Ambrose E Burnside

Ambrose Burnside

Library of Congress

Quick Facts

Significance:

Major General Commanding Union Army of the Potomac, Commanding IX Corps during Maryland Campaign

Place of Birth:

Liberty, IN

Date of Birth:

May 23, 1824

Place of Death:

Bristol, RI

Date of Death:

September 13, 1881

Place of Burial:

Providence, RI

Cemetery Name:

Swan Point Cemetery

Early Life

Ambrose E. Burnside, known for his hard-working friendly easy-going nature was an inveterate tinkerer. Born in Liberty, Indiana, in 1824, money was always a struggle for the tall Hoosier. After losing his mother in 1841, Burnside was forced to become a tailor. A keen mind for business aided the youthful Burnside who finished his apprenticeship and became a minor shareholder in the company all in just two years. His recognized intelligence earned him an appointment to the United States Military Academy in 1843. Four years later Burnside graduated a respectable 18 out of 37. But Burnside’s military career was lackluster. After graduation he was sent to Veracruz, Mexico, but the career defining action in the Mexican-American War had alread finished. Instead he would be sent into action against Native people in the Southwest. In 1849 Burnside was wounded by an arrow in the neck while fighting Apache people in New Mexico. Burnside’s crowning achievement in the pre-war army was as quartermaster for a survey team on the Mexican border.

Life outside the Military

Sent east to recuperate, Burnside was assigned to Fort Adams, Rhode Island. Here he met and married Mary Richmond Bishop in 1852. In the fall of 1853 Burnside resigned his commission in the U.S. Army, remaining in Rhode Island. Because of this prior military experience Burnside was appointed to a command in the Rhode Island militia. An inventor, Burnside created an improved carbine for the U.S. Cavalry, but the contract was rescinded at the last moment and in debt to his creditors, Burnside sold off the rights to his factory and its design. Ironically the “Burnside Carbine” would have thousands sold to the Union army during the Civil War, but not one cent would go to its inventor. The contract he initially received from the government was rescinded and the debt he had gone into to produce the carbines meant he had to sell the patent to cover the losses. Hounded further by creditors Burnside found refuge and a position in the Illinois Central Railroad by his army buddy George B. McClellan. Promotion and prestige soon followed. He eventually was named treasurer of the Illinois Central Railroad company and also during his tenure there, he was introduced to the company lawyer, Abraham Lincoln.

Into the Civil War

When the Civil War broke out in 1861 the West Point trained Burnside re-enlisted and found himself commanding troops. His first command, a brigade, fought creditably at at Manassas, early in the morning before the rout began. With a limited number of heroes, the Union press lauded Burnside’s efforts, soon promoting the colonel to brigadier general. 

Burnside’s luck advanced even further as McClellan soon became the Union commander-in-chief. Burnside developed an ambitious plan for a Coastal Division. Recruiting seaman from Eastern Seaboard states to work seamlessly with the U.S. Navy fit perfectly with the Union high commands Anaconda Plan. In the winter of 1861, Burnside was permitted to recruit his seaborne invasion force.

With his usual energy Burnside soon gathered 15,000 soldiers and nearly 60 ships to launch attacks on coastal Confederate states. Included in his Coastal Division was an experimental pontoon bridge system, underwater demolition team as well as a battery of light artillery pieces that could easily be dragged through the mud. Setting out in January 1862 from Annapolis, MD Burnside’s force endured two storms while at sea heading towards Hatteras Island, North Carolina.

Facing no resistance while landing at Hatteras, Burnside's army was able to take control of the inlets surrounding the northern Outer Banks of North Carolina. Setting sail on February 7, 1862, the Union fleet arrived off Roanoke Island and began landing troops in the evening. By noon on February 8th enough Union troops arrived at the fort to overtake the defenses by pure force. With the fort captured the Confederate garrison surrendered and Roanoke Island would not again fall to Confederate hands.

On to Greater Commands

After a string of successes in North Carolina, Burnside was recalled to Virginia to aid the flailing McClellan, whose Penninsula Campaign had failed. Burnside arrived in Virginia and was immediately given command of four different divisions: two from his own North Carolina expedition, one from South Carolina and the last one coming from West Virginia, to form into the IX Corps. The Ninth Corps stormed Fox’s Gap, but at Antietam the corps’ role as diversion was elevated to a major attack in the afternoon and after some impressive successes, it recoiled as it fought the Confederate reinforcements without enough aid from the rest of the Union army. 

With McClellan’s reluctance to chase the Confederate army after Antietam, Lincoln realized that McClellan had to be replaced. He had approached Burnside two times to take command of the eastern Union army, but each time Burnside refused to replace his superior and friend. Finally, Lincoln convinced Burnside that McClellan would be removed regardless and if Burnside did not take the position, it would be offered to Major General Joseph Hooker, a man Burnside loathed. Reluctantly Burnside accepted the position.

Failure at Fredericksburg

General Ambrose E. Burnside inherited the Army of the Potomac on November 7, 1862. Burnside wanted to move the Federal Army south on a direct road to Richmond, the Confederate capital. To move to Richmond, the army would have to cross the Rappahannock River, near the town of Fredericksburg. After pontoon bridges were delayed due to miscommunication and mis-management ensuring the Confederate Army would meet the Federal Army at Fredericksburg.

After entering the town on December 11th and maintaining their position, the Union Army advanced on December 13th to meet the Confederate lines outside the town. The initial attacks by the Union forces failed to break the Confederate lines and were repulsed. Burnside persisted in the attacks against the Confederate forces, but the never broke through. Burnside considered continuing the attack on December 14th, but instead called for a day-long truce and both sides commenced burying the dead. By the end of the battle, Burnside's army had lost about 12,000 people and  the Confederate forces had only lost around 5,300. Burnside accepted the blame for the failure of the battle and the loss of the soldiers. With desertions on the rise, political foes rising in strength, and heavy battlefield losses, Lincoln relieved Burnside of the command of the Army of the Potomac. 

Out of the Lead

Burnside and his IX Corps were shipped to Ohio to launch a campaign into eastern Tennessee. Having removed Confederate forces from Cumberland Gap, Burnside moved his small army into East Tennessee, a hot bed of Unionists since the beginning of the war. Confederate forces from Chattanooga, TN drove him back to Knoxville, TN and attacked the Union army’s entrenchments. At the Battle of Fort Sanders, Confederate forces were bloodily repulsed and forced to withdraw back into Virginia, securing the territory for the Union for the rest of the war. 
After a successful campaign in Tennessee, Burnside’s corps was brought east and once again joined the main Union Army of the Potomac. Since Burnside outranked its present commander, Major General George Meade, General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant accompanied the army to moderate any complaints. Halfway through the 1864 Overland Campaign Grant would dissolve the arrangement forcing Burnside to accept commands directly from Meade. In his usual affable manner Burnside accepted the situation without complaint. Burnside's Corps began assisting the seige of Petersburg settling into the trenches for a long seige to dislodge the Confederate forces.

While concentrated in the trenches before Petersburg, one of Burnside’s regiments (coal miners from Pennsylvania) stated they could dig a mine under the nearby Confederate works and blow them up. Rebuffed by higher command as unfeasible, Burnside scrounged the necessary items to continue the digging. While the work continued Burnside ordered his Fourth Division, his largest and African-American division, to assault the hole in the line. But once Grant and Meade found out and worried about the political fallout of the expected heavy casualties, they had Burnside switch another untrained division in its place on the eve of the mine’s detonation. The Battle of the Crater that day was a disaster resulting in almost 4,000 casualties. Even after the assault faltered Burnside committed his Fourth Division. The heavy casualties for no gain would be the end of Burnside’s military career. He was relieved from command on August 14, 1864. While on "extended leave" the war ended at Appomattox Court House with the surrender of Robert E. Lee to General Ulysses Grant.

Post-Military Career

After resigning on April 15th, 1865, Burnside went back to railroading serving as director and president of the various railroads in the Midwest. He also controlled the Rhode Island Locomotive Works in his adopted state. Entering politics after the war he was elected governor of Rhode Island serving for three years from 1866 to 1869. An active and popular commander in many Civil War veteran organizations, he even served as commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), the nation’s largest veteran organization at the time. He became the first president of the National Rifle Association in 1871. On a visit to Europe in 1870 he tried to help mediate the Franco-Prussian War. In 1874 the bewhiskered General ran for U.S. Senator for Rhode Island and would serve two terms till his death in 1881. Burnside died of heart attack at home in Bristol, Rhode Island on September 13, 1881.