Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 31.djvu/169

 Sketch of Major-General Patrick R. Cleburne. 161

and Tennessee. In it was also one regiment of Irishmen, who, on every field illustrated the characteristics of the race that furnishes the world with soldiers. No one of its regiments but bore upon its colors the significant device of the " crossed cannon inverted," and the name of each battle in which it had been engaged. Prior to the battle of Shiloh a blue battle-flag had been adopted by me for this division, and when the Confederate battle-flag became the national colors, Cleburne' s Division, at its urgent request, was allowed to retain its own bullet-riddled battle-flags. This was the only division in the Confederate service allowed to carry into action other than the national colors, and friends and foes soon learned to watch the course of the blue flag that marked where Cleburne was in the bat- tle. Where this division defended, no odds broke its lines; where it attacked, no numbers resisted its onslaught, save only once there is the grave of Cleburne and his heroic division. In this sketch of Cleburne there has been no intention of disparaging, by omission or otherwise, the merits and services of other officers and troops, some of which are eminently worthy of commemoration; but the limits of a sketch, personal in its character, and giving a bare outline of the military operations with which the subject of it was connected, ne- cessarily precludes an account of the services, however great, of others, even when rendered in the same action.

Cleburne, at the time of his death, was about 37 years of age. He was above the medium height, about 5 feet n inches, and, though without striking personal advantages, would have arrested attention from a close observer as a man of mark. His hair, origi- nally black, became gray under the care and fatigue of campaigning. His eyes, a clear steel-gray in color, were cold and abstracted usu- ally, but beamed genially in seasons of social intercourse, and blazed fiercely in moments of excitement. A good-sized and well-shaped head, prominent features, slightly aquiline nose, thin, grayish whis- kers worn on the lip and chin, and an expression of countenance, when in repose, rather indicative of a man of thought than action, completes the picture. His manners were distant and reserved to strangers, but frank and winning among friends. His mind was of a highly logical class. Before expressing an opinion upon a sub- ject, or coming to a decision in any conjecture of circumstances, he wore an expression as if solving a mathematical proposition. The conclusion, when reached, was always stamped with mathematical correctness. He was as modest as a woman, but not wanting in

that fine ambition, which ennobles men. Simple in his tastes and 11