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Historical person
1828–1864
Patrick Cleburne was an Irish-born soldier who became one of the Confederacy’s most highly regarded division commanders in the western theatre of the American Civil War. Born in County Cork in 1828, he served briefly in the British Army before emigrating to the United States and settling in Helena, Arkansas. He joined Confederate forces in 1861 and rose rapidly from local militia officer to major general through a combination of discipline, battlefield competence and personal courage.
Cleburne fought in major campaigns at Shiloh, Perryville, Stones River, Chickamauga, Chattanooga and Atlanta. In early 1864 he controversially proposed recruiting enslaved men into the Confederate army and granting freedom to those who served, arguing that military necessity demanded a radical change; senior authorities suppressed the proposal. During John Bell Hood’s Tennessee campaign, Cleburne was killed on 30 November 1864 while leading his division in the disastrous Confederate assault at Franklin.
In Jeff Shaara’s The Smoke at Dawn, Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman and George Henry Thomas prepare attacks while Bragg and Patrick Cleburne confront division within the Army of Tennessee.
Series
The Civil War in the West is a four-volume sequence following the principal campaigns that decided control of the Mississippi Valley and the Deep South. A Blaze of Glory reconstructs Shiloh; A Chain of Thunder follows Grant’s Vicksburg campaign; The Smoke at Dawn moves through Chickamauga and Chattanooga;…
All books in this series
