Patrick Cleburne

Major-General Patrick Ronayne Cleburne ( ; March 16, 1828November 30, 1864) was a senior officer in the Confederate States Army who commanded infantry in the Western Theater of the American Civil War. Cleburne served at Fort Westmorland on Spike Island in Cork Harbour, a large fortress that was then being used as a convict depot. Seeing the wretched state of those filling the prison cells during the Great Irish Famine, Cleburne was further motivated to emigrate with his family to America.

Three years after joining the British Army, Cleburne bought his discharge and emigrated to the United States with two brothers and a sister. After spending a short time in Ohio, he settled in Helena, Arkansas, where he was employed as a pharmacist and was readily accepted into the town's social order. By 1860, he was a naturalized citizen, a practicing lawyer, and very popular with the local residents.

American Civil War

When the issue of secession reached a crisis, Cleburne sided with the Southern states. His choice was not due to any love of slavery, which he claimed not to care about, but out of affection for the Southern people who had adopted him as one of their own. As the crisis mounted, Cleburne joined the local militia company (Yell Rifles) as a private soldier. He was soon elected captain. After the Army of Tennessee retreated to its namesake state in late 1862, Cleburne was promoted to division command and served at the Battle of Stones River, where his division advanced three miles as it routed the Union right wing and drove it back to the Nashville Pike and its final line of defense. He was promoted to major general on December 13.

During the campaigns of 1863 in Tennessee, Cleburne and his soldiers fought at the Battle of Chickamauga. They successfully resisted a much larger Union force under Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman on the northern end of Missionary Ridge during the Battle of Missionary Ridge, and Joseph Hooker at the Battle of Ringgold Gap in northern Georgia, in which Cleburne's men again protected the Army of Tennessee as it retreated to Tunnel Hill, Georgia. Cleburne and his troops received an official Thanks from the Confederate Congress for their actions during this campaign. General Robert E. Lee referred to him as "a meteor shining from a clouded sky".

Proposal for emancipation and enlistment of Blacks

By late 1863, it had become obvious to Cleburne that the Confederacy was losing the war because of the growing limitations of its manpower and resources. In 1864, he dramatically called together the leadership of the Army of Tennessee and put forth the proposal to emancipate all slaves ("emancipating the whole race upon reasonable terms, and within such reasonable time") in order to "enlist their sympathies" and thereby enlist them in the Confederate Army to secure Southern independence. Cleburne argued that emancipation did not have to include black equality, noting that "necessity and wise legislation" would ensure relations between blacks and whites would not materially change. This proposal was met with polite silence at the meeting, and while word of it leaked out, it went unremarked, much less officially recognized.

Cleburne's proposal was vigorously attacked as an "abolitionist conspiracy" by General William H. T. Walker, who strongly supported slavery and also saw Cleburne as a rival for promotion. Walker eventually persuaded the commander of the Army of Tennessee, General Braxton Bragg, that Cleburne was politically unreliable and undeserving of further promotion. "Three times in the summer of 1863 he was passed over for corps commander and remained a division commander until his death."

Death and legacy

thumb|left|300px|Battle of Franklin

Prior to the campaigning season of 1864, Cleburne became engaged to Susan Tarleton of Mobile, Alabama. Their marriage was never to be, as Cleburne was killed during an ill-conceived assault (which he opposed) on Union fortifications at the Battle of Franklin, just south of Nashville, Tennessee, on November 30, 1864. He was last seen, after his horse was shot out from under him, advancing on foot with his sword raised toward the Union line. Accounts later said that he was found just inside the Union line, and his body was carried back to a field hospital along the Columbia Turnpike. Confederate war records indicate he died either of a bullet to the abdomen,

thumb|Memorial to Cleburne in Franklin

thumb|St. John's Episcopal Church

According to a letter written to General Cheatham from Judge Mangum after the war, Cleburne's remains were first laid to rest at Rose Hill Cemetery in Columbia, Tennessee. At the urging of Army Chaplain Bishop Quintard, Judge Mangum, staff officer to Cleburne and his law partner in Helena, Cleburne's remains were moved to St. John's Episcopal Church near Mount Pleasant, Tennessee, where they remained for six years. He had first observed St. John's during the Army of Tennessee's march into Tennessee during the campaign that led to the Battle of Franklin, and commented that it was the place he would like to be buried because of its great beauty and resemblance to his Irish homeland. In 1870, he was disinterred and returned to his adopted hometown of Helena, Arkansas, with much fanfare, and buried in the Confederate section of Maple Hill Cemetery, overlooking the Mississippi River.

William J. Hardee, Cleburne's former corps commander, had this to say when he learned of his loss: "Where this division defended, no odds broke its line; where it attacked, no numbers resisted its onslaught, save only once; and there is the grave of Cleburne." The location where he was killed in Franklin was reclaimed by preservationists, and is now known as Cleburne Park. Though the small monument in the park is often perceived as a monument to Cleburne, it actually is a marker to show where the Carter Family Cotton Gin once stood (the gin being an integral part of the Battle of Franklin, and the Carter House itself being the headquarters of Union Brigadier General Jacob D. Cox).

The Patrick R. Cleburne Confederate Cemetery is a memorial cemetery in Jonesboro, Georgia, which was named in honor of General Patrick Cleburne.

During a 1994 interview (00:40:20) on Book TV, when asked his favorite "Civil War character" by C-SPAN's Brian Lamb, author Shelby Foote says: "It's easy to state who your favorites are because they're many people's favorites — Robert E. Lee, U.S. Grant, Stonewall Jackson, Tecumseh Sherman. But I have some favorites that are grievously neglected. One of them is an Arkansas general named Pat Cleburne, Patrick Ronayne Cleburne, from Arkansas. And he probably was the best division commander on either side, and in his day — he was killed at Franklin about a year before the end of the war — he was called the Stonewall Jackson of the West and well-known and adored by his men. He's been largely forgotten today. He's buried right there at Helena [Arkansas] where Crowley's Ridge comes to the Mississippi. I'm very fond of Cleburne. I got the same reaction at Cleburne's death that his men got. I was greatly saddened to lose him. You get a great fondness for these people or a severe dislike for them, and if you have a dislike for them, you lean over backward hoping not to let it show. I'm sure it does."

Notes

References

Connelly, Thomas L. Autumn of Glory: The Army of Tennessee 1862–1865. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1971. .
Du Bose, John Witherspoon. General Joseph Wheeler and the Army of the Tennessee. New York: Neale Publishing Company, 1912. .
Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, .
Foote, Shelby. The Civil War: A Narrative. Vol. 3, Red River to Appomattox. New York: Random House, 1974. .
Fredriksen, John C. America's Military Adversaries: From Colonial Times to the Present. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2001. .
Hook, Richard, and Philip R. N. Katcher. American Civil War Commanders. Vol. 4, Confederate Leaders in the West, Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2003. .
Jacobson, Eric A., and Richard A. Rupp. For Cause & for Country: A Study of the Affair at Spring Hill and the Battle of Franklin. Franklin, TN: O'More Publishing, 2007. .
Joslyn, Mauriel. A Meteor Shining Brightly: Essays on the Life and Career of Major General Patrick R. Cleburne. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2000. .
Levine, Bruce. Confederate emancipation: Southern plans to free and arm slaves during the Civil War. Oxford University Press, 2005.
Rand, Clayton. Sons of the South. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1961. .
Reynolds, John Hugh. Makers of Arkansas History. New York: Silver, Burdett and Co., 1905. .
Symonds, Craig L. Stonewall of the West: Patrick Cleburne and the Civil War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997. .
U.S. War Department. The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1880–1901.
Welsh, Jack D. Medical Histories of Confederate Generals. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1999. .

External links

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