Near the center of fighting on the second day of the Battle of Jonesborough, the final major battle of the Atlanta Campaign, this cemetery holds the graves of up to 1,000 Confederate soldiers killed there on August 31 and September 1, 1864. It is named for Confederate Major General Patrick R. Cleburne, who was admired as a commander in the battle but is not buried there. On the evening of August 31, after the first day of fighting over control of the Macon & Western Railroad, Confederate General John B. Hood learned in Atlanta that Federal forces had broken the railroad north of Jonesborough and, expecting a direct attack on Atlanta, ordered Lieutenant General Stephen D. Lee's corps back toward the city, leaving Lieutenant General William J. Hardee's corps to face the Federals at Jonesborough. Early on September 1, Hood's army was dangerously divided, with one corps in Atlanta, Hardee at Jonesborough, and Lee's in between. Rather than attack Atlanta that day, Union Major General William T. Sherman ordered three additional Federal corps to join the three corps of Major General Oliver O. Howard's Army of the Tennessee already at Jonesborough in an effort to trap and destroy Hardee's lone corps. Hardee stretched his 13,000 troops in a single line across a wide front. Sherman's plan sent Brigadier General Jefferson C. Davis's 14th Corps against Hardee from the northwest, while Major General David S. Stanley's 4th Corps was to strike from the northeast in Hardee's rear, as Howard's army feigned an advance on the right. Near 4:00 PM, Davis's corps attacked the angle in Hardee's line defended by Brigadier General C. Govan's brigade just north of the Warren House, which served as a field hospital. The first Federal assault was repulsed, but a bayonet charge overwhelmed Govan's brigade, capturing the brigade, 600 men, and eight cannon. The remnants of Govan's and other brigades in Cleburne's division fell back while Hardee rushed reinforcements from his left. Stanley's corps followed up too slowly, and nightfall ended the fighting. Hardee's weary corps then retreated south to Lovejoy's Station before the Federal 17th Corps could block it. Hardee informed Hood that Jonesborough had fallen along with the last railroad able to resupply Confederates in Atlanta, sealing the city's fate. Hood ordered Atlanta evacuated that night. The Federal victory at Jonesborough also helped assure U.S. President Abraham Lincoln's reelection and foreshadowed Sherman's March to the Sea.