Posted on 12/28/2008 5:48:58 AM PST by Colonel Kangaroo
RINGGOLD — In a dark warehouse, the 700-pound bronze statue of a Confederate general most people have never heard of lies on its back under plastic wrapping.
The likeness of Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne, set down next to an old phone booth, represents the seven-year dream of some quirky history buffs who believe the man deserves belated honors. And it is the hope of a small town that this obscure figure will bring visitors with fat wallets.
The statue almost was not finished because for years organizers couldn’t scratch up the money to pay the sculptor. When it’s put on display next year, this North Georgia community of 2,500 will see whether the $120,000 price tag was worth it.
With the Civil War’s 150th anniversary in 2011, communities across the South are planning gatherings and spiffing up battlefields in hopes of drawing tourist dollars. Between Chattanooga and Atlanta, towns where blue and gray fought are trying to build things for people to see besides reading roadside markers. Ringgold is banking on one of the few new statues to a Confederate being built anywhere and a festival next fall to unveil it. In this little town, the Army of Tennessee general won his greatest victory.
John Culpepper, 63, city manager in nearby Chickamauga and chairman of the state’s Civil War Commission, thinks it’s a good bet. He likens I-75 — roughly the route the battling armies took — to a trout stream. Civil War historic sites are the lures.
“You just throw it out there and reel them in,” he said. “See where General Cleburne saved the Army of Tennessee! Reel them in there. … This was all put in place here 145 years ago. Now promote, promote, promote, promote.”
Others wonder how a little town such as Ringgold will tell the complicated story of Cleburne, an Irish immigrant who was on the losing side of many of the major battles in which he fought. He was an ardent supporter of the South, yet called at one point for blacks to earn their freedom if they fought for the Confederacy. Other generals hated the idea. Historians think Cleburne’s plan cost him promotions.
“This is our hero,” said Randall Franks, a writer for the local Catoosa County News. “But it’s going to take a tremendous marketing effort to take this Confederate general and tell the general public who he is.”
Cleburne’s connections to Ringgold were brief — basically one bloody day. The general earned the nickname “Stonewall of the West” for his toughness in battle. Cleburne fought at Ringgold on Nov. 27, 1863. The Confederates were retreating south in disorder from Chattanooga. At Ringgold Gap, a cut between two mountains, Cleburne and about 4,100 men fought off 12,000 Yankees while the rest of the army — tens of thousands — escaped. Diarist and Confederate soldier Sam Watkins wrote, “Cleburne had the doggondest fight of the war.”
Cleburne fought in many other battles, including Kennesaw Mountain and the Battle of Atlanta. He was killed in the Battle of Franklin, Tenn., in November 1864 at age 36.
Several places in former Confederate states are named for him, including Cleburne County, Ala., on the Georgia line west of Atlanta. But for years, Cleburne himself was not well-known, even among Civil War buffs. That changed in the past decade or so. Biographies were written, and a comic book illustrator in Florida just published a graphic novel about him.
“Nowadays he is beginning to earn his due,” said prominent Civil War historian Craig Symonds, author of a Cleburne biography. “I think the erection of this statue is reflective of that.”
The statue was the brainchild of Mauriel Joslyn, a writer from Sparta who edited a book on Cleburne. She joined with a handful of other people to create the Patrick Cleburne Society. In 2001, the group announced it was going to raise money to build a statue at a little roadside park in Ringgold Gap.
The group sold T-shirts, books and busts of the general at festivals across the South and on the Internet. “I really thought this will be a piece of cake,” Joslyn said. It wasn’t.
“It’s hard to get someone to give to something they don’t know anything about,” she said. “This is a guy that nobody has ever really heard of.”
By 2006, the group was about $50,000 short. Sculptor Ron Tunison, whose Civil War statues are at historic sites across the country, warned the group that unless he was paid in full, the project would be scrapped. Then a local utility, the Ringgold Telephone Co., stepped in and paid the remaining debt. The statue was shipped to the company’s warehouse, where it sits today. The thankful town plans to raise the statue with fanfare in October.
“If you’ve got nothing for them to see, they ain’t going to come here,” Mayor Joe Barger said.
Putting up a Confederate statue could be a cause of controversy in an age when Confederate symbols are being challenged across the South by those who find them an offensive reminder of slavery. Earlier this year, the small African-American community in overwhelmingly white Ringgold objected to the Confederate battle flag being flown over the town depot. The flag was taken down. Confederate heritage groups are challenging the move.
Paul Croft, 68, who called for the flag’s removal, said blacks in the town do not object to acknowledging Cleburne.
“This is where he fought,” he said. “No one has a problem with the statue.”
Aside from Cleburne’s battle, Ringgold’s claims to fame are modest. Dolly Parton was married there.
The downtown has seen better times. Amid antique shops and craft stores are many “for rent” signs. Diane Gregory, 58, an antique store owner on Nashville Street, sighed and rolled her eyes when asked about how the town is promoting its Civil War heritage. She said the statue could help. “You have to have something for them to come and see,” she said.
The town’s location might help to draw tourists. It sits off I-75 between the Chickamauga battlefield and Resaca, where the state is set to open a $3 million interpretive battlefield center.
Antiques dealer Gregory said towns such as Ringgold need to play up Civil War connections, even if they are not well-known.
“It’s what we’ve got to work with,” she said.
May he rest in the Peace of the Lord.
Ringgold is known also for their drive-thru wedding services.
That’s where my parents were married. Dad got off work on Friday afternoon, picked up my mom and also her sister to serve as a witness and got the deed done right then. My mom and dad spent the weekend at Chickamauga Lake and were back at their jobs Monday morning.
Any good BBQ around there?
Another advantage about a Civil War trip to Ringgold is the proximity of the Chickamauga battlefield. Ringgold Gap by itself might not be a draw for many but it becomes a nice addition to a visit to Chickamauga.
Watkins also wrote a interesting book titled 'Co. Aytch' about his participation in the WBTS.
Mr. Watkins was from the Upstate area of SC and, by all accounts, was a very tough fellow himself.
Hmmmmm....
That's funny. Perhaps I also should start a controversy because I am finding the deification of Barack Obama as the second coming of Lincoln to be an offensive reminder of Reconstruction.
Gotta start working on my NH Concealed Weapon Permit before I can go to Ga.
The General was also one of the first Confederate Generals to call for the emancipation of slaves, so that they could be armed and fight with the South against the Yankee invaders.
Importantly, it should be noted that many blacks fought on the side of the American colonists against Britain in the US Revolution, even though the British offered them their freedom. And 65,000 black men fought on the side of the Confederacy, with about 13,000 actually engaged in combat against Union forces.
However, from the end of the war, and especially after 1910, black men who had served as soldiers and were applying for pensions, had their occupation “soldier” crossed out, and either “body servant” or “teamster” put in its place. This is still evident on the preserved documents, and shows a systematic effort to rewrite history.
The next time you visit down there see if you can climb around the Interstate road cut at Ringgold Cut. I went fossil hunting there when they were building the Interstate. Lots of crinoid stem fossils. Here's a description from the web:
Interstate 75 crosses Rocky Face in a deep notch just west of Dalton and continues, crossing Taylor Ridge at the famous Ringgold Cut, where the subsurface rocks are highly visible and fossils are found in the wall of the highway cut adjacent to the southbound lane.
rustbucket, another fossil at your service
His death was a tragic waste in an attack that never should have been ordered.
I’m surprised the article didn’t mention that Cleburne was also an early and pointed advocate of enrolling blacks into the confederate army.
Hell that’s where *I* was married. Neither of us wanted something fancy nor would we have had any money for it, so we went down and got it taken care of one rainy afternoon 6 years ago.
You can't really blame Reconstruction on Abe. Had he not been murdered it would have certainly been much different and probably a great deal more conciliatory towards the South. This was recognized at the time by most knowledgeable southerners.
"He was an ardent supporter of the South, yet called at one point for blacks to earn their freedom if they fought for the Confederacy. Other generals hated the idea. Historians think Cleburne’s plan cost him promotions."
His plan was eventually adopted by the Confederacy, something like six weeks before the war ended, at which point it had of course no impact on events. It can be seriously questioned whether a black man wearing a uniform and firing a rifle provided any greater support for the Confederacy than the same man driving a wagon or a plow. Every black man put into service as a soldier could not provide other essential services.
Fair enough. Lincoln's assassination certainly unleashed the worst impulses of the radical Republicans. But whatever he might have done had he lived it would have been small consolation for the damage inflicted during his reign on the Constitution and the rule of law.
There are those of us who believe Lincoln saved as much as he could of the Constitution and rule of law from those intent on destroying them.
If you think Lincoln was particularly aggressive or unlawful in how he handled opposition, even treasonous opposition, you might want to research how similar issues have been handled in other great civil wars. The US WBTS had far and away the least oppression and fewest atrocities of all such wars in all history. (Which unfortunately isn’t saying all that much.)
It all depends on what you consider to be treason. There are many, myself included, who believe that there is no higher form of treason than for a politician to elevate himself above the Constitution. It was under Lincoln that this became possible marking the realization of Benjamin Franklin's warning about the Founders' bequest of a Republic "... if you can keep it."
But don't think me unfair to Lincoln or blind in my faith in the Founders. You can argue with some credibility that it was their failure to end slavery at the time of the founding that paved the way for Lincoln and his ilk to destroy the independence of the States a generation later. And the end of the sovereignty of the States was the end of limited government.
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