calsfoundation@cals.org
March 16, 1828
Patrick Ronayne Cleburne, who became the highest-ranking Irish-born officer in American military history, was born in Ovens, County Cork, Ireland. He became a drugstore owner and lawyer in his new Arkansas hometown of Helena (Phillips County) and was a delegate to the Democratic Convention in 1858. He entered the Civil War as commander of the Yell Rifles, and, before he died leading a charge on a Union breastwork in Franklin, Tennessee, he had attained the rank of major general.