About

Joseph Orville "J.O." Shelby was a Confederate officer who commanded cavalry in the Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War. After the Confederacy surrendered, Shelby tried to swear fealty to Emperor Maximilian I during the second French intervention in Mexico. With the Emperor's permission, Shelby formed the New Virginia Colony, a colony of Confederate exiles in Mexico, until the end of the intervention in 1867, after which he abandoned the colony.