Ambrose Burnside

Ambrose Everts Burnside (May 23, 1824 – September 13, 1881) was an American army officer and politician who became a senior Union general in the American Civil War and a three-time governor of Rhode Island, as well as being an inventor and industrialist.

He achieved some of the earliest victories in the Eastern theater of the Civil War, but was then promoted above his abilities, and is mainly remembered for two disastrous defeats, at Fredericksburg (December 1862) and the Battle of the Crater (July 1864, during the Siege of Petersburg). Although an inquiry cleared him of blame in the latter case, he never regained credibility as an army commander.

Burnside was a modest and unassuming individual, mindful of his limitations, who had been propelled to high command against his will. He could be described as a genuinely unlucky man, both in battle and in commerce (due to various circumstances, most of them beyond his control, he was unable to profit from the successful cavalry firearm that had been his own invention). His style of thick facial hair became known as "sideburns", deriving from the two syllables of his surname.

Burnside was born in Liberty, Indiana, and was the fourth of nine children of Edghill and Pamela (or Pamilia) Brown Burnside, a family of Scottish, Scotch-Irish and English origins. His great-great-grandfather Robert Burnside (1725–1775) was born in Scotland and settled in the Province of South Carolina. His father was a native of South Carolina; he was a slave owner who freed his slaves when he relocated to Indiana. Ambrose attended Liberty Seminary as a young boy, but his education was interrupted when his mother died in 1841; he was apprenticed to a local tailor, eventually becoming a partner in the business.

As a young officer before the Civil War, Burnside was engaged to Charlotte "Lottie" Moon, who left him at the altar. When the minister asked if she took him as her husband, Moon is said to have shouted "No siree Bob!" before running out of the church. Moon is best known for her espionage for the Confederacy during the Civil War. Later, Burnside arrested Moon, her younger sister Virginia "Ginnie" Moon, and their mother. He kept them under house arrest for months but never charged them with espionage.

He obtained an appointment to the United States Military Academy in 1843 through his father's political connections and his own interest in military affairs. During his early tenure at the academy, a clerical error was made listing his middle name as Everett, rather than Everts. According to fellow cadet Henry Heth, Burnside was a hellion who went on frequent drinking sprees by imbibing at Benny Havens. In June 1844, Burnside helped fellow cadet Richard W. Jones viciously beat George H. Derby, who would later become a famous humorist, leaving him hospitalized. Both Jones and Burnside faced a court martial in September. While Jones was expelled, Burnside was confined to light prison for one week.

Burnside graduated in 1847, ranking 18th in a class of 47, and was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the 2nd U.S. Artillery. He traveled to Veracruz for the Mexican–American War, but he arrived after hostilities had ceased and performed mostly garrison duty around Mexico City.

At the close of the war, Lt. Burnside served two years on the western frontier under Captain Braxton Bragg in the 3rd U.S. Artillery, a light artillery unit that had been converted to cavalry duty, protecting the Western mail routes through Nevada to California. In August 1849, he was wounded by an arrow in his neck during a skirmish against Apaches in Las Vegas, New Mexico. He was promoted to 1st lieutenant on December 12, 1851.

In 1852, he was assigned to Fort Adams, Newport, Rhode Island, and he married Mary Richmond Bishop of Providence, Rhode Island, on April 27 of that year. The marriage lasted until Mary's death in 1876, but was childless.

In October 1853, Burnside resigned his commission in the United States Army and was appointed commander of the Rhode Island state militia with the rank of major general. He held this position for two years.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Burnside was a colonel in the Rhode Island Militia. He raised the 1st Rhode Island Volunteer Infantry Regiment, and was appointed its colonel on May 2, 1861. Two companies of this regiment were then armed with Burnside carbines.

Within a month, he ascended to brigade command in the Department of northeast Virginia. He commanded the brigade without distinction at the First Battle of Bull Run in July and took over division command temporarily for wounded Brig. Gen. David Hunter. His 90-day regiment was mustered out of service on August 2; he was promoted to brigadier-general of volunteers on August 6 and was assigned to train provisional brigades in the Army of the Potomac.

Burnside commanded the Coast Division or North Carolina Expeditionary Force from September 1861 until July 1862, three brigades assembled in Annapolis, Maryland, which formed the nucleus for his future IX Corps. He conducted a successful amphibious campaign that closed more than 80% of the North Carolina sea coast to Confederate shipping for the remainder of the war. This included the Battle of Elizabeth City, fought on February 10, 1862, on the Pasquotank River near Elizabeth City, North Carolina.

The participants were vessels of the United States Navy's North Atlantic Blockading Squadron opposed by vessels of the Confederate Navy's Mosquito Fleet; the latter were supported by a shore-based battery of four guns at Cobb's Point (now called Cobb Point) near the southeastern border of the town. The battle was a part of the campaign in North Carolina that was led by Burnside and known as the Burnside Expedition. The result was a Union victory, with Elizabeth City and its nearby waters in their possession and the Confederate fleet captured, sunk, or dispersed.

Burnside was promoted to major general of volunteers on March 18, 1862, in recognition of his successes at the battles of Roanoke Island and New Bern, the first significant Union victories in the Eastern Theater. During his campaign in New Bern, Burnside was initially concerned about being swamped by the number of freed slaves in the area looking for safety near the union troops, but eventually found use of the newly freedmen by putting them to work creating fortifications in return for food. He was not wrong in his first assessment, by June there were 75,000 freedmen in the New Bern area. In July, his forces were transported north to Newport News, Virginia, and became the IX Corps of the Army of the Potomac.

After his resignation, Burnside was employed in numerous railroad and industrial directorships, including the presidencies of the Cincinnati and Martinsville Railroad, the Indianapolis and Vincennes Railroad, the Cairo and Vincennes Railroad, and the Rhode Island Locomotive Works.

He was elected to three one-year terms as Governor of Rhode Island, serving from May 29, 1866, to May 25, 1869. He was nominated by the Republican Party to be their candidate for governor in March 1866, and Burnside was elected governor in a landslide on April 4, 1866. This began Burnside's political career as a Republican, as he had been a Democrat before the war.

Burnside was a Companion of the Massachusetts Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, a military society of Union officers and their descendants, and served as the Junior Vice Commander of the Massachusetts Commandery in 1869. He was commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) veterans' association from 1871 to 1872, and also served as the Commander of the Department of Rhode Island of the GAR. At its inception in 1871, the National Rifle Association of America chose him as its first president.

During a visit to Europe in 1870, Burnside attempted to mediate between the French and the Germans in the Franco-Prussian War. He was registered at the offices of Drexel, Harjes & Co., Geneva, week ending November 5, 1870. Drexel Harjes was a major lender to the new French government after the war, helping it to repay its massive war reparations.

In 1876, Burnside was elected as commander of the New England Battalion of the Centennial Legion, the title of a collection of 13 militia units from the original 13 states, which participated in the parade in Philadelphia on July 4, 1876, to mark the centennial of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Burnside died suddenly of "neuralgia of the heart" (angina pectoris) on the morning of September 13, 1881, at his home in Bristol, Rhode Island, accompanied only by his doctor and family servants.

Burnside's body lay in state at City Hall until his funeral on September 16. A procession took his casket, in a hearse drawn by four black horses, to the First Congregational Church for services which were attended by many local dignitaries. Following the services, the procession made its way to Swan Point Cemetery for burial. Businesses and mills were closed for much of the day, and "thousands" of mourners from "all towns of the state and many places in Massachusetts and Connecticut" crowded the streets of Providence for the occasion.

Personally, Burnside was always very popular, both in the army and in politics. He made friends easily, smiled a lot, and remembered everyone's name. His professional military reputation, however, was less positive, and he was known for being obstinate, unimaginative, and unsuited both intellectually and emotionally for high command. Grant stated that he was "unfitted" for the command of an army and that no one knew this better than Burnside himself. Knowing his capabilities, he twice refused command of the Army of the Potomac, accepting only the third time when the courier told him that otherwise the command would go to Joseph Hooker. Jeffry D. Wert described Burnside's relief after Fredericksburg in a passage that sums up his military career:

He had been the most unfortunate commander of the Army, a general who had been cursed by succeeding its most popular leader and a man who believed he was unfit for the post. His tenure had been marked by bitter animosity among his subordinates and a fearful, if not needless, sacrifice of life. A firm patriot, he lacked the power of personality and will to direct recalcitrant generals. He had been willing to fight the enemy, but the terrible slope before Marye's Heights stands as his legacy.

... Burnside had repeatedly demonstrated that it had been a military tragedy to give him a rank higher than colonel. One reason might have been that, with all his deficiencies, Burnside never had any angles of his own to play; he was a simple, honest, loyal soldier, doing his best even if that best was not very good, never scheming or conniving or backbiting. Also, he was modest; in an army many of whose generals were insufferable prima donnas, Burnside never mistook himself for Napoleon. Physically he was impressive: tall, just a little stout, wearing what was probably the most artistic and awe-inspiring set of whiskers in all that bewhiskered Army. He customarily wore a high, bell-crowned felt hat with the brim turned down and a double-breasted, knee-length frock coat, belted at the waist—a costume which, unfortunately, is apt to strike the modern eye as being very much like that of a beefy city cop of the 1880s.

Burnside was noted for his unusual beard, joining strips of hair in front of his ears to his mustache but with the chin clean-shaven; the word burnsides was coined to describe this style. The syllables were later reversed to give sideburns.

In 1866, Allison Township in Lapeer County, Michigan, was renamed Burnside Township to honor Ambrose Burnside.

An equestrian statue designed by Launt Thompson, a New York sculptor, was dedicated in 1887 at Exchange Place in Providence, facing City Hall. In 1906, the statue was moved to City Hall Park, which was re-dedicated as Burnside Park.

Bristol, Rhode Island, has a small street named for Burnside.

The Burnside Memorial Hall in Bristol, Rhode Island, is a two-story Richardson Romanesque public building on Hope Street. It was dedicated in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur and Governor Augustus O. Bourn. Originally, a statue of Burnside was intended to be the focus of the porch. The architect was Stephen C. Earle.

Burnside, Kentucky, in south-central Kentucky, is a small town south of Somerset named for the former site of Camp Burnside, near the former Cumberland River town of Point Isabelle.