Today’s birthday of the city’s namesake, Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne, will not be celebrated in any official capacity, according to city and chamber of commerce officials.

However, residents did celebrate the anniversary of Cleburne’s birth as recently as 10 years ago.

Sponsored by the Cleburne Chamber of Commerce, the Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp No. 129 of Waco, the Camp Henderson Project and the Main Street Project, the 2000 celebration at Hulen Park included special guests, entertainment and a birthday cake.

According to a 2000 Times-Review report, events included a parade through downtown Cleburne and a period style show presented by the Pat Cleburne chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, along with presentations by the Boy Scouts.

A military style pass-in-review took place with musket and cannon salutes to Cleburne, who was portrayed by Steve Maples.

Mike Ronayne, Chris Ronayne, Marie Ronayne, Eleen Ronayne McCarthy, Ed McCarthy and Jeanne Despujols — descendants of Cleburne — were guests.

Guests also came from Ireland, and Mauriel Phillips Joslyn, then president of the Pat Cleburne Society, attended.

Local author and historian Jack Carlton gave talks about local soldiers and relatives still residing in the area.

There was also a wreath-laying ceremony at the Johnson County Courthouse and the Cleburne Memorial Cemetery.

The birthday commemorations would not continue.

Nell Dixon, then president of the Chamber of Commerce, said  some members of the chamber’s board were concerned that celebrating the birthday of a man who owned slaves could offend some residents.

“We didn’t want to stir up trouble,” she said. “We felt like we might be offending somebody.”

But historians agree that Cleburne did not own slaves.

According to a biography by Joslyn, professor of history at Georgia Military College in Milledgeville, Ga., Cleburne, after his victory at Ringgold Gap, Ga., over Gen. Joseph Hooker’s troops in November 1863, chose to discuss a controversial proposal with Confederate commanders.

Cleburne proposed to enlist slaves into military service in exchange for their freedom.

He even proposed extending that freedom to their families.

“Adequately to meet the causes which are now threatening ruin to our country, we propose, in addition to a modification of the president’s plans, that we retain in service for the war all troops now in service, and that we immediately commence training a large reserve of the most courageous of our slaves, and further that we guarantee freedom within a reasonable time to every slave in the South who shall remain true to the Confederacy in this war,” he told Confederate brass.

“As between the loss of independence and the loss of slavery, we assume that every patriot will freely give up the latter ... If we are correct in this assumption it only remains to show how this great national sacrifice is, in all probabilities, to change the current of success and sweep the invader from our country.”

Cleburne assumed incorrectly.

Despite a similar proposal from Gen. Robert E. Lee, most Confederate leaders did not share that opinion.

Cleburne hoped emancipation would bring foreign support to the Confederacy and solve the manpower problem.

“Our country has already some friends in England and France, and there are strong motives to induce these nations to recognize and assist us, but they cannot assist us without helping slavery, and to do this would be in conflict with their policy for the last quarter of a century,” he wrote. “But this barrier once removed, the sympathy and the interests of these and other nations will accord with our own, and we may expect from them both moral support and material aid.”

Nicknamed the “Stonewall Jackson of the South,” Cleburne would not live to see the act passed by the Confederate Congress in 1865 allowing slaves to enlist.

He died in November 1864, along with Gen. Hiram B. Granbury, in Franklin, Tenn., in an ill-fated battle under the command of Gen. John Bell Hood.

Granbury still celebrates the birth of its namesake.

Cleburne is buried at the Confederate Cemetery in Helena, Ark., where each year around his birthday, the Arkansas Division Sons of Confederate Veterans conducts a memorial service.

“He was a great general,” Dixon said. “He loved his men.”

Dixon hopes residents will someday again celebrate the birth of the man for whom the city was named.

“If the celebration started again, I would be glad to attend,” she said. “I still love Cleburne.”