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 No Irish-born soldier rose higher in the ranks of the army of the Confederacy during the American Civil War than did Major General Patrick Cleburne. He was born March 16, 1828, at Bride Park Cottage, County Cork. His father was a physician. His early life was one of privilege and personal tragedy, for he never knew his mother, who died when he was 18 months old. His father died when he was just 15. He enlisted in the British army in 1846 but in 1849, his family, suffering from financial difficulties, proposed that four of the Cleburne siblings go to America. Patrick agreed, and bought his way out of the army. With brothers William and Joseph and sister Anne, he made his way to the United States and soon make his home in Helena, Arkansas, where he worked his way up from a drugstore clerk to become a lawyer. In the summer of 1860, he enlisted in a militia group that gave itself the name of the "Yell Rifles,"
He enlisted as a private, but his former British military training, and no doubt the strength of his personality, inspired the men of the company to elect him captain. With Abraham Lincoln's election galvanizing the South, Cleburne, like many other Irish immigrants, faced a daunting choice. On April 9, 1861, civil war began when South Carolinians fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. The day after, Cleburne wrote "I am with the South in life or in death, in victory or in defeat."
The Yell Rifles joined with other militia companies from Arkansas to form the 1st Arkansas Infantry (which later became the 15th Arkansas). On May 14, Patrick Cleburne's qualifications for military command were recognized again, and he was elected colonel. In the ensuing months, he drilled them into a unit that many said was the finest Confederate regiment beyond the Eastern states.
In October, Cleburne's regiment moved up to join Confederate forces gathering in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and Cleburne's hard work in training his regiment paid off with his promotion to command a brigade in Hardee's division. In March 1862, he received his promotion to brigadier general to go with the command.
Cleburne proved to be an outstanding brigade commander. He was praised by Hardee for his conduct at Shiloh, where his brigade came within 400 yards of Pittsburg Landing, held desperately by the beleaguered Federals. There his brigade sustained more than 40 percent casualties over the two days of battle, which finally ended in a Northern victory.
At the Battle of Richmond in August, he commanded a division, a sure sign that his ability was recognized by others. His performance in his first battle as a division commander proved conspicuous once again, but nearly deadly, too. He took a musket ball through his open mouth and out his cheek but the orders he had given before this wound forced him from the field played a major part in the Confederate victory.
When he returned to duty two months later, just in time for the Battle of Perryville, army commander Braxton Bragg returned him to brigade command, an early indication of Bragg's famous shortcomings as a commander. At Perryville, Cleburne's brigade captured a strongly held Federal position, and he was also instrumental in saving a large amount of supplies during the army's retreat to Tennessee. In December, his stellar performance in 1862 was rewarded with promotion to major general and command of a division.
The year 1863 would be very eventful for Cleburne. At Stones River as the year began, his division drove the opposing Federals several miles back. At Chickamauga in September, Gen. D.H. Hill said, "I have never seen troops behave more gallantly than did his [Cleburne's] division." And it was his division that thwarted the Federal's victorious pursuit of Bragg's army after the debacle at Missionary Ridge in November. During the aftermath of this rear guard action, his brigade gave Joe Hooker a thrashing, fighting in independent command at Ringgold Gap, Ga. He would be voted a resolution of thanks from the Confederate Congress for that action. Through 1864, he continued stellar performance as a division commander in Johnston's army during the battles around Atlanta
On Nov. 30, the army, now under the command of John Bell Hood, stood before a nearly impregnable Federal fortification at Franklin, Tennessee. Hood ordered a frontal assault. The men of the Army of Tennessee knew they were headed to destruction. "Few of us will ever return to Arkansas," Gen. Daniel Govan told Cleburne. "Well, Govan," Cleburne replied, "if we are to die, let us die like men." Cleburne mounted his horse, and before the day was over he was shot dead.
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