General Patrick R. Cleburne

Patrick R. Cleburne, for whom the city was named, was born near Cork, Ireland, in 1828 and came to the U.S. in 1849. After working as a drug clerk in Ohio, he became a lawyer in Arkansas. He recruited the 1st Arkansas Regiment for the Confederacy, was elected colonel, promoted to brigadier general in March 1862, and made major general in December 1862. Serving on numerous fields with the Army of Tennessee, he rapidly earned a reputation as a superb combat officer. Eight Texas regiments of Granbury's Brigade were under his command, and during the 1864 Atlanta campaign he said, "The piles of the (Union) dead were silent but sufficient eulogy upon Granbury and his noble Texans." On November 30, 1864, known as the "Stonewall Jackson of the West," he met death six paces from the Federal lines in the battle of Franklin, Tennessee.

Cleburne, Texas · United States