By John Francis Maguire, 1868
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APPENDIX
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF MAJOR-GENERAL P. R. CLEBURNE.
(BY GENERAL W. T. HARDEE.)
The sketch is necessarily imperfect, from the want of official records. Most of these were lost or destroyed by the casualties attending the close of the late war; and those still in existence are difficult of access. Of Cleburne's early life little is known--the record of his service in the Southern armies belongs to the yet unwritten history of 'the lost cause.' In better days, when the passions and prejudices engendered by civil strife shall have disappeared, and history brings in a dispassionate verdict, the name of Cleburne will appear high in the lists of patriots and warriors. Until then, his best record is in the hearts of his adopted countrymen.
With brief exceptions Cleburne served under my immediate command during his military career. He succeeded first to the brigade, and then to the division which I had previously commanded; and it is to me a grateful recollection, that circumstances enabled me to further his advancement to those important trusts. From personal knowledge, therefore, gained in an intercourse and observation extending through a period of nearly four years, I can give you an outline sketch of Cleburne's character and services.
Patrick Ronayne Cleburne was an Irishman by birth, a Southerner by adoption and residence, a lawyer by profession; a soldier in the British army, by accident, in his youth; and a soldier in the Southern armies, from patriotism and conviction of duty, in his manhood. Upon coming to the United States he located at Helena, Arkansas, where he studied and practised law.
In that profession he had, previous to the great struggle, formed a co-partnership with General T. C. Hindman. His standing as a lawyer was high, as indicated by this association with a gentleman distinguished as an orator and advocate.
It was at this period of his life that, in the unorganised and turbulent condition of society, incident to a newly settled country, he established a reputation for courage and firmness, which was afterwards approved by a still more trying ordeal. In the commencement of the war for Southern independence, he enlisted as a private. He was subsequently made captain of his company, and shortly after was elected and commissioned colonel of his regiment. Thus, from one grade to another, he gradually rose to the high rank he held when he fell. It is but scant praise to say, there was no truer patriot, no more courageous soldier, nor, of his rank, more able commander, in the Southern armies; and it is not too much to add that his fall was a greater loss to the cause he espoused than that of any other Confederate leader, after Stonewall Jackson. In the camp of the army which Albert Sydney Johnston assembled at Bowling Green, Kentucky, in the autumn of 186l, Cleburne had an opportunity in the drill and organisation of the raw troops, of which that army was then composed, of proving his qualifications as a disciplinarian and commander. His natural abilities in this respect had probably been fostered by his early tuition in the British army; and upon his becoming a soldier a second time, were perfected by unremitting study and labour. These qualities secured his promotion to brigadier-general. In April, 1862, Albert Sydney Johnston concentrated his forces at Corinth, Mississippi, to attack General Grant, who had landed an army at Pittsburg, on the Tennessee river, which was now encamped near Shiloh Church, about three miles from the landing. The attack was made on the morning of the 6th of April. Cleburne's brigade was of my corps, which formed the front line of attack. The enemy were steadily driven for three miles through their encampments, past the rich spoils with which a luxurious soldiery had surrounded themselves, and over the heaps of their dead and dying, until the broken and demoralised masses sought the shelter of the river's banks, and the cover of their gunboats. Albert Sydney Johnston had fallen in action about 2 o'clock P.M. His successor in command, General Beauregard, deemed it best, late in the evening, to recall the pursuit. At the moment of recall, Cleburne was pressing on, within 400 yards of Pittsburg Landing, behind the cliffs of which cowered the masses of hopeless and helpless fugitives. That night the enemy were reinforced by the arrival of a fresh army under Buell; and, on the evening of the 7th, the Southern forces, after maintaining, through the day, the now unequal struggle, withdrew, unpursued, to Corinth. In this battle Cleburne's brigade sustained a heavier loss in killed and wounded than any other in the army.
At the initiation of General Bragg's Kentucky campaign, in the summer of 1862, Cleburne's brigade, with one other, was detached and united with Kirby Smith's column, which, starting from Knoxville, Tennessee, was to penetrate Kentucky through Cumberland Gap and form a junction with the main army under General Bragg, which moved from Chattanooga into Kentucky by a different rout. Kirby Smith's forces encountered opposition at Richmond, Kentucky, in September. There Cleburne directed the first day's fighting, and in his first handling of an independent command was mainly instrumental in winning a victory, which, in the number of prisoners and amount of stores captured, and in the utter dispersion and destruction of the opposing force, was one of the most complete of the war. For 'gallant and meritorious service' here, he received an official vote of thanks from the Congress of the Confederate States. In this action he received a singular wound. The missile, a minie rifle ball, entered the aperture of the mouth while his mouth was open, in the act of giving a command to the troops in action, without touching his lips, and passed out of the left cheek, carrying away in its course five lower teeth, without touching or injuring the bone. This wound did not prevent his taking part in the battle of Perryville on the 8th of October following, where he rejoined my command, and was again wounded while leading his brigade in a gallant charge.
An incident occurred in the march out of Kentucky, which will serve to illustrate Cleburne's indomitable will and energy. On the road selected for the passage of ordnance and supply trains of the army, was a very difficult hill, at which the trains unable to pass over it, or to go round it, came to a dead halt. The enemy were pressing the rear, the trains were immovable, and nothing seemed left but to destroy them, to prevent their falling into the hands of the enemy; orders had actually been given for their destruction when Cleburne, who was disabled and off duty on account of his wound, came up. He asked and was given unlimited authority in the premises. He at once stationed guards in the road, arrested every straggler and passing officer and soldier, collected a large force, organised fatigue parties, and literally lifted the trains over the hill. The trains thus preserved contained munitions and subsistence of the utmost value and necessity to the Confederates. It is by no means certain even that the army could have made its subsequent long march through a sterile and wasted country without them.
In December 1862, General Bragg concentrated his army at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, to oppose the Federal forces assembled at Nashville under Rosecranz. At this time, Major-general Buckner, then commanding the division of which Cleburne's brigade formed a part, was transferred to other service, and the President of the Confederate States, who was on a visit to the army at the time, promoted Cleburne to the vacant division. Rosecranz' advance upon Bragg brought on the battle of Murfreesboro, Dec. 31,1862. In the action of this day Cleburne's was one of the two divisions under my command, which attacked the light wing of the Federal army, under M'Cook. This wing was beaten and driven three miles, until its extreme right was doubled back upon the centre of the Federal army. During the day, Cleburne's division in single line of battle, without reinforcement, rest, or refreshment, encountered and drove before it five successive lines of battle, which the Federal commander-in-chief withdrew from his intact centre and left to reinforce his broken right. The general results of the day were not decisive in favour of the Southern arms; but this heightens the achievement of that portion of the army which was successful, and the merit of the officer whose skilful handling of his division contributed materially to that success.
From the battle of Murfreesboro to that of Chickamauga, in September 1863, military operations in the army with which Cleburne was connected were of a desultory and undecisive character. But outpost duty in close proximity to an enemy superior in numbers, afforded Cleburne occasion for the exercise of his high soldierly qualities of vigilance and activity. In the advance from Tullohoma to Wartrace, and the subsequent retirement of the army to Chattanooga, his division habitually formed the vanguard in advance and the rearguard in retreat. The battle of Chickamauga--an Indian name which signifies 'the river cf death'--wrote the bloodiest page in the history of Western battles. General Bragg, reinforced by Longstreet's corps from Virginia, on the 19th and 20th of September engaged and, after an obstinate contest, defeated, Rosecranz' army, which, routed and demoralised, retreated within its line of works at Chattanooga. In this battle Cleburne's division bore its usual prominent part; a charge made by it, in the struggle for position in the adjustment of lines on the Saturday evening preceding the Sunday's final conflict, is described as especially magnificent and effective.
The Confederate forces soon after occupied Missionary Ridge, and partially invested Chattanooga, with the object of cutting off the supplies of the army within its lines. The attempt was but partially successful. Meantime the Federal government despatched General Grant to succeed Rosecranz in command, and recalled Sherman's army from Mississippi to reinforce him. On the 24th of November, Grant, reinforced by Sherman, attacked Bragg, weakened by the detachment of Longstreet's corps, and carried the position of the Confederate left on Lookout Mountain. On the 25th a general attack was made upon the Confederate line. The right wing, under my command, consisted of four divisions--Cleburne's on the extreme right. The attacking force in this part of the field was commanded by General Sherman. The enemy made repeated and vigorous assaults, which were repelled with heavy loss to the assailants. Cleburne's position on the right was most insecure, from its liability to be turned. He maintained it with his accustomed ability, and upon the repulse of the last assault, directed in person a counter charge, which effected the capture of a large number of prisoners and several stands of colours. The assailants gave up the contest and withdrew from our front. But while the cheers of victory raised on the right were extending down the line, the left of the army had been carried by assault, and the day was lost. All that now remained to the victorious right was to cover the retreat of the army. This it did successfully. It the right, instead of the left of the army, had been carried, it would have given the enemy possession of the only line of retreat, and no organised body of the Confederate army could have escaped. In the gloom of night-fall, Cleburne's division, the last to retire, sadly withdrew from the ground it had held so gallantly, and brought up the rear of the retiring army.
The enemy next day organised a vigorous pursuit; and on the morning of the second day, its advance, Hooker's corps, came up with Cleburne at Ringgold Gap. The enemy moved to attack what they supposed a demoralised force with great confidence. Cleburne had made skilful dispositions to receive the attack, and repulsed it with such serious loss that pursuit was abandoned, and the pursuing force returned to its lines. Here Cleburne again received the thanks of Congress for meritorious conduct.
The Southern army now went into winter quarters at Dalton, in North Georgia. Cleburne's division occupied an outpost at Tunnel Hill. He devoted the winter months to the discipline and instruction of his troops, and revived a previously-adopted system of daily recitations in tactics and the art of war. He himself heard the recitations of his brigade commanders, a quartette of lieutenants worthy their captain--the stately Granberry, as great of heart as of frame, a noble type of the Texan soldier--Govan, true and brave as he was courteous and gentle--Polk, young, handsome, dashing and fearless, and--Lowry, the parson soldier, who preached to his men in camp and fought with them in the field with equal earnestness and effect. These brigadiers heard the recitations of the regimental officers, and they in turn of the company officers. The thorough instruction thus secured, first applied on the drill ground, and then tested in the field, gave the troops great efficiency in action.
About this time the terms of enlistment of the three years' men began to expire. It was of critical importance to the Southern cause that these men should re-enlist. The greater part of Cleburne's division consisted of Arkansans and Texans, who were separated from their homes by the Mississippi river. This river, patroled by Federal gunboats, was an insuperable barrier to communication. Many of these men had not heard from their homes and wives and little ones for three years. To add to this, the occasional reports received from the trans-Mississippi were but repeated narratives of the waste and ravage of their homes by the Federal soldiery. No husband could know that his wife was not homeless--no father, that his children were not starving. Every instinct that appeals most powerfully and most sacredly to manhood, called upon these men to return to their homes as soon as they could do so honourably. Cleburne was a man of warm sympathies, and he felt profoundly the extent of the sacrifice his men were called upon to make; but with Roman virtue he get high above all other earthly considerations the achievement of Southern independence. He adapted himself to the peculiar conditions of a volunteer soldiery, and laying aside the commander, he appealed to his men, as a man and a comrade, to give up everything else and stand by the cause and the country. He succeeded in inspiring them with his own high purpose and exalted patriotism, and the result was the early and unanimous re-enlistment of his division. The Confederate Congress passed later a Conscription Act that retained the three years' men in service; but those whose terms of enlistment expired in the interim would meantime have returned to their homes, and the moral effect of voluntary re-enlistment would have been lost to the cause.
Cleburne fully comprehended the disproportion in the military resources of the North and South, and was the first to point out the only means left the South to recruit her exhausted numbers. In January 1864, he advocated calling in the negro population to the aid of Southern arms. He maintained that negroes accustomed to obedience from youth, would, under the officering of their masters, make even better soldiers for the South than they had been proven to make under different principles of organisation for the North. He insisted that it was the duty of the Southern people to waive considerations of property and prejudices of caste, and bring to their aid this powerful auxiliary. He pointed out further that recruits could be obtained on the borders, who would otherwise fall into the hands of the Federal armies, and be converted into soldiers to swell the ranks of our enemies. His proposition met the disfavour of both government and people. A year later it was adopted by Congress, with the approval of the country, when it was too late.
The following extract of a note written about this time to a lady. a refugee from Tennessee, in reply to some expressions complimentary to himself, and to a hope expressed for the recovery of Tennessee, is markedly characteristic of the man:--
'To my noble division and not to myself belong the praises for the deeds of gallantry you mention. Whatever we have done, however, has been more than repaid by the generous appreciation of our countrymen. I assure you, I feel the same ardent longing to recover the magnificent forests and green valleys of middle Tennessee that you do; and I live in the hope that God will restore them to our arms. I cannot predict when the time will be, but I feel that it is certainly in the future. We may have to make still greater sacrifices--to use all the means that God has given us; but when once our people, or the great body of them, sincerely value independence above every other earthly consideration, then I will regard our success as an accomplished fact.
'Your friend,
'P. R. CLEBURNE.'
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