Major-General Patrick Ronayne Cleburne

Major General Patrick R. Cleburne was born in County Cork, Ireland, March 17, 1828. [Unable to secure admission,], he ran away from Trinity College, Dublin, and enlisted in the Forty-first Foot. In 1865 he came to America, settling in Helena, Arkansas, where he paractised law until the opening of the war. He entered the Confederate service as a private, and rose to the rank of major-general, in 1862. He planned to capture of the United States arsenal in Arkansas, March, 1861. He was colonel of an Arkansas regiment, and at Shiloh, as brigadier-general, he commanded a brigade in the Third Corps, Army of the Mississippi. He was wounded at Perryville. At Murfreesboro and Chickamauga he commanded a division, and his troops formed the rear guard at Missionary Ridge. For his defense of Ringgold Gap, in the Atlanta campaign, he received the thanks of the Confederate Congress. Cleburne covered Hood's retreat at Jonesboro, and had temporary command of Hardee's Corps. He continued to hold his division in Cheatham's Corps, and at the battle of Franklin was killed, November 30, 1864. A brilliant charge at Chickamauga earned him the title of "Stonewall of the West," and it was he who initiated the Order of the Southern Cross and was among the first to urge the advantages to the Confederates of colored troops.

-from Miller, Francis Trevelyn The Armies and Their Leaders New York, Castle Books, 1957 264