Major-General Patrick Ronayne Cleburne (/ˈkleɪbɜːrn/ KLAY-burn; March 16, 1828 – November 30, 1864)[1] was a senior officer in the Confederate States Army who commanded infantry in the Western Theater of the American Civil War.

[2] Born in Ireland,[1] Cleburne served in the 41st Regiment of Foot of the British Army after failing to gain entrance into Trinity College of Medicine, Dublin in 1846.

[3] 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.

[4] Johnston withdrew his army from Bowling Green, Kentucky, through Tennessee, and into Mississippi before electing to attack the invading Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant.

Cleburne served at the Battle of Shiloh, leading a brigade on the left side of the Confederate line, as well as at the siege of Corinth.

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.

[8] Cleburne's strategic use of terrain, his ability to hold ground where others failed, and his talent in foiling the movements of the enemy earned him fame, and gained him the nickname "Stonewall of the West."

It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties.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.

[18] 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.

When Confederates found his body, he had been picked clean of any valuable items, including his sword, boots, and pocket watch.

[20] 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.

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.

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.