Historian and author Mauriel Phillips Joslyn will deliver an address on Confederate General Patrick R. Cleburne at the Chattanooga Civil War Round Table on Tuesday, Oct. 19.
The meeting is at 7 p.m. and will be held in the Millis-Evans Room of Caldwell Hall on the campus of the McCallie School on Missionary Ridge (enter the McCallie campus off of Dodds Avenue and follow the signs to the Academic Quadrangle). The meeting is free and open to the public.
William J. Hardee praised him for his "perservering valor;" Bragg complimented his gallantry, noted he was "sufficiently prudent," and said, "he is the admiration of his command as a soldier and a gentleman;" President Davis characterized him as the "Stonewall Jackson of the West." He was an Irishman from Arkansas who’s star rose rapidly; a meteor shining brightly. That certainly was the case by the fall of 1864. Shiloh, Richmond, Perryville, Murfreesboro, Missionary Ridge, Ringgold, on many of the fields of battle in the Atlanta Campaign, at all of these, Patrick R. Cleburne had won fame and added laurels to his reputation. He, and his men, had done much to make the fighting reputation of the Army of Tennessee. Now, in the Fall of 1864, 140 years ago, Cleburne, much of his division, and much of the army, soldiered on, still believing that the cause of Southern independence was worth fighting for. They didn’t know exactly when or exactly where, but they knew there was more fighting and dying ahead of them. They marched northward, then westward, then northward again in yet another campaign, part of which unfolded over the very ground that, in reverse, they had covered in the fifth and sixth months of the year.
Mauriel Phillips Joslyn, will review the career of one of the Confederacy’s most noted figures, Pat Cleburne. Most specifically, she will focus on what turned out to be the last months of his life, the Fall of 1864, a period when Irish Arkansan campaigned back into our region and then westward and northward to Franklin. We, from the perspective of hindsight, can see that the end was nearing, but Cleburne soldiered with determination even if it was tinged with resignation and foreboding. Come out and learn about the "Stonewall of the West" in the Fall of ’64.
Mauriel Phillips Joslyn is the author or editor of five books on the war, including Immortal Captives: The Story of 600 Confederate Officers and the United States Prisoner of War Policy (Shippensburg, Pennsylvania: White Mane Publishing, 1995), Charlotte’s Boys: Civil War Letters of the Branch Family of Savannah (Berryville, Virginia: Rockbridge Publishing Company, 1996), and A Meteor Shining Brightly: Essays on Maj. Gen. Patrick R. Cleburne (1997). In 1996, she was nominated for the Georgia Author of the Year award. A graduate of Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Virginia, she has been a librarian and teacher, and has done graduate work in History under Dr. Anne Bailey at Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville. She is also the driving force behind the Pat Cleburne Society. She and her family live in Sparta, Ga.