After twilight, a young lady would not be conducting herself in a becoming manner by walking alone. If she passes the evening with any one, she ought, beforehand, to provide some one to come for her at a stated hour; but if this is not practicable, she should politely ask of the person whom she is visiting, to permit a servant to accompany her. But, however much this may be considered proper, and consequently an obligation, a married lady, well educated, will disregard it if circumstances prevent her being able, without trouble, to find a conductor.

A wartime romance commenced on January 13, 1864, at Demopolis, Alabama.  General William J. Hardee, age 48 had asked Miss Mary Foreman Lewis of Demopolis to become his bride and was happily accepted.  He had asked fellow officers of the Army of Tennessee to be present for the nuptials.  Miss Lewis was 26, the daughter of a Greene County planter and the wedding was held at Bleak House Plantation.  One of General Hardee's attendants was a handsome Irishman who served as best man.  His name was Patrick Ronayn Cleburne.  Miss Lewis's maid of honor was a beautiful 24-year-old young lady from Mobil Alabama named Miss Susan Tarlton.  The best man and maid of honor were mutually attracted to say the least.  After the vows, the wedding party departed on board a steamer down the Tombigbee River for Mobil.
       While Hardee and his bride honeymooned, Pat Cleburne took the remainder of his first leave since the war began, in Mobile.  He took a room at the Battle House and made frequent visits to the Tarlton home not far away at 351-353 St. Louis Street.  He was readily accepted as a suitor by Susan's father, George Tarlton, though Pat was 12 years her senior.  While in Mobile General Cleburne reviewed the troops with Major General Dabney Maury.  On the last day of his furlough he had a picture taken which he presented to Susan and received her hand-embroidered handkerchief in return and promises to write were made.  Within a week he was back with the southern army in Tunnel Hill Georgia.
       Spring brought another furlough for Cleburne and a trip to see Susan in Mobile.  Talk of marriage brought a happy acceptance and plans were discussed.  When he returned to war, Pat wrote prodigious amount of letters, one being 17 pages long.  He complained of the brevity of her letters and said she took advantage by writing very large and leaving large intervals between the lines.  Was this love or what?
       She wrote to him twice a week and nervously requested that he not lead his

troops but rather command from the rear.  He replied that the Cleburne family crest read "Forward" and he could not do otherwise.  After the fall of Atlanta he again requested furlough in October to see his beloved Susan.  This time General John Bell Hood refused it.  The army marched north and on the last day of November he learned of Hood's plan to advance on the formidable breastworks at Franklin, Tennessee.  Pat was distraught but would not flinch from duty.  "If we are to die, let us die like men," he told one of his brigadiers.  His division led the charge on Federal fortifications.
       He had two horses shot out from under him in the attack and finally dismounted he placed his kepi on his sword, drew his pistol and went into the charge at the head of his men.  His men took the first and second line of Yankee defense and awaited their beloved General's orders that never came.  Darkness fell and a search was made.  At dawn they found him lying on his back 50 yards from the Union works, a crimson stain on his white shirt.  His body was taken with the bodies of four other Confederate Generals who were killed that day to the nearby home of John W. McGavok.
       December 5, 1864, and no word from Tennessee until Susan heard the newsboy's cry  "Union victory at Franklin - Cleburne and other Generals Killed!"
       Two years later in 1867, Susan married a friend of her brother's also a Confederate Veteran, Captain Hugh Cole.  He had served with the 2nd NC Infantry.  On June 30, 1868, while living at Point Clear, Susan suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died almost immediately.  She was not yet 30 years old.
       General Patrick Cleburne is buried at the Confederate Cemetery
in Helena, Arkansas, and Susan is buried in Magnolia Cemetery in Mobile Alabama.

Final note:  Sadly, the place in Franklin Tennessee where Pat Cleburne fell bears no monument and no marker to this great Irish Confederate hero..... instead a Wendy's restaurant occupies the site.
     

A study of a million Federal enlistments turned up only 16,000 as old as forty-four, and only 46,000 of twenty-five or more.
    Yet by other authorities, the Union armies were made up like this: 30 per cent of men under twenty-one; 30 per cent from twenty-one to twenty-four; 30 per cent from twenty-five to thirty; 10 per cent over thirty.
    Confederate figures are skimpier, but one sample of 11,000 men produced about 8,000, the great majority, between eighteen and twenty-nine. There was one of thirteen, and three were fourteen; 31 were fifteen; 200 were sixteen; 366 were seventeen; and about a thousand were eighteen. Almost 1,800 were in their thirties, about 400 in their forties, and 86 in their fifties. One man was seventy, and another, seventy-three.
    Most of the youths of tender age slipped in as musicians, for there were places for 40,000 in the Union armies alone. There are numerous tales of buglers too small to climb into saddles unaided, who rode into pistol-and-saber battles with their regiments. Most famous of these on the Union side was Johnny Clem, who became drummer to the 22^nd Michigan at eleven, and was soon a mounted orderly on the staff of General George H. Thomas, with the "rank" of lance sergeant.
    No one knows the identity of the war's youngest soldier, but on the Confederate side, in particular, there

was a rush of claimants. Some of their tales belong with the war's epic literature:
    George S. Lamkin of Winona, Mississippi, joined Stanford's Mississippi Battery when he was eleven, and before his twelfth birthday was severely wounded at Shiloh.
    T.D. Claiborne, who left Virginia Military Institute at thirteen, in 1861 reportedly became captain of the 18th Virginia that year, and was killed in 1864, at seventeen. (This likely belongs with the war's apochrypha.)
    E.G. Baxter, of Clark County, Kentucky, is recorded as enlisting in Company A, 7th Kentucky Cavalry in June, 1862,when he was not quite thirteen (birth date: September 10, 1849), and a year later was a second lieutenant.
    John Bailey Tyler, of D Troop, 1st Maryland Cavalry, born in Frederick, Maryland, in 1849, was twelve when war came. He fought with his regiment until the end, without a wound.
    T.G. Bean, of Pickensville, Alabama, was probably the wars most youthful recruiter. He organized two companies at the University of Alabama in 1861, when he was thirteen, though he did not get into service until two years later, when he served as adjutant of the cadet corps taken into the Confederate armies.
    M.W. Jewett, of Ivanhoe, Virginia, is said to have been a private in the 59th Virginia at thirteen, serving at Charleston, South Carolina, in Florida, and at the siege of Petersburg.
    W.D. Peak, of Oliver Springs, Tennessee, was fourteen when he joined Company A, 26th Tennessee, and Matthew J. McDonald, of Company I, 1st Georgia Cavalry, began service at the same age.
    John T. Mason of Fairfax County, Virginia, went through the first battle of Manassas as a "marker" for the files of the 17th Virginia at age fourteen, was soon trained as a midshipman in the tiny Confederate Navy, and was aboard the famed cruiser Shenandoah.
   One of Francis Scott Key's grandsons, Billings Steele, who lived near Annapolis, Maryland, crossed the Potomac to join the rangers of Colonel John S. Mosby, at the age of sixteen.
Source: "The Civil War, Strange and Fascinating Facts" by Burke Davis

Extracted from Civil War Potpourri http://www.civilwarhome.com