Hardee's Corps at Wartrace: Following the Battle of Stones River in early January of 1863, Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee retreated south to Tullahoma before establishing a defensive line running from Shelbyville to the vicinity of Wartrace. Lieutenant General William J. Hardee, headquartered at nearby Beechwood, the plantation home of Colonel Andrew Erwin, held the line around Wartrace with two divisions, one commanded by Major General Patrick Cleburne, the other by Major General A. P. Stewart. From this position, his 14,000-man corps guarded both Liberty Gap above Bell Buckle and Hoover's Gap at Beech Grove. As the Union advance on June 24th and 25th pushed through the gaps toward Manchester, Hardee's position in Wartrace was turned and he ordered a general retreat south to Tullahoma. The two days of rain that marked the opening of the campaign turned the roads to mud. Often, the men marched without shoes. As Cleburne noted of the men, they "had no changes of clothing, no tents, and could not even light fires to dry themselves." Yet, spirits remained determined. Despite the "retrograde," as one Confederate soldier described it, "look out for hot work at Tullahoma...We are prepared for the Yanks at that place." Stonewall of the West: Patrick Cleburne was one of the most notable general officers the Confederacy produced. He was born in 1828 in Ireland and joined the British army when the Irish potato famine struck. In 1849 he emigrated to America, moving to Arkansas. Cleburne enlisted in the Confederate army as a private in 1861, but made a spectacular rise to Major General by late 1862, becoming one of the best division commanders in the western army. Never a conventional thinker, Cleburne proposed while at Wartrace that the Confederacy arm slaves with the guarantee they would be emancipated along with their immediate families. He assumed that a southerner would sooner "give up the negro slave rather than be a slave himself," and that slaves would make wonderful soldiers, for "the Negro has been dreaming of freedom, and his vivid imagination has surrounded that condition with so many gratifications that it has become the paradise of his hopes." Cleburne's suggestion found few supporters. Confederate Brigadier General William Bate, commander of a brigade at Hoover's Gap, called the idea "hideous and objectionable," nothing less than the "serpent of Abolitionism...revolting to Southern sentiment, Southern pride and Southern honor." The proposition was kept from the public, however, and seemed to stifle Cleburne's meteoric rise. He was never considered for further promotion. Leading a frontal assault, he was killed at the Battle of Franklin on November 30, 1864. The Whitworth Rifle: While stationed here in Wartrace, Major General Cleburne trained Confederate sharpshooters with five new Whitworth rifles, an English weapon made from the design of Joseph Whitworth, one of the most important mechanical engineers of the 19th century. The weapon fired a .45-caliber bullet accurately to a range of 1,500-1,800 yards using a telescopic site, making it ideal for sharpshooters. At Wartrace, Cleburne organized contests of marksmanship to determine who would use these rifles. Once selected, he engaged the men in intensive shooting drills, to the point that, as one officer remembered, the division "had the finest and most effective body of sharpshooters in the army." (Captions) (Top left) Confederate Lieutenant General William J. Hardee (Right) Major General Patrick R. Cleburne