This small cemetery, just north of the town and near the site of the heaviest fighting during the second day of the Battle of Jonesboro, is home to one of the awardees of the Confederate Medal of Honor.

As Main Street leaves the town of Jonesboro it becomes the McDonough Road, and this unique cemetery, which is home to more than 600 men who died during the battle of Jonesboro, is just a few feet north of this point. (Battle of Jonesboro, Georgia, August 31 - September 1, 1864)

This pivotal battle saw Georgian William Hardee take the brunt of a series of brutal Yankee assaults, only withdrawing after his line had been breached in numerous places. Patrick Cleburne, for whom the cemetery is named, was the popular Irish subordinate to General Hardee.

The cemetery contains between 600 and 1000 soldiers some of whom were exhumed from battlefield graves in 1872 and reburied within the cemetery. The headstones, which are unmarked, are laid out in the shape of the Confederate Battle Flag. On the top of the arch at the entrance are 12 cannonballs.

In the cemetery is a monument "To the Honored Memory of the Several Hundred Unknown Confederate Soldiers..." dedicated by the Atlanta Ladies Memorial Association in 1934. A Georgia historic marker between the road and the cemetery reads in part "The area within the enclosure was a burial place of Confederate soldiers who died in local hospitals during the war. After its close, Confederate casualties (buried on the battlefields where they fell) were removed to this hallowed ground which was designated at the time, The Pat Cleburne Cemetery."

Location: Jonesboro, north of downtown at the corner of Johnston and McDonaugh St.
Directions: Take Tara Blvd. to Fayetteville Rd. Turn left if southbound, right if northbound. Turn right on Mill St, then left on Main Street. The cemeterery is on the right.
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Date added: November 16, 2003
Last update: January 23, 2004