately, this destruction drove the formerly complacent President Franklin Peirce to appoint a more decisive governor. When an even larger army of 2,800 Missourians appeared in late summer, the new governor was backed by federal troops, and the men were forced to return to Missouri.

Although a popular ladies' man and an extremely eligible bachelor, he had fallen hard for the sixteen-year-old daughter of his cousin, and they were married on July 22, 1858. Revenge raids by free staters caused so much damage that Shelby's partner Gratz returned to Kentucky. Deprived of Gratz's sober guiding hand, Shelby's rash business nature and extravagant lifestyle soon burned through much of his capital, and his hemp business was sold in February 1860 to pay off his debts.

Civil War
By this time, it seemed likely that war was coming and Shelby had resolved to fight for the south. However, his cousin Frank Blair had become a strong supporter of Abraham Lincoln, and was determined to keep Missouri in the Union. Governor Clairborne Jackson believed that the residents of Missouri would want to secede from the Union, so he spent months organizing a convention to debate secession. Meanwhile, Blair was able to form a private military organization of German-American volunteers, which drilled in breweries, foundries and tavern halls during the winter. When the convention voted against secession, Claiborne tried to use the pro-southern militia to seize control of the state, but the militiamen were surrounded by Blair's personal army and federal forces under Colonel Nathaniel Lyon. Watching men that he viewed as foreigners arresting leading citizens of Missouri who shared his values was the final factor that made Shelby reject the Union, and he outfitted his company of volunteers at his own expense.

Jackson refused to give up, and called up all of the Missouri State Guard, putting Major General Sterling Price in command. Promoted to brigadier general, Lyon led as many troops as he could spare from St. Louis to prevent Price from linking up with confederate forces from Arkansas under Ben McCulloch.

Shelby's true introduction to war occurred at Wilson's Creek on August 10, 1861. Having failed to stop Price and McCulloch from combining forces, Lyon was outnumbered two to one, but McCulloch was not impressed by the 3,000 badly equipped men with Price. Neglecting to set out patrols, the rebels woke up and found themselves trapped between the pincers of Lyon's main force in the front and a smaller force under Brigadier-General Franz Sigel on the eastern flank. Although taken by surprise, Price managed to rally enough men to hold the line against Lyon and the fighting became fierce as neither side could gain an advantage. The decisive factor occurred when McCulloch managed to rout Sigel, destroying half of the pincer. When Lyon was killed while directing the battle, the leaderless Union troops were forced to retreat.

Although McCulloch decided to not stay with the Missourians, Price chose to move towards Springfield, and Shelby was sent in advance to harass the Union men. Lexington fell after a three day-long siege but news that a powerful Union army was moving towards him convinced Price to abandon Missouri and lead 8,000 cold, hungry men into Arkansas.

Shelby was soon offered the rank of colonel, but he would have to return to Missouri to recruit the men. After an arduous journey, Shelby finally reached his home, and found that the Union governor's decision to order every Missouri man to serve in the Federal militia had produced so much resentment that recruits flocked in. John N. Edwards had become Shelby's adjutant and he would handle all written communication for his commander, which would be produced in an extremely florid style modeled on Sir Walter Scott's historical romances.

Shelby's brigade was assigned to Major-General John Marmaduke's cavalry division. Constant skirmishing wore out Shelby's troops but he still managed to save the cavalry division when Marmaduke found himself trapped at Cane Hill on November 28, 1862 by a force of superior size led by Brigadier-General James Blunt. Realizing that his men would be overwhelmed as a regular rear guard, Shelby made the bold decision to divide his brigade into thirty companies that would be stationed in a line along the road the enemy infantry would follow. When the first company finished firing, it would immediately ride to the end of the line, and the procedure would be followed by each successive company so that the unending stream of fire would convince the enemy troops that they faced a much larger force. Four horses were shot from under Shelby during the retreat, but the tactic was successful.

Blunt's troops retired to a nearby town to rest and celebrate their victory with local liquor, further distancing themselves from the main Union force. Major-General Thomas Hindman, Jr., Marmaduke's superior, thought that this was an ideal opportunity to deal Blunt a decisive defeat before he could receive additional troops. However, when he learned that another Union force was marching to support Blunt, Hindman decided to move his army to block the approaching Union troops. Afraid that he would be attacked from two directions, Hindman chose to dig in at Prairie Grove on December 7, which gave Blunt enough time to arrive with his force while the battle was underway. Hindman was able to pull out under the cover of darkness but he had to abandon northwest Arkansas.

Hoping to keep the federal troops too busy to move into Arkansas, Hindman sent Marmaduke and Shelby on a raid into Missouri. During the raid, he frequently cooperated with guerrillas led by William Quantrill. The raid introduced a pattern that would be common for Shelby's brigade. Days of endless riding and belt-tightening until a friendly plantation owner would provide a feast were punctuated by brief bursts of sharp fighting. Prisoners were eagerly sought in order to be stripped of desperately needed clothes, supplies and ammunition. Despite the daunting nature of the raid, Shelby's brigade earned its nickname "The Iron Brigade" as the men developed the loyalty needed to follow their commanding officer on gruelling, dangerous expeditions. Although they failed to take Springfield, a key federal logistics center, the town was so damaged in the fighting that it would be useless for months.

Lieutenant General Edmund Kirby Smith took command of the Trans-Mississippi Department in January 1863. A more aggressive commander than his predecessor, Kirby Smith authorized an attack on St. Louis as the preliminary step in an invasion of Missouri. In mid-April 1863, Marmaduke sent Shelby into central Missouri to draw federal troops away from St. Louis, at which point Marmaduke would threaten St. Louis, so that units from the south of Missouri would be transferred to protect the city, thus creating an opportunity for an army of Missourians to rise up and retake the state. It is unknown whether the strategy would have worked because Marmaduke deviated from his plan to pursue a retreating Union force commanded by a particularly hated general. When the Union troops were reinforced sooner than expected, Marmaduke had to escape through a swamp while Shelby led another successful rearguard action. The cavalry dragged themselves, their horses and their artillery through the fever-ridden swamp for four days but the men that made it out were not ready to fight for some time.

Although Lincoln had already realized the importance of capturing Vicksburg to deny the Confederacy access to the food, recruits and cotton of the west, the Confederate high command had not, believing that a victory in the east would win the war. However, Kirby Smith gave permission for an attempt to capture Helena, Arkansas, since it would end federal control of Mississippi River. The attack that took place on the Fourth of July was a complicated affair involving simultaneous assaults on all sides of the Union fortifications. Since the units had not practiced the operation before, the timing was off, so the Union forces were able to concentrate against individual Confederate attacks. Accusations flew fast and furious among the Confederate generals, and Marmaduke killed one of his fellow officers in a duel afterwards to settle the matter. Shelby was badly wounded during the battle and spent several weeks recuperating. That day was a dark one for the Confederacy since southern forces suffered two other major reverses that day: Lee's defeat at Gettysburg the previous day and the surrender at Vicksburg.

Shelby's Great Raid Into Missouri
The new Confederate governor of Missouri, Thomas Reynolds, ordered a healed Shelby to launch another raid into Missouri in September. Major-General John Schofield, commander of the Department of Missouri, was dealing with so many guerrilla bands that reports of Shelby's force of 800 men were initially dismissed as just another band of guerrillas. Shelby's firing squads were kept busy executing any Jayhawkers or prisoners suspected of being Confederate deserters. Driving his men hard, Shelby managed to keep the Union forces so off-balance that he escaped every trap while keeping his wagons and artillery. Although Schofield had 50,000 men, he mistakenly thought that Shelby would limit his raiding to southern Missouri and then return to Arkansas, when his actual destination was Jefferson City, the state capital. Furthermore, raiding parties were moving out from the main force cutting every telegraph wire they could find to prevent people reporting the location of Shelby's force. By this time, all of Shelby's men were wearing Union uniforms, since their own Confederate uniforms had long since become rags, which frequently enabled them to enter a town unopposed, especially if it lacked a federal garrison. Every time the Confederates captured a town, they took whatever federal supplies they could carry and burned the rest.

However, by early October, the Federals had figured out his destination and enemy units were approaching from every direction. On October 13, Shelby was nearly trapped at Marshall, but he managed to fight his way free, since his fierce reputation deterred the Union forces from pursuing too closely. The pursuit ended when Shelby crossed the Arkansas River on October 26, after having covered 1,500 miles, making it the longest cavalry raid during the Civil War, so it became known as the Great Raid into Missouri. Since starting his raid on September 22, he had destroyed roughly two million dollars of Union property and supplies.

In recognition of his performance during the raid, Shelby was finally promoted to brigadier general on April 1. Shortly after learning of his promotion, Shelby led his brigade to help stop a Union army under General Frederick Steele that was part of an invasion of Mississippi. Despite several weeks of constant skirmishing and attacks, Marmaduke and Shelby both failed to delay Steele's much larger army for long until Steele's baggage train was captured. Deprived of supplies, Steele had to abandon his move into Mississippi, which led to the failure of the main expedition.

On May 27, 1864, Shelby was appointed commander of the area north of the Arkansas River, and made responsible for enforcing conscription. The region was filled with thousands of men old enough for conscription, and Shelby announced that after June 10, they would either fight for the Union or fight for the Confederacy, but they would have to fight. True to his word, his troops spent the summer riding around executing renegades to intimidate the more stable men into enlisting. That same summer, he managed to destroy the federal ironclad Queen City by positioning his batteries near the river and ambushing the ship at night.

Sterling Price's Missouri Raid
After two months as the dictator of North Arkansas, Shelby had increased his brigade to 5,000 men, so he requested permission to invade Missouri, which was vulnerable since most of its garrison had been sent to support the Federals' eastern offensive. Kirby Smith had already decided to launch such an invasion, under command of Sterling Price, since Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, hoped that if northern voters received enough bad news, they would not re-elect Lincoln. Although Kirby Smith had roughly 40,000 men, he only gave Price the three cavalry divisions of Major-General James Fagan, Marmaduke and Shelby, so it was essentially a large-scale cavalry raid. Price led 12,000 men into Missouri on September 19 but his army was badly-equipped and slowed down by countless camp followers, who all had to be fed. Guerrilla bands led by William Quantrill, Bloody Bill Anderson and George Todd attacked small towns to sow confusion among the Federals, although Price was repulsed by Anderson's habit of scalping dead Union soldiers.

Although Price's army was primarily cavalry and he employed guerrillas as scouts, the Federals forces seemed to maintain the initiative, placing solid forces in St. Louis and Jefferson City, the Confederates' key targets. As the state capital, Jefferson City was especially important since its possession would enable the Confederates to claim control over Missouri. Instead of making a concerted effort to capture the capital, Price moved west. However, his slow pace allowed the Federals to bring in reinforcements and by mid-October, General William Rosecrans, commander of the Department of Missouri, had 35,000 men moving towards Price from different directions, so Shelby's brigade was busy fighting rearguard actions or moving forward to scavenge for supplies. Despite his men's exhaustion, they joined Marmaduke's brigade to drive a force of hated Kansans under General Blunt out of Independence on October 22.

While this victory signalled a change in the tide to Price, Rosecrans was gathering troops to end the Confederate threat to Missouri once and for all. The Confederates encountered a Union army on the open ground near Westport on October 25. After bloody fighting, Price had to retreat but was hit hard the next day at Marais des Cygnes by cavalry commanded by Major-General Alfred Pleasanton, a cavalry leader in the caliber of Shelby. Although Price managed to extricate part of his army, Marmaduke was captured. Union troops continued to press hard against the retreating rebel army and Shelby's brigade was once again struggling to hold them off. Most of the supplies were abandoned and smallpox raged among the troops as they slowly staggered back to Texas for the winter.

The Fall of the Confederacy
Disillusionment set in among the army of the Trans-Mississippi, and believing that Kirby Smith lacked the fire necessary to keep fighting against the odds, Shelby schemed to replace him with General Simon Bolivar Buckner, attract enough Confederate veterans to build an army of 75,000 to 100,000 men, which would convince either of the two regimes fighting in Mexico to support them against the North. Since northern voters were desperately tired of the war, the prospect of an expanded war with Mexico would drive them to accept a negotiated peace. Southerners would then be free to expand into the Southwest and Mexico, where they would build a new empire. How much of the plan was due to Edwards' influence is unknown, but the two men definitely developed the plan together.

When news arrived of General Robert E. Lee's surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox on March 29, 1865, Kirby Smith called a conference with the major commanders and the governors of Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas, who were commanders-in-chief of state forces. Shelby addressed a meeting of generals where he advocated deposing Kirby Smith and seeking allegiance with either the Juaristas or the French-backed Emperor Maximilian, who were fighting for control of Mexico. Despite his cautious nature and average record as a general, Buckner accepted Shelby's proposal that he lead the new army. Shelby shouldered the burden of telling Kirby Smith that the army had lost confidence in him, and Kirby Smith immediately resigned in favour of Buckner as commander of the Army of the Trans-Mississippi.

Shelby's grand plan had been started too late. Returning to his base, Kirby Smith learned that all of the state governors in the Confederacy, aside from Missouri, had ordered him to surrender. Kirby Smith ordered Buckner to surrender, and Buckner did as directed. Refusing to give up, Shelby then led his men to Kirby Smith's HQ to try to rally the men. However, they were delayed when a torrential storm destroyed bridges along the way, and the divisions of the army of Trans-Mississippi had already handed over their weapons and accepted parole.

Expedition to Mexico
At that point, Shelby's men debated whether they would go with him to Mexico or not. The majority chose to return to their families, so there were only enough men to form a regiment. Since they were no longer part of the Confederate military, the men elected their officers and Shelby was chosen to command the regiment. Texas had been the destination of blockade runners, so there was an abundance of abandoned artillery, weapons and ammunition. Shelby took ten brand-new howitzers, and more than enough rifles and ammunition. As Shelby's unit made its way to Mexico, his men executed any looters they found, until news that his unit was approaching a town would be enough to drive off any drunken ruffians.

The regiment reached San Antonio where they found many other leading men of the Confederacy, including Governor Thomas Reynolds of Missouri, Governor Henry Allen of Louisiana, Governor Pendleton Murrah of Texas and General John Magruder. After restoring order to the town, Shelby let his men relax while he worked with these exiles on a plan to go to Mexico.

On June 2, 1865, Shelby led a few hundred men, which soon grew to a thousand, from Corsicana, Texas to Mexico City. Edwards, Shelby's adjutant, claimed that the brigade's colors and Shelby's famous black plume were sunk in the Rio Grande to keep them from the Federals. Disillusioned Confederate soldiers had already begun crossing the border to work for Maximilian or the Juaristas, but Shelby led the first large, organized force.

When they reached Mexico, the local Juarista governor offered Shelby control of three states in exchange for joining an offensive against the French. After surviving on stretched rations and ragged uniforms for so long, the men wanted to become the Emperor's highly-paid elite guard and wear bright uniforms, and Shelby was too much of a romantic to oppose them. Since the Juaristas had too few men to stop him, Shelby was permitted to cross the border and make his way to Mexico City. Needing funds, he sold his howitzers to the Juaristas for $16,000 in silver, which the governor obtained by lining up all the merchants in town opposite his soldiers and asking politely for the money. Well-armed Anglos with silver were an irresistible target for guerrillas, so they fought several skirmishes as they moved deeper into Mexico.

By this time, the French forces and local recruits were able only to control the towns, while the countryside belonged to the Juaristas. The French force closest to the border was commanded by General Jeanningros at Monterrey. Having heard of the sale of howitzers to the Juaristas, Jeanningros had sworn to hang the former Confederate soldiers, but was impressed by Shelby's message that he sought to serve Emperor Maximilian but would fight if he had to. A relaxed Jeanningros revealed during a welcome feast that even the powerful French army would not be enough to keep Maximilian on his throne. Shelby won permission to march to the coast where he would attract recruits from the US to replace the French troops, since he believed that it was obvious that the French would eventually abandon both Mexico and Maximilian. However, the next French commander that they encountered had been ordered by Marshal Francois Bazaine, commander of the French army in Mexico, to stop the former Confederates before their presence embroiled France in a war with the United States, so Shelby had no choice but to ride to Mexico City.

When Shelby and the exiled leaders met the emperor, he presented his plan of recruiting 40,000 Americans to replace the French army and encourage American immigration which would develop the country's resources. Shelby believed that since the Union had won the Civil War, it would no longer tolerate France's violation of the Monroe Doctrine, and since France did not want a war, the French would leave. Maximilian listened politely to the proposal but refused to consider the plan because he simply would not place his fate in the hands of a foreign army. Once the men learned of the emperor's decision, Shelby no longer had a brigade. Most of Shelby's men made their way out of Mexico, but a sizeable minority remained to become colonists.

Colonization
Many Confederate generals had emigrated to Mexico and were planning colonies. As former owners of plantations, they naturally wanted to start coffee plantations. This plan was strongly supported by the emperor, who made land expropriated from the Catholic Church available to immigrants at extremely generous terms. Immigrants were offered free transportation, 160 acres for a single man and 640 acres for the head of a family, which would be tax-free for five years. Positions were found for leading ex-Confederates. Governor Allen was given a generous salary to establish an English weekly newspaper in Mexico City, with Major Edwards as an editorial assistant. Magruder was appointed head of the Office of Land Colonization and Governor Reynolds became head of the American and Mexican Emigrant Company. However, United States Secretary of State William Seward forbade any agents of the company to enter the United States, and federal troops under General Philip Sheridan prevented any Americans from leaving for Mexico from a Gulf port without official permission.

Despite these obstacles, the situation seemed favourable since Juarez was in exile in the United States and there was so much excellent farm land available for free that it was bound to attract immigrants. General Price set up a colony on 500,000 acres near Vera Cruz, where he was joined by Shelby with 50 members of the Iron Brigade. Shelby bought a large home with 12 acres and sent for his family, who arrived in October with 500 dollars in gold, a parting gift from his relatives. By the start of 1866, there were roughly 500 people in the colony, and they soon prospered. Aside from a coffee plantation, Shelby was running a very profitable freight company that supplied the colonists and nearby French outposts.

Unfortunately, prosperity depends on a stable government and Maximilian was clearly losing ground to the Juaristas, partially because the United States government was pressuring the French into leaving. After Juaristas raided the colony, the Juarista leadership announced that the colonists were guilty of occupying Mexican land that had been illegally seized by the emperor. The raid was a sign of changing times. The French began to pull in outposts as they withdrew from the advancing armies of Juarez and Porfiro Diaz. Shelby realized that his freight business would soon disappear, while the raid on the colony had stopped the flow of immigration, so he closed up his business.

Since he was not ready to return to the United States, Shelby agreed to help start a colony at Tuxpan, where they would harvest rubber and mahogany trees from the jungle. After hiring 200 Mexican labourers, he started the colony in the fall of 1866. Immigrants trickled in as a railroad was slowly built towards Vera Cruz. However, when the nearest French garrison was withdrawn in late winter 1867, his colonists barely had enough time to flee with their lives from the Juaristas.

Since Jefferson Davis had been freed, it was time to return home, although they left Mexico penniless. As the situation rapidly degraded, Maximilian reconsidered Shelby's earlier offer and summoned him to the capital, where Shelby told the emperor that it was too late, since most of the Americans had given up and left.

Return to the United States
Shelby returned to the United States in June 1867, shortly before Maximilian was executed. The war had been particularly vicious in Missouri and former Confederates had been disenfranchised, so Shelby was forbidden to own a business and could only farm. Although he was not rich, his farmhouse always offered a bed and a meal to former soldiers, both Union and Confederate. Among the people who stopped by for a meal were Frank and Jesse James, and Cole Younger. Shelby's attitude was that if they did rob banks then the law should catch them, not him, although it was unlikely that he would have disapproved of what they were doing.

After he was re-enfranchised in 1868, Shelby decided to get involved in the railway building boom, becoming a director of the Lexington and St. Louis Railroad. However, he was a contractor for the St. Louis and Santa Fe Railroad, which became a major scandal when it became known that the directors had swindled investors. Although he had no involvement in the swindle, the fall of the company in 1869 meant that he would not be paid.

Despite this scam, the railroad industry was believed to be stable, so Shelby decided to invest in a coal mine at Clarksburg to supply the trains with coal. He hired fifty miners, built a large house for the unmarried men and smaller homes for the men with families. A generous man, Shelby's extravagant nature was as strong as ever but even solid businesses were hard-pressed to weather the Panic of 1873, and he had to close his mine, returning to his farm.

Since most of his capital was gone, and his value on friendship rather than business advantage meant that he would never succeed in business, he would struggle to stay afloat for the rest of his life. However, he had become more popular. Having mellowed over the years, his imperious nature had evolved into a charming, old-fashioned courtliness. Possibly the numerous setbacks had taught him some humility. Although Shelby would have been a formidable political candidate, he believed that soldiers should not run for office. He first made a public stand when he argued forcefully against resorting to violence after the controversial Rutherford Hayes-Samuel Tilden election, saying the matter was President Ulysses Grant's responsibility to resolve, and him only. Shelby may have simply been acknowledging that any rebellion in favour of Tilden would fail, but he became known as a force for stability.

Impressed with the behaviour of former opponents like Grant and General Phil Sheridan, he became a determined advocate of the United States, campaigning against die-hard ex-Confederates that he called Bourbon Democrats, stating publicly in newspaper interviews that people should forget the war and move forward. Edwards, a true Bourbon Democrat and unreconstructed Confederate, was deeply shocked but the two men maintained their friendship. In fact, Shelby gave testimony for the defense during the trial of Frank James.

Final Years
In 1892, Shelby's fortunes were at a low, so he permitted friends to nominate him for the position of United States marshal. Although President Grover Cleveland appointed him, the position had to be approved by senate, ordinarily a formality but the press stirred up a huge storm, printing copies of Edwards' florid reports during the war, as if Shelby had written them. However, letters from ex-soldiers, both Union and Confederate, strongly criticized the newspapers, so the nomination was confirmed.

Shelby proved to be effective in his job. During the great Pullman strike in 1894, he swore in 700 deputies to escort the trains and protect them in the stations, which prevented violence, unlike other states where the militia was called up and people died.

Shelby became ill while working in February 1897 and soon developed pneumonia. Doctors were summoned but he died on February 13.

Related Movies:
The Undefeated (1969)
Directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, starring John Wayne and Rock Hudson
A group of ex-Confederate soldiers who lost their land to carpetbaggers are trying to start a new life serving Emperor Maximilian in Mexico. They run into a group of men led by a former Union colonel who are selling horses to the Mexican government and the two groups must work together to fight the Juarista rebels. (please click here to read the review)

Further Reading:
General Jo Shelby: Undefeated Rebel-Daniel O'Flaherty, Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1954.

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