Chapter One

A Lingering Dissolution

 

Today, in historic Westmorland County England, an ancient stone structure sits three stories above the river Leith. It was constructed in the fourteenth century by a knight named Robert de Cliburn. Cliburn Hall, as it became known, was protected with battlements and outer fortifications, and decorated with arched ceilings, a voluminous fireplace, and a noble state room.

                Just across a road from Cliburn Hall, is the Parish Church of Cliburn. On a wall of the twelfth century church is the family coat of arms. Its motto is a cryptic Latin phrase that reads, Forward! The Cleburne’s do not know otherwise. Near the top of the coat of arms is depicted the clan’s flag; the field is a dark blue and in its center is a white full moon.        

About 100 years after the building of the hall, a descendant of Robert de Cliburn, John Cleburne (pronounced clay-burn), married one Elizabeth Curwen. Curwen’s line was one of royalty; among her decedents were the Saxon King Ethelred II and King Malcolm II of Scotland. Cleburne fought in the battles of Barnet, Tewksbury, and Bosworth. He died from wounds received at a skirmish near Kirtlemore.

In the 1600s, the English had tried converting the Catholic Ireland to Protestantism. This was done by sending English settlers into Northern Ireland. The Irish were furious and in 1641, rebellion broke out. This rebellion lasted for eight years, then Oliver Cromwell led an army into Ireland. After much savage fighting, the rebellion was put down and many of the Irish were forced to turn their land over to the English victors. One of the settlers was John Cleburne’s descendant, William.

William settled in County Tipperary, Ireland on the banks of the River Shannon. Unlike the other English settlers who had obtained land by confiscation, William acquired his land by purchase. William went a step further and became a peacemaker between his English and Irish neighbors. Because of his ability to end disputes with fair judgment, he was called “Wise William”. William gave his family a lasting good name; it was said that a Cleburne could safely ride from one end of the country to the other, without any fear of being assaulted.

When John (the eldest great grandson of William) died, he divided all his lands between his two daughters. John’s brother Edward was angered that he had not been given any part of the inheritance, and brought up a law suit. Edward spent all his money on the law suit, but never recovered the estates. Therefore, he left no castle to his son, William.

 While Edward’s son, William of Rock Cottage, never lived in a castle, he spent his money wisely and was able to send his son, Joseph, to the Royal College of Surgeons in London. After Joseph graduated in 1822, he moved back to Ireland and set up a medical practice in Ovens Township. His was the only practice in this rural town; the surrounding country was occasionally dotted with single-roomed mud huts that rarely had any furniture. A survey taken in 1800s Ireland reveled that, in a village of 9000 inhabitants, there was only ten beds. These inhabitants were farmers who made a living by exporting their crops and paying outrageous land rents to landlords. If they fell behind on a payment, they would be evicted from the land at the point of a bayonet.

Dr. Cleburne, in addition to his private practice, was surgeon for the British Army barracks and Royal Gunpowder Mill in nearby Ballincollig. As his patients could rarely afford to pay for his services, his work as surgeon became his main source of income. Dr. Cleburne was sympathetic to his neighbors and was locally known as the poor man’s friend. In 1823, Dr. Cleburne met Mary Ann Ronayne (pronounced row-nun) of the seaside port of Queenstown (now Cobh).

Mary Ann’s parents were respected people in Queenstown. The Ronayne’s mansion, Annebrook, was built “on a scenic curve of the main road from Cobh to Cork”. A large iron gate between two pillars covered the entrance, and from there the road led to the Georgian mansion and beyond to several out buildings and a garden. Growing up in Annebrook, the frail and genteel Mary Ann was notably above the majority of her countrymen, in way of social status. Nevertheless, the Ronayne family was thoroughly Irish. The Ronaynes could trace their history back to the year 610 when their ancestors were chieftains and warriors in Ireland. The Ronaynes are mentioned as heroes in ancient Celtic poem and legend. In the 1100s, the Ronaynes were landowners and were described as being formidable foes to the Norman invaders. In the 1500s, two Ronaynes were majors of Cork. In the 1700s, the clan converted from Catholicism to Protestantism. (1)

The Ronaynes were sympathetic to their fellow Irishmen; each year at Christmas, the family contributed to a local Protestant donation effort. Mary Ann, herself seems to have possessed some of that fiery Ronayne spirit that the Norman invaders once dreaded. She was described as “a woman of strong, independent character, a radical in politics, a defender of the oppressed, a friend to liberty and equality.” (2)

Dr. Joseph Cleburne and Mary Ann Ronayne were married on September 13, 1823 in Cobh Church. “The couple made their home in a twin-gabled two-story house called ‘Bride Park,’ a name derived not from their recent marriage but from the fact that the house backed onto the River Bride just on the southern edge of Ovens Township. It was a delightful location atop a gently sloping hill less than two dozen yards from the river, a swift-moving stream that was deep enough for good fishing and just too wide to leap across, though stepping-stones behind the Cleburne house provided a convenient means of crossing dry-shod.” (3)

In 1824, the Cleburne’s first child was born, a son they named William in honor of Joseph’s father, William of Rock Cottage. That next year, Mary Ann had a miscarriage. In 1826 the couple’s first daughter was born, Anne. After another miscarriage in 1827, the Cleburne’s third child was born on St. Patrick’s Eve, March 16, 1828, in a room above Dr. Cleburne’s surgery. They named him Patrick Ronayne, in honor of Mary Ann’s father. The boy was baptized by Reverend James Pratt in Athnowen Parish, just up the river from Bride Park Cottage where Dr. Cleburne served as vestryman. On May 18, 1829, the Cleburne’s fourth child was born, a boy whom they named Joseph.

That summer, Mary Anne fell ill and was moved to her parents’ mansion, Annebrook, to remain under constant watch. That fall, she died. Left with the care of four children, the eldest William not over five, Dr. Cleburne hired a tutor, Isabella Stuart. Miss Stuart, daughter of a Scottish clergyman, was the Cleburne’s neighbor and cared for the children while Dr. Cleburne was away, attending his duties in Ballincollig. Isabella, only nineteen, had endeared herself to the children and a year later, she and Dr. Cleburne were married. As Mary Ann died when Patrick was but 19 months old, he never knew her. Naturally then, Patrick loved and respected Isabella as his real mother throughout his entire life.

The Cleburne family, unlike many of their wealthy peers, did not attend a lot of the social functions in the bustling city of Cork, but nine miles from Bride Park Cottage. They were long-time members of the Athnowen Parish where they sat each Sunday, in the second pew from the alter. Patrick, or Ronayne as he was called in Ireland, spent his time roaming in the picturesque garden near the cottage, and beyond it in the spacious fields that terminated at the edge of the River Bride. 

Despite the peaceful setting at Bride Park Cottage, national turmoil and unrest prevailed in Ireland. Two years before Ronayne was born, an electoral race for Parliament split the Protestants in County Cork. The candidates were John Hutchinson and Gerrard Callaghan, and although both were Protestants, they had two very different ideas when it came to Catholic Emancipation. Hutchinson believed that the ban on Catholics was wrong and should be reversed. He said in a meeting at Cork, “I most sincerely believe, that the passing of this measure would be the first great step towards a system of improvement and ameliorization which the circumstances of this country imperatively require, and would, therefore, hail it as the opening of a new era for Ireland”. Callaghan fiercely opposed Hutchinson, calling him but a “low and obsequious tool of the Catholic Association”. (4)

The election proved to be a close one, for by the end of the first day’s voting, Callaghan led by total of less than 80 votes. The voting had been done publicly and as a result, many fights broke out. Despite this danger, Dr. Cleburne traveled the nine miles of obscure road to Cork, to participate in the final day of voting. Dr. Cleburne, as well as other reformers, cast their vote for Hutchinson, thus pushing him past Callaghan for a victory of 1020 to 969.

The Cleburne family was enlarged by the births of Isabella in 1832 an Edward in 1833. Despite Dr. Cleburne’s addition to Bride Park some years earlier, the house would not be large enough to accommodate eight people. Dr. Cleburne was interested in expanding; namely, farming and becoming a landowner. Just a mile or so down the Main Cork Road from Bride Park, sat the Grange House on a spacious 205 acres, and by all indications, “the principal mansion in the parish”. In 1836, Dr. Cleburne leased the Grande House and its surrounding acreage for long term payments of 230 pounds a year to Mr. John Hawkes, a local landowner. (5)

The Cleburne family moved into the Grange House that spring, just after Ronayne’s eighth birthday. The house itself had undergone several metamorphosis ever since its original construction in the sixth century, when it was an abbey. Sometime during the fourteenth century, a country house was built on all that remained of the abbey, its foundation. The Grange House that the Cleburne’s moved into was built around the country house and stood three stories above the remnants of the ancient abbey’s stonewalls, towers, and moat, complete with a drawbridge. “On this historic ground, Ronayne was surrounded by reminders of the past. Bones of soldiers killed in the Jacobite War were unearthed. Ballincollig castle stood in ruins just east of the house, and the local legend of buried gold was enough to keep a boy’s imagination busy for hours.” Just recently, an Irishman living in that area discovered his name carved high up the trunk of an ancient tree. Ronayne wondered all over the acres surrounding Grange, enjoying the solitude of the woods while fishing in nearby rivers and hunting pheasants with his dog and gun. Never much of a horseman, he did not enjoy the very popular sport of fox hunting. (6)    

The Cleburnes were frequent visitors to their relations in County Cork and County Waterford. On a particular visit to Uncle William Woodley’s estate, Ronayne made an impression on one of his cousins as being “always full of mischief and fun, somewhat shy and dreamy with strangers”. He also noted that Ronayne could display a rather “domineering disposition” over his cousins when at play.  The family also visited Mr. and Mrs. Ronayne at Annebrook, traveling the seventeen  miles east via land and water. “The Cleburnes probably traveled the eight miles to Cork by coach, over rolling hills, past fertile fields, and green pastures. From Cork, by boat on the River Lee, they passed handsome villas, artistic cottages, and ancient ruins.” Ronayne’s first introduction to military parades came on the occasional trips to the barracks at Ballincollig with his father and older brother, William. There, the Royal Artillery, dressed in their blue and gold uniforms, drilled up and down the spacious parade grounds, each gun drawn by six horses and followed by mounted artillerists. ( 7)

The Cleburnes planted barley, wheat, oats, and potatoes in the fertile fields surrounding Grange and likely had a few cows for a dairy operation. The income from these crops and an annual rent of 90 pounds from two tenant families living on the Grange, provided a steady second income to Mr. Cleburne’s work as a doctor. On one hand, the Cleburne family had made a significant climb up the social ladder in 19th century Ireland by becoming landowners. On the other hand, they had become members of the most vilified class of society: the middlemen. These were commonly hated by the peasants for the way they squeezed enormous rents from them, often to pay landowners living in England and then some. Nevertheless, Dr. Cleburne was an exception. He did not demand outrageous rents, despite his own yearly payment of 230 pounds to Mr. John Hawkes, and retained his families’ good name among his neighbors.

Up until age twelve, the children were taught by a private tutor. After this, most of the landed gentry sent their sons to faraway England for four years of school before collage. When William turned twelve in 1836, the same year that the Cleburnes moved into the Grange House, Dr. Cleburne could not afford to send him out of the country. Instead, William was sent just a mile or so down the Main Cork Road to the Reverend William Spedding’s newly-opened Protestant School in Greenfield. It is likely that Dr. Cleburne met the Reverend Spedding at the Ballincollig, where he served as military chaplain. The cost was 50 pounds a year, considerably less than a school in England, and provided room and board. William was  allowed to go home only two times a year; during the summer and for a fortnight at Christmas.

After the move to Grange, two more Cleburne children were born: Robert Stuart in 1837, and Christopher in 1841.

One year before Chris was born, William graduated from Greenfield, and attended Trinity University in Dublin where he pursued a degree in engineering. That fall, Ronayne, now twelve, left home to attended Reverend Spedding’s school. The school was advertised “as an establishment for a limited number of young gentlemen” who are “carefully prepared on the most improved plan for the several Universities, Naval and Military Colleges”. The school provided Drafting Maps, several departments of English Literature, Mathematics and Composition and offered special courses in Drawing, French, Music, and Drill Masters. (8)

From the start, Ronayne disliked the Reverend Spedding, whom he later described as a man of  “harsh measures and forbidding manners”. A man of small stature but stern countenance, Speeding liberally applied the birch switch to his students. The school was run with military preciseness and the students were allowed very little time for enjoyment. Dr. Cleburne greatly desired that Ronayne should pursue a medical profession later on in life. Therefore, when Ronayne entered Greenfield that fall, he took the prerequisite languages to being admitted to medical school: Latin, Greek, and French. Unfortunately, Ronayne struggled greatly with these languages. He did, however, enjoyed the courses of History, Geography, and Literature. (9)

Ronayne’s first cousin noted that he had expressed a desire to pursue a profession in law, but had been discouraged to do so “by his father and friends”.  “His father had determined to make him a physician”, wrote Ronayne’s cousin, “and this settled purpose probably defeated the object, for he never applied himself to the medical books given him by his preceptor nor showed any diligence in his studies.” An acquaintance of Ronayne’s thought that he was “unwilling to be mewed up over pestle and mortar” or to have his “genius cramped over a beggarly account of empty pill boxes”. (10)   

 Before each break in December and June, the students were required to take oral exams in front of several learned men, including Speeding himself. The exams were based on “various departments of classical and scientific education” and were meant not only to evaluate each students’ performances, but to insure that Spedding’s school was up to par with the other Protestant schools in England. Although Spedding announced that the results of the exam were satisfactory, the other examiners noticed that the students were weak in areas such as Greek and Latin. As a result, in the spring of 1843, Ronayne’s third year at Greenfield, Spedding hired a tutor, a recent graduate of Dublin University, to teach the classics. Unfortunately, Ronayne never took a lesson from this tutor, for that same year, a catastrophe hit the Cleburne family. (11)           

That summer, Dr. Cleburne, age 51, fell ill. This illness lasted into the fall when he died. Consequently, William and Ronayne, now technically orphans, dropped out of collage and school to return home. Without any income, it became apparent that the brothers’ formal education was ended. William took over the responsibilities of running the farm and Ronayne would be sent  twenty miles north of the Grange, to the town of Mallow where he would be an apprentice under a friend of his late father, Dr. Thomas Justice. That next year Ronayne, still in shock from his father’s death, said goodbye to his family and to his boyhood home.

 

 

Mallow was a city in comparison to Ovens Township, but not so when in comparison to Cork. Nevertheless, sixteen-year-old Ronayne never felt more alone as he walked through the bustling streets of Mallow to Dr. Justice’s medical practice and apothecary shop. 

While in the rural settings of Ovens Township, Ronayne had been largely unaffected by the political turmoil that reigned in Ireland. Now, he witnessed it firsthand as reformists like Daniel O’Connell held mass meetings in protest of the act 1801 which consolidated the English and Irish Parliaments to form the United Kingdom. At one meeting held just outside of Cork, more than half a million people were present to hear O’Connell’s emotional plea:     

 

Ireland! Land of my fathers. Ireland! Birthplace of my children. Ireland! That shall hold my grave. Ireland! That I love with the fondest aspirations, your men are too brave, your women are too beautiful and good, you are too elevated among the nations of the earth, too moral, too religious, to be slaves. I promise you that you shall be free! (12)

 

Another prominent figure in support of reform was Thomas Davis. Davis had been born in Mallow, but moved to Dublin at an early age after his father, an army surgeon, died. Davis became an attorney and later founded a newspaper called The Nation. The newspaper resulted in a political movement which became known as Young Ireland. Through this movement, Davis hoped to unite Protestants and Catholics in the common cause of independence from Britain. In a way, Davis’ views were more radical than O’Connell’s. Nevertheless, Young Ireland began to gain supporters; not only from the recent graduates from Trinity University, but also from Protestants in County Cork. Davis’ meetings, like O’Connell’s drew great crowds of people.

There is no evidence that Ronayne, as a young man of 17, supported any one of these movements. Like his father, he considered himself a Protestant Whig, supporting the less radical alternative of reform from revolution. Recent events, however, left him questioning which he identified with the most: his Irishness or his English upbringing.   

As an apprentice, Ronayne would travel with the doctor on his rounds, learn to mix various powders and medicine, and make deliveries to surrounding homes. Dr. Justice noticed that Ronayne was a hard worker and very conscientious and eventually gave him the responsibility of mixing certain medicines by himself. In later years, Ronayne described his life in Mallow as “constantly mingling with strange people and making few attachments”. (13)

Despite being deprived of his final year of preparatory school, Ronayne felt he was ready to apply for admission to the Apothecaries’ Hall. That fall, he sent his application by mail to Dublin, but was rejected admittance. Disappointed but still determined, Ronayne continued his apprenticeship with Dr. Justice.

In September 1845, during harvest, the staple crop for a third of Ireland’s population, the potato, began to show signs of a blight. Carried by the wind, the spores of phytophthora infestans had settled on the maturing potatoes, still wet from the morning’s dew. The fungus spread rapidly, turning the inside of the vegetable from a healthy white to  putrid black mush. The peasants relied on the potato for their sole source of food; the money made off of the barley, wheat, and oats that they exported to England was used to pay their rent to their landlords. Apart from the blight, the harvest of 1845 was a successful one. The ships left Cobh Harbor that year, weighed down with plenteous grain in route to England.            

There had been small, isolated outbreaks of potato blight before, but never before had it been this widespread and destructive. In Cork alone, some 5,000 beggars were on the streets, dying at a rate of 100 per week. In response, the English government raised a new tax on the landlords according to haw many tenants they had on their land. The government then put the peasants to work laying roads and paid them from the money gathered from the new tax. This program was flawed for two reasons. First, the peasants did not need money, they needed food. As the peasants had not eaten anything but potatoes up to this point, they had no idea how to prepare the other crops they grew, like barley, wheat, and oats. Second, since the tax upon the landlords was according to how many tenants they had on their land, the landlord would typically just drive the tenant off his land and not pay the tax.

Although in no danger of starving, Ronayne felt the effects of the famine nonetheless. Dr. Justice, with less pay than usual because of the famine, found that he could not afford to keep his young apprentice anymore. Ronayne would either have to return home or try to gain admittance to Apothecaries’ Hall one last time. Feeling it would be better to present himself in person at the hall than to send his application by mail as he had before, Ronayne boarded a stagecoach and settled in for a rigorous trip of 165 miles to Dublin.

When Ronayne’s stagecoach rolled into the cold streets of Dublin in the middle of February, 1846, the city had never appeared more bleak. Along the way to the hall, he likely saw many peasants lining the streets, victims of the recent tax which had left them homeless. Some of them were dead, either from hunger or exposure to the cold winter or both.

Regrettably, the results of the examine were not as Ronayne had hoped. Despite his two years of apprenticeship, he once again failed the examine which included his nemesis languages: Latin, Greek, and French. “The only recourse was to return home a failure. His sense of honor—and knowing what his family expected—left him humiliated. He sent the carriage back to Mallow—empty, without explanation—and wandered the streets of Dublin in despair.” (14)  

As Ronayne aimlessly roamed Dublin, he came upon Ship Street and the temporary barracks of the British 41st Regiment of Foot; otherwise known as the Welsh Regiment. Although officially assigned to a garrison in Madras, India, the regiment had recently returned to Ireland in 1843 on furlough. Filling the ranks of this motley unit were 739 British and 173 Irishmen, the majority untrained in military affairs and untaught in education. The typical recruit, usually from the lowest levels of society, entered its ranks between the ages of 15 and 20 and included outcasts, adventurers, criminals and idealists of every description. The Duke of Wellington admitted that he could “hardly conceive such a lot brought together”.  It was not the place for a gentleman’s son. (15)

Nevertheless, Ronayne, desperate to disappear from his family and friends, enlisted on February 27, 1846. Although the youngest age at which one could enlist was 18, Ronayne was short of that by almost three weeks. He therefore lied about his age, wrote his place of birth down as Desertmore Parish instead of Athnowen, and his trade as laborer. It was obvious to any casual observer that Ronayne was not a common laborer; his hands lacked even the slightest callus and a degree of education was in his voice as well as in his manner. With no questions asked, Ronayne was enlisted as Private Cleburne 2242 with a shilling a day.

Ronayne soon found that army life was rigorous, even miserable. The living conditions were deplorable: clothes were seldom, if ever washed, conditions were unsanitary—washbasins often doubled as bed pans—there was little privacy, soldiers slept four to a bed. In addition, he was thrown in with strangers of the lowest classes, an experience completely new to him.

At least one thing which he was familiar with was the strictness of military discipline, which he had become accustomed to during his days at Greenfield. As time wore on, Ronayne was able to adjust to the routine of his new life. While his understanding of military procedure and protocol grew with each instruction and drill, he learned how to care for his clothing and accouterments. After a relatively short period of time, Ronayne was able to keep these “in a serviceable state, clean, and regularly marked” as the Manuel and Platoon Exercises instructed and the drillmaster required. (16)

On October 19, the 41st, armed with their modern smoothbore percussion muskets and arrayed in their uniforms of tall black shako caps, high-collared red coats, blue trousers, were inspected by General Campbell. He found that the regiment consisted of young “tall, lathy fellows”, all “in high order, very steady under arms, remarkably clean, and knapsacks and accoutrements well put on”. The general concluded that in a year or so, the 41st would be “as fine a regiment as any in the Service”. (17)

If young Cleburne had joined the 41st to seek adventure in India, he was sadly disappointed. The failure of the potato crop of 1846 had spawned mounting discontent and revolt. News of violence came from every quarter of the Emerald Isle. Troops were being dispersed to evict unruly tenants, counteract isolated yet numerous acts of violence, and protect landlords. With the coming of spring, the 41st left their winter quarters in Dublin and separated into several units, bound on various missions across Ireland to reinforce local constabulary.

As Private Cleburne trudged with his unit across the recently thawed country roads, lined by fields of rotting potatoes, a thought struck him. His action of running from his problems of shame and disgrace had brought on a grave problem of its own: a moral dilemma. Should he guard food from his fellow countrymen, in compliance to the orders of an oppressive government? As a matter of survival, more and more Irishmen were joining the regiment to escape starvation. Before long, half of the regiment was Irish. This enlistment reflected on the sad condition of country, the unraveling of society as a whole. Gone were the lofty ambitions of separation from England; the only thing prevalent in every Irishmen’s mind was to survive, even if it meant joining the British Army, a former symbol of oppression.

Apparently, however, there was still enough talk of insurrection to make British authorities nervous. The number of Irish enlistees had steadily grown since the outbreak of the famine and now that the number had reached approximately 42,000 men. The British Army was preoccupied with wars in India and Afghanistan; what would happen if the Irish revolted at this critical time? Sir Edward Blakeney, the overall commander, decided it was imperative that steps were promptly taken to insure that such a scenario would not occur. From now on, discipline would be unrelenting. Any involvement with organizations outside of the barracks or interaction with citizens, including family, would be prohibited.

These harsh measures effected Private Cleburne especially. At a time when someone of his situation should have been socializing in a spacious ballroom, he was stuck in “some soul cramping fortress or barracks” where the only trace of culture was an extremely limited military bookshelf. He later describe his lonely life in the army as “nothing but a round of duties, monotonous and unromantic in the extreme”. (18)

During the summer of 1847, the various detachments of the 41st returned to the regiment’s headquarters in Mulingar for a brief period. While the regiment drilled on parade one day, Cleburne was recognized by Captain Robert Pratt, son of the Rector of Athnowen Parish where the Cleburne family attended. Pratt promptly informed Mrs. Cleburne at the Grange House as to her son’s where-abouts, and told her that he would transfer him over to his company. At first, Cleburne was embarrassed that he had been found; he later claimed that he would have enlisted under an assumed name, had he known Captain Pratt was in the regiment. As it turned out, the captain was able to keep an eye on the young private, alleviating some of the harsh realities of army life.

The Cleburnes at the Grange were relieved to hear that Patrick was alive, after eighteen months of silence. The famine was apparently effecting them as well. Despite William’s best efforts to generate money by cultivating more acres, he became convinced that “the present high rent rates and taxes, accompanied by low prices and bad produce, would soon divest us of any property we possess here”. (19)

In December of 1847, Captain Pratt’s company was sent to Tarbert. During the long hours of exposure to freezing temperatures while on guard duty, Cleburne was stricken with acute rheumatism and confined for thirteen days to a hospital bed in Clare Castle. Years later, Cleburne recounted an incident which occurred, shortly after he returned to duty.

 

My regiment had been ordered out for drill with knapsacks. As I had been unwell for several days, I disliked very much to carry through a fatiguing drill, a knapsack weighing from twenty to twenty-five pounds, so I thought I would substitute my pillow for the usual contents, and went thus upon drill. What was my consternation while drilling to hear the command, “Inspection knapsacks!” There was no help for it, the pillow was found. (20)    

 

In March of 1848, the regiment marched into Charlesville, County Cork. Although the famine had lessened, its effects were visibly devastating. For Cleburne, Cork was his home, yet the shocking sights which surrounded him looked nothing like the place where he had grown up. Death hung in the air. Thousands of the starved deceased covered the roadways, lay in desolate houses, and city alleys. An English midshipman recorded a dreadful scene. “Dogs feed on the half-buried dead, and rats are commonly known to tear people to pieces, who, though still alive, are too weak to cry out.” (21)

In the fall of 1848, Cleburne was again admitted to the hospital, this time for twenty-seven days. While recuperating, he would often visit the barrack’s library. In addition to reading the current news, he familiarized himself with the life and campaigns of the Duke of Wellington, a fellow Irishman. Another book which he read was Blackstone’s Commentaries. Through this, he broadened his understanding of law.

In the spring of 1849, Pratt’s company was moved to the barracks of Ballincollig and Mallow. During this time, Cleburne was able to obtain a pass to return to the Grange House. “It was a time for reconciliation, and seeing the strained financial and physical circumstances of his family, he felt an explanation for his absence and silence was in order.” (22)

Mrs. Cleburne proposed a proposition which, at first, may have startled Patrick. She explained her plan for leaving Ireland and moving the family to America. William explained their intentions to a cousin in a letter:

 

It is the wish of all my brothers and sister, (my father Doctor Cleburne being now 6 years dead), to quit this country for America…Our wish would be to continue the pursuit of farming—in which several of my family have been for some time engaged here….There are four of us grown up men, my sisters of which I have two are well acquainted with the management of a diary and other household matters. (23)

 

After the visit, Cleburne returned to duty at remote post on Cobh Harbor, built during the Napoleonic Wars called Spike Island. Here, in the cold damp which did nothing to improve his health problems, he was ordered to guard prisoners, incarcerated for stealing food. By this time in the famine, the peasants who had not already died or immigrated, “looked as if they had just come out of their graves”. While Cleburne stood guard, a prisoner escaped. It was the opinion of his superiors that this had happened as a result of negligence of duty. Years later, Cleburne admitted to a friend that he had indeed allowed the man to escape. It is likely that, after his time in the army, Cleburne was sick of the servitude and oppression of his countrymen. Being in a uniform which had so many times been referred to as a sign of subjugation, he considered himself “a poor, servile mercenary”, even though he had never left Ireland. It caused him to seriously consider other alternatives, such as immigration. (24)

On June 28, 1849, Cleburne wrote his half sister Isabella from Spike Island:

 

Dear Sister Isey

 

The manner in which a soldier lives but ill suits him for a correspondent; and you will allow that a state of society where duty is paramount to every consideration & kindred ties but very little respected, where every feeling of a softer nature is accounted a contemptible weakness, that every one subjected to such a discipline if he does not disregard them altogether will eventually contract a habit of concealing them from outward observation. The face of a soldier is in general but a very poor indication of the state of his feelings, and if on my last parting from home and friends I alone appeared callous it was from the before mentioned circumstances and not from a total insensibility to the kindness manifested on that and every other occasion.

If Mamma persists in her intention of going to America I will then have it more in my power to show that actions rather than words suit my temper. Situated as you have been up to the present time, my connection has been rather discreditable than otherwise, and my presence at home (in whatever light you might have regarded it) would in reality have been little else than an encumbrance; but now as a change in circumstances are likely to make me somewhat more useful (though I do not consider myself competent to advise on that subject) if it should be determined on I will become both a willing & persevering agent towards its final accomplishment and success. I think if Mamma has made up her mind to go the best plan would be to go as soon as possible, but not without sending some of us in advance so as not to be wholly ignorant of the manner of business in that country. All I can say at present is this; that if we should go & our hopes of prosperity be fulfilled I will be happy in the happiness of all; or if on the contrary disappointment & adversity await us, I will endeavor by every means in my power to alleviate it. However, though I have not advised the following of my plan, still I will say that the prospects in this country are anything but good; and experience goes very far to prove that they will not be better. It I get a pass I will come home in a few days time. I know that your kind disposition will prevent you from retaliating by an equally long silence.

And with affectionate love I remain your affectionate brother

                                                                                Patrick Ronayne Cleburne

P.S. Tell Mama & William that my presence at Grange in a few days will cancel the obligation I am under to them for their kind & to long unanswered letters. (25) 

 

                Despite the pillow and prisoner incidents, Cleburne had been a good solider. Captain Pratt, who would later become a famous lieutenant general, saw great potential in him and promoted him to corporal, effective July 1. Although Cleburne was greatly proud of this achievement, he knew that there was no future for him in Ireland. Under the British system, the highest rank he could possibly achieve would be captain. Several fellow soldiers tried to convince him to stay, but Cleburne was firm in his decision. “Instead of being in a situation to aspire (where I so inclined) to office and honorable preferment” he later reflected, “I should at best in my old age hold the commission of a petty officer, detested by inferiors and looked down on by superiors” (26)  

                Upon turning 21 in march of that year, Cleburne received a small legacy. With this money, he purchased his discharge papers from the British Army. On the bottom of one of the papers was written, likely by Captain Pratt himself, “a good soldier”. Cleburne proudly kept this hard-won endorsement for the rest of his life. (27)

On August 17, 1849, the decision to immigrate became a necessity. Like so many of the common peasants in Ireland, the Cleburne family was evicted from their land. Sir John Benn-Walsh briefly noted in his journal, “in these bad times Mrs. Clebborne got greatly in arrear & I bought an ejectment for 800 lbs.” After leaving their beloved Grange House, the family was invited by Thomas Tobin, owner of the Gunpowder Mills in Ballincollig to live on the grounds, free of rent. (28)

On a cold day, early in November, the Cleburne family gathered along with other emigrants on a crowded wharf at Cobh Harbor. It had been decided that the oldest children-- William, Anne, Patrick, and Joseph-- should go in advance of the rest of the family to America. For those remaining, Mrs. Cleburne, Isabella, Edward, Robert, and Chris, this decision was not without grave apprehensions. Fears of shipwreck, rampant sickness, and various other perils were on their minds as parting words and farewells were given. The Cleburnes were four of the six cabin passengers which boarded the barque Bridgetown that day. The other passengers, almost 260 of them, fought for a small corner below the water in the dark and damp hold.

“As the hills of his native land dipped below the eastern horizon, the twenty-one-year-old Patrick Cleburne said goodbye with few regrets.” Reflecting on it some years later he wrote: “I do not know what advantages Ireland now offers. I left it, however, under the impression that it was a hopeless case. The elements of decay and destruction seemed to me to be so deeply seated in the heart of the body social or political that to stay would only be to witness a lingering dissolution”. (29)  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sources

 

  1: Pat Cleburne, Confederate General A Biography by Howell and Elizabeth Purdue: Chapter 1, page 4

  2: Ibid: Chapter 1, page 4

  3: Stonewall of the West: Patrick Cleburne and the Civil War by Craig L. Symonds: Chapter 1, pages 10-11

  4: Ibid: Chapter 1, page 11

    : Ibid: Chapter 1, page 12

  5: A Meteor Shining Brightly: Essays on Maj. Gen. Patrick R. Cleburne Edited by Mauriel Phillips Joslyn:                         

      Chapter 1, page 4                          

  6 : Ibid: pages 5-6

  7 : Ibid: page 6

     : Pat Cleburne, Confederate General: Chapter 1, page 6

  8 : A Meteor Shining Brightly: Chapter 1, page 6

     : Pat Cleburne, Confederate General: Chapter 1, page 6

  9 : Ibid : page 17

10 : A Meteor Shining Brightly: Chapter 1 notes, pages 25-26

11 : Stonewall of the West: Chapter 1 page 16

12: Ibid: page 18

13: Ibid: page 17

14: A Meteor Shining Brightly: Chapter 1, page 10

15: Ibid: page 12

16: Pat Cleburne, Confederate General: Chapter 1 page 7

17: A Meteor Shining Brightly: Chapter 1 page 13

18: Ibid: page 16

    : Stonewall of the West: Chapter 1, page 22

19: A Meteor Shining Brightly: Chapter 1 page 21

20: Ibid: page 18

21: Ibid: page 19

22: Ibid: page 19-20

23: Ibid: page 21-22

24: Pat Cleburne, Confederate General: Chapter 1 page 11

    : Ibid: page 10

25: Ibid: page 11

26: Ibid

27: A Meteor Shining Brightly: Chapter 1 page 22

28: Ibid: Chapter 1 notes, page 28

29: Stonewall of the West: Chapter 1, page 24

    : Pat Cleburne, Confederate General: Chapter 1 page 10