Ringgold To Unveil Statue of Confederate General
By CAMERON McWHIRTER

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
From an article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution Online - ajc.com
Sunday, December 28, 2008

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 700-pound bronze statue of Confederate General Patrick Cleburne, which cost $120,000, is being stored in the Ringgold Telephone Company’s warehouse. The town plans to put the statue up during a festival next fall.

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 town, the Army of Tennessee general won his greatest victory.

“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.