Customer Reviews

A METEOR SHINING BRIGHTLY

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This book does an excellent job telling about Patrick Cleburne. It is not a day by day biography of Cleburne, instead, it tells the stories that help us understand Cleburne better, from a drowning incident in the Mississippi to Chattanooga where Cleburne was the only one to hold his ground. This book is a must for all history lovers.

Natural intellect, compelling logic and great moral courage led Confederate Major General Patrick Cleburne to suggest that independence for the South might best be won through independence for the Slave. His controversial emancipation position would make him a liability to the Richmond government and until now, to many Southern writers. Now the fascinating life of Patrick Cleburne is revealed through this scholarly collection of essays. A Meteor Shining Brightly explores the brilliance of the general some have claimed as the most capable, and most controversial, Confederate commander. Keith Gibson, Director VMI Museum programs.

Being a non-historian (this is the only history book I've read cover to cover in 7 years), I was initially dreading reading this book. However, its well-organized format, its to-the-point style (to which almost all of the authors ascribed), and its information were incredible. This is an enjoyable read. FYI, I also sent an e-mail to the author of the book as I was tracking down Cleburne's original work, and she very graciously replied within a day, informing me that his work was at the University of Arkansas. READ THIS BOOK!!!

Until I devoured this masterpiece, I thought it impossible for anyone to surpass Purdue's text on Pat Cleburne. Well researched and well written, so much so that even the Civil War novice will thoroughly comprehend Cleburne's battlefield brilliance. Someday history will place Cleburne in his proper place among great leaders and humanitarians. When it happens, this compilation of essays will have paved the way.

The essays in A Meteor Shining Brightly provide its readers with exciting new information about and interpretations of one of the Confederacy's most able and controversial generals. Well written and meticulously researched chapters...This book belongs on the shelves of everyone interested in the Western Theater and Civil War leadership. Arthur Bergeron, Jr. Pamplin Park Civil War Site

A Meteor Shining Brightly is an absorbing read of many aspects of Cleburne's life:

1. His family background and struggles in 1840s Ireland.
2. His acceptance by the people in his adopted hometown of Helena, Arkansas.
3. Early war years and well-earned promotions.
4. Particular battles: Shiloh, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Ringgold Gap, Pickett's Mill, Atlanta, and finally, Franklin.
5. His controversial, yet well-thought out proposal to offer freedom for slaves who offered to fight for the Confederacy (slavery was doomed to fail and the Confederacy, led by Robert E. Lee, sought to include slaves as soldiers towards the end of the war).
6. His obviously strong moral character.
7. Proclivity to shyness around women and his intense and successful courtship of Susan Tarleton (too bad he did not survive the war and marry Susan!).
8. His sensitive nature (yes, men can be strong and sensitive).

Having been a Cleburne admirer for many years, all I can say is:

What a read!

I highly recommend the book for anyone interested in learning more about a very capable and often overlooked Civil War general.

Here is a long-overdue appreciation of one of the Confederacy's truly outstanding military strategists--known in his time as The Stonewall of The West--and one of the South's truly original social strategists. Patrick Ronayne Cleburne, an exemplary instance of an immigrant who achieved the highest social stature and the everlasting esteem of his chosen countrymen, likely never dreamed that he would end as a Major General in the Confederate Army. This son of Erin, who received what would become invaluable military training as a Captain in the English army, began his life in the United States in Arkansas, working as an apothecary (his father, Joseph Cleburne, had been a respected physician back in his native County Cork; his mother, Mary Ann Ronayne, was from the landed gentry of the Anglo-Irish). He studied for the law, passed the bar, and opened a law firm in his adopted home town of Helena, Arkansas. And the rest, as they say, is history: Cleburne's value to the Confederate command prompted Robert E. Lee's epithet which serves as the book's title. Most singular among all Southern generals, perhaps because he was not native-born, was his famous proposal to enlist the South's black slaves in the personnel-strapped Confederate Army--and grant them their freedom afterward, thus robbing the North of its primary motivation (despite Abraham Lincoln's assertions to the contrary) in waging war on the South. The manner of Cleburne's death ranks almost a Greek tragedy--or as Southern Gothic tragedy, as, two weeks before his marriage to Susan Tarleton, a true "Southern Belle" of Mobile, Alabama, he was cut down in a senseless, bloodletting, strategically useless frontal assault in Franklin, Tennessee. The authors have done a superb job of researching Cleburne's life, and giving lay readers a good sense of the military strategies that earned Cleburne his place in the hearts of defeated Southerners--and in American history.

A majority of the essays in this book are quite well done, but a few shallow efforts such as Alethea Sayers' quite-clearly poorly researched article leave gaping holes in the text. Cartwright's effort is well-presented and Joselyn's article, while written with readability in mind leaves the reader with more questions than answers. A consistantly written biography of Cleburne would be preferable to this halting, sometimes good, sometimes bad collection.

When I learned a bit about General Pat Cleburne, I was fascinated and wanted to know more. The first book I found in a book catalogue was A Meteor Shining Brightly. It was described as "a collection of essays" and my first reaction was "That's the dullest way there is to write a book." But I wanted so much to read about General Cleburne that I ordered it, anyway. It's an understatement to say I was pleasantly surprised. I loved the book. I didn't read it as a collection of essays; I read it as a biography with chapters written by different authors. The chapters are chronological, the book is cohesive with a minimum of repetition, and the styles of the different writers are similar enough to create unity rather than discord. When our book club asked each member to report on a different biography, this is the one I chose. It is a very readable book about a remarkable man, and I thank all the authors for bringing his life to the attention of readers. He deserves to be remembered.

A Meteor Shining Brightly : Essays on the Life and Career of Major General Patrick R. Cleburne by Mauriel Phillips Joslyn is a collection of numerous essays about the life of Confederate Major General Patrick R. Cleburne. It is organized in chronological order so as to depict his entire life. The decision to organize the book in such a manner forms the foundation for the primary weakness of the endeavor. The book is not necessarily the best essays on Cleburne's life and the different authors prevent any continuity from chapter to chapter other than time.

There are certain parts of Cleburne's life that are appropriate for the essay format. Several areas are the early years in Ireland and it effect on his latter career, Cleburne's proposal that slaves be freed and incorporated into the Confederate Army and his death at the Battle of Franklin. In addition, the issue of how an individual who understood and identified with the downtrodden of Ireland could have been so devoted to the Confederacy which was based on the slavery of human beings is not even mentioned in the essays. Instead of treating these issues in depth, the collection at best treats them as another part of Cleburne's life. This is a shame, for Cleburne's life, and especially his proposal to enlist slaves into the Confederate Army, deserves a more in depth treatment.

The collection seems to be trapped between its desire to be a biography and a collection of essays exploring different views of Cleburne's life. By trying to do both, it did neither well. The collection does succeed in putting forward the facts of Cleburne's life in a fairly easy to read format. The individual authors are all well qualified and write well. However, if one is looking for a straight forward biography of Cleburne, I would suggest Stonewall of the West : Patrick Cleburne and the Civil War (Modern War Studies) by Craig L. Symonds.