1882 1st ed Life of Union Army General Ambrose Burnside CIVIL WAR Rhode Island

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1882 1st ed Life of Union Army General Ambrose Burnside CIVIL WAR Rhode Island:
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1882 1st ed Life of Union ArmyGeneral Ambrose Burnside CIVIL WAR Rhode Island

INCREDIBLE Maps + 87 Illustrations!BEAUTIFUL!

Ambrose Everett Burnside (1824 – 1881) wasan American soldier, railroad executive, inventor, industrialist, andpolitician from Rhode Island, serving as governor and a United States Senator.As a Union Army general in the American Civil War, he conducted successfulcampaigns in North Carolina and East Tennessee, as well as countering the raidsof Confederate General John Hunt Morgan, but suffered disastrous defeats at theBattle of Fredericksburg and Battle of the Crater. His distinctive style offacial hair became known as sideburns, derived from his last name. He was alsothe first president of the National Rifle Association.

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Main author: BenjaminPerley Poore

Title: The lifeand public services of Ambrose E. Burnside, soldier, -citizen, -statesman.

Published: Providence, R.I., J.A. & R.A.Reid, 1882.

Language: English

Notes & contents:

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·Filledwith 87 illustrations and 8 maps!

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Wear:wear as seen in photos

Binding:tight and secure leather binding

Pages:complete with all 448 pages; plus indexes, prefaces, and such

Publisher:Providence, R.I., J.A. & R.A. Reid, 1882.

Size: ~9inX 6in (22.5cm x 15cm)

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Ambrose Everett Burnside (May 23, 1824 – September 13, 1881)was an American soldier, railroad executive, inventor, industrialist, andpolitician from Rhode Island, serving as governor and a United States Senator.As a Union Army general in the American Civil War, he conducted successfulcampaigns in North Carolina and East Tennessee, as well as countering the raidsof Confederate General John Hunt Morgan, but suffered disastrous defeats at theBattle of Fredericksburg and Battle of the Crater. His distinctive style offacial hair became known as sideburns, derived from his last name. He was alsothe first president of the National Rifle Association.

Contents [hide]

1 Earlylife and career

2 CivilWar

2.1 First BullRun

2.2 NorthCarolina

2.3 Antietam

2.4 Fredericksburg

2.5 EastTennessee

2.6 OverlandCampaign

2.7 The Crater

3 Postbellumcareer

4 Assessmentand legacy

4.1 Sideburns

5 Inmemoriam

6 Inpopular media

7 See also

8 Notes

9 References

10 Externallinks

Early life and career[edit]

Burnside was born in Liberty, Indiana and was the fourth ofnine children[1] of Edghill and Pamela (or Pamilia) Brown Burnside, a family ofScottish origin.[2] His great-great-grandfather Robert Burnside (1725–1775) wasborn in Scotland and settled in the Province of South Carolina.[3] His father,a native of South Carolina, was a slave owner who freed his slaves when herelocated to Indiana. Ambrose attended Liberty Seminary as a young boy, but hiseducation was interrupted when his mother died in 1841; he was apprenticed to alocal tailor, eventually becoming a partner in the business.[4]

Through his interest in military affairs and his father\'spolitical connections he obtained an appointment to the United States MilitaryAcademy in 1843. (Though Caleb blood Smith recounted Burnside\'s brash andindependent application to the military academy.[5]) He graduated in 1847,ranking 18th in a class of 47, and was commissioned a brevet second lieutenantin the 2nd U.S. Artillery. He traveled to Veracruz for the Mexican–American Warbut arrived after hostilities ceased and performed mostly garrison duty aroundMexico City.[6]

At the close of the war, Lt. Burnside served two years onthe western frontier, serving 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 1849, hewas wounded by an arrow in his neck during a skirmish against Apaches in LasVegas, New Mexico. He was promoted to 1st lieutenant on December 12, 1851.

Mrs. Burnside, Mary Richmond Bishop

In 1852, he was assigned to Fort Adams, Newport, RhodeIsland, and, while there, he married Mary Richmond Bishop of Providence, RhodeIsland, on April 27 of that year. The marriage, which lasted until Burnside\'sdeath, was childless.[7]

In October 1853, Burnside resigned his commission in theUnited States Army. Although maintaining a position in the state militia, hedevoted his time and energy to the manufacture of the famous firearm that bearshis name, the Burnside carbine. The Secretary of War under President James Buchanan,John B. Floyd, contracted with the Burnside Arms Company to equip a largeportion of the Army, mostly cavalry, with his carbine and induced him toestablish extensive factories for its manufacture. The Bristol Rifle Works wereno sooner complete than another gunmaker allegedly bribed Floyd to break his$100,000 contract with Burnside. Burnside ran as a Democrat for one of theCongressional seats in Rhode Island in 1858 and was defeated in a landslide.The burdens of the campaign and the destruction by fire of his factorycontributed to his financial ruin, and he was forced to assign his firearmpatents to others. He then went west in search of employment and becametreasurer of the Illinois Central Railroad, where he worked for, and becamefriendly with, one of his future commanding officers, George B. McClellan.[8]

Civil War[edit]

General Ambrose Burnside. Photo by Mathew Brady

First Bull Run[edit]

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Burnside was a brigadiergeneral in the Rhode Island Militia. He raised a regiment, the 1st Rhode IslandVolunteer Infantry, and was appointed its colonel on May 2, 1861. Two companiesof this regiment were then armed with Burnside Carbines. Within a month, heascended to brigade command in the Department of Northeast Virginia. Hecommanded the brigade without distinction at the First Battle of Bull Run inJuly, committing his troops piecemeal, and took over division commandtemporarily for wounded Brig. Gen. David Hunter. After his 90-day regiment wasmustered out of service on August 2, he was promoted to brigadier general ofvolunteers on August 6, and was assigned to train provisional brigades in thenascent Army of the Potomac.[6]

Burnside (seated, center) and officers of the 1st RhodeIsland at Camp Sprague, Rhode Island, 1861

North Carolina[edit]

Burnside commanded the Coast Division, or North CarolinaExpeditionary Force, three brigades assembled in Annapolis, Maryland, whichformed the nucleus for his future IX Corps, and the Department of NorthCarolina from September 1861 until July 1862. He conducted a successfulamphibious campaign that closed over 80% of the North Carolina sea coast toConfederate shipping for the remainder of the war.[9]

In recognition of his successes at the battles of RoanokeIsland and New Bern, the first significant Union victories in the EasternTheater, he was promoted to major general of volunteers on March 18, 1862. InJuly, his forces were transported north to Newport News, Virginia, and becamethe IX Corps of the Army of the Potomac.[6]

Following Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan\'s failure in thePeninsula Campaign, Burnside was offered command of the Army of thePotomac.[10] Refusing this opportunity, because of his loyalty to McClellan andthe fact that he understood his own lack of military experience, he detachedpart of his corps in support of Maj. Gen. John Pope\'s Army of Virginia in theNorthern Virginia Campaign. Telegrams extremely critical of Pope\'s abilities asa commander from Maj. Gen. Fitz John Porter that he received at this time andforwarded on to his superiors in concurrence would later play a significantrole in Porter\'s court-martial, in which Burnside would appear as a starwitness.[11]

Burnside again declined command following Pope\'s debacle atSecond Bull Run.[12]

Antietam[edit]

Burnside Bridge at Antietam in 2005

Burnside was given command of the \"Right Wing\" ofthe Army of the Potomac (the I Corps and his own IX Corps) at the start of theMaryland Campaign for the Battle of South Mountain, but McClellan separated thetwo corps at the Battle of Antietam, placing them on opposite ends of the Unionbattle line, returning Burnside to command of just the IX Corps. Implicitlyrefusing to give up his higher authority, Burnside treated first Maj. Gen.Jesse L. Reno (killed at South Mountain) and then Brig. Gen. Jacob D. Cox asthe corps commander, funneling orders to the corps through them. Thiscumbersome arrangement contributed to his slowness in attacking and crossingwhat is now called \"Burnside\'s Bridge\" on the southern flank of theUnion line.[13]

Burnside did not perform an adequate reconnaissance of thearea, and instead of taking advantage of several easy fording sites out ofrange of the enemy, his troops were forced into repeated assaults across thenarrow bridge which was dominated by Confederate sharpshooters on high ground.By noon, McClellan was losing patience. He sent a succession of couriers tomotivate Burnside to move forward. He ordered one aide, \"Tell him if itcosts 10,000 men he must go now.\" He increased the pressure by sending hisinspector general to confront Burnside, who reacted indignantly:\"McClellan appears to think I am not trying my best to carry this bridge;you are the third or fourth one who has been to me this morning with similarorders.\"[14] Although the IX Corps eventually broke through, the delayallowed Maj. Gen. A. P. Hill\'s Confederate division to come up from HarpersFerry and repulse the Union breakthrough. McClellan refused Burnside\'s requestsfor reinforcements and the battle ended in a tactical stalemate.[15]

Fredericksburg[edit]

Main article: Battle of Fredericksburg

Union General Ambrose Burnside, 1862.

McClellan was removed after failing to pursue General RobertE. Lee\'s retreat from Antietam, and Burnside was assigned to command the Armyof the Potomac on November 7, 1862. He reluctantly obeyed this order, the thirdsuch in his brief career, in part because when he tried to refuse, the couriertold him that the command would go instead to Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker (whom Burnsidedisliked). President Abraham Lincoln pressured Burnside to take aggressiveaction and on November 14 approved his plan to capture the Confederate capitalat Richmond, Virginia. This plan led to a humiliating and costly Union defeatat the Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13. His advance upon Fredericksburgwas rapid, but planning in marshaling pontoon bridges for crossing theRappahannock River and his own reluctance to deploy portions of his army acrossfording points later delayed the attack. This allowed Gen. Lee to concentratealong Marye\'s Heights just west of town and easily repulse the Union attacks.Assaults south of town, which were supposed to be the main avenue of attack,were also mismanaged, and initial Union breakthroughs went unsupported. Upsetby the failure of his plan and by the enormous casualties of his repeated,futile frontal assaults, Burnside declared that he would personally lead anassault of the IX corps. His corps commanders talked him out of it, butrelations between the commander and his subordinates were strained. Acceptingfull blame, he offered to retire from the U.S. Army, but this was refused.Burnside\'s detractors labeled him the \"Butcher ofFredericksburg\".[16]

In January 1863, Burnside launched a second offensive againstLee, but it bogged down in winter rains before it accomplished anything and hasbeen derisively called the Mud March. In its wake, he asked that severalofficers, who were openly insubordinate, be relieved of duty andcourt-martialed; he also offered to resign. Lincoln chose the latter option onJanuary 26 and replaced him with Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker, one of the officerswho had conspired against Burnside.[17]

East Tennessee[edit]

Although Burnside offered to resign his commissionaltogether, Lincoln declined, stating that there could still be a place for himin the army. Thus, he was placed back at the head of the IX Corps and sent tocommand the Department of the Ohio, encompassing the states of Ohio, Indiana,Kentucky, and Illinois. Since this was a quiet area with little activity goingon, the president reasoned that Burnside could not get himself into too muchtrouble there. However, antiwar sentiment was riding high in the Western statesas they had traditionally carried on a great deal of commerce with the South,and there was little in the way of abolitionist sentiment there or a desire tofight for the purpose of ending slavery. Thoroughly disturbed by this trend,Burnside began issuing a series of orders forofferding \"the expression of publicsentiments against the war or the Administration\" in his department, whichfinally climaxed with General Order No. 38, which declared that \"anyperson found guilty of treason will be tried by a military tribunal and eitherimprisoned or banished to enemy lines\". On May 1, 1863, Ohio CongressmanClement L. Vallandigham, a prominent opponent of the war, held a large publicrally in Mount Vernon, Ohio in which he denounced President Lincoln as a\"tyrant\" who sought to abolish the Constitution and set up a dictatorship.Burnside had dispatched several agents to the rally who took down notes andbrought back their \"evidence\" to the general, who then declared thatit was sufficient grounds to arrest Vallandigham for treason. Despite theCongressman\'s protests that he was the victim of simply expressing his opinionsin public, a military court tried him (all the while ignoring the fact thatVallandigham was a civilian) and found him guilty of violating General OrderNo. 38. He was thus sentenced to imprisonment for the duration of the war.

Vallandigham was instantly turned into a martyr by antiwarDemocrats, a situation that created a nightmare for President Lincoln, as therenow stood the almost certain chance that they would gain the governorship ofOhio and thus drop the state out of the war or even worse, ally with theConfederacy. However, Burnside was not done yet. He next turned his attentionto Illinois, where the Chicago Times newspaper had been printing antiwareditorials for months. The general dispatched a squadron of troops to thepaper\'s offices and ordered them to cease printing. Lincoln found both ofBurnside\'s actions difficult to react to. He had not been asked or informedabout either Vallandigham\'s arrest or the closure of the Chicago Times, but finallydecided that the former was the bigger deal of the two. Remembering the sectionof General Order No. 38 which declared that offenders would be banished toenemy lines, Lincoln finally decided that this was a good idea, and soVallandigham was freed from jail and sent to Confederate hands. Meanwhile,Lincoln ordered the Chicago Times to be reopened and announced that Burnsidehad thoroughly exceeded his authority in both cases. The president then issueda warning that generals were not to arrest civilians or close down newspapersagain without the White House\'s permission.[18] Burnside also dealt withConfederate raiders such as John Hunt Morgan.

In the Knoxville Campaign, Burnside advanced to Knoxville,Tennessee, first bypassing the Confederate-held Cumberland Gap. After occupyingKnoxville unopposed, he sent troops back to the Cumberland Gap. Brig. Gen. JohnW. Frazer, the Confederate commander, refused to surrender in the face of twoUnion brigades and Burnside arrived with a third, forcing the surrender ofFrazer and 2,300 Confederates.[19] After Union Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecranswas defeated at the Battle of Chickamauga, Burnside was pursued by Lt. Gen.James Longstreet, against whose troops he had battled at Marye\'s Heights.Burnside skillfully outmaneuvered Longstreet at the Battle of Campbell\'sStation and was able to reach his entrenchments and safety in Knoxville, wherehe was briefly besieged until the Confederate defeat at the Battle of FortSanders outside the city. Tying down Longstreet\'s corps at Knoxvillecontributed to Gen. Braxton Bragg\'s defeat by Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant atChattanooga. Troops under Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman marched to Burnside\'said, but the siege had already been lifted; Longstreet withdrew, eventuallyreturning to Virginia.[17]

Overland Campaign[edit]

Burnside was ordered to take the IX Corps back to theEastern Theater, where, in Annapolis, Maryland, he built it up to a strength ofover 21,000 effectives.[20] The IX Corps fought in the Overland Campaign of May1864 as an independent command, reporting initially to Grant; his corps was notassigned to the Army of the Potomac because Burnside outranked its commander,Maj. Gen. George G. Meade, who had been a division commander under Burnside atFredericksburg. This cumbersome arrangement was rectified on May 24 just beforethe Battle of North Anna, when Burnside agreed to waive his precedence of rankand was placed under Meade\'s direct command.[21]

Burnside fought at the battles of Wilderness andSpotsylvania Court House, where he did not perform in a distinguishedmanner,[22] attacking piecemeal and appearing reluctant to commit his troops tothe frontal assaults that characterized these battles. After North Anna andCold Harbor, he took his place in the siege lines at Petersburg.[23]

The Crater[edit]

Petersburg Crater with Union soldier in 1865

As the two armies faced the stalemate of trench warfare atPetersburg in July 1864, Burnside agreed to a plan suggested by a regiment offormer coal miners in his corps, the 48th Pennsylvania: dig a mine under a fortnamed Elliot\'s Salient in the Confederate entrenchments and ignite explosivesthere to achieve a surprise breakthrough. The fort was destroyed on July 30 inwhat is known as the Battle of the Crater. Because of interference from Meade,Burnside was ordered, only hours before the infantry attack, not to use hisdivision of black troops, which had been specially trained for this mission. Hewas forced to use untrained white troops instead. He could not decide whichdivision to choose as a replacement, so he had his three subordinate commandersdraw lots. The division chosen by chance was that commanded by Brig. Gen. JamesH. Ledlie, who failed to brief the men on what was expected of them and wasreported during the battle to be drunk well behind the lines, providing noleadership. Ledlie\'s men entered the huge crater instead of going around it,becoming trapped, and were subjected to heavy fire from Confederates around therim, resulting in high casualties.

Burnside was relieved of command on August 14 and sent on\"extended leave\" by Grant. Burnside was never recalled to duty duringthe remainder of the war. A court of inquiry later placed the blame for theCrater fiasco on Burnside and his subordinates. In December, Burnside met withPresident Lincoln and General Grant about his future. He was contemplatingresignation, but Lincoln and Grant requested that he remain in the Army. At theend of the interview, Burnside wrote, \"I was not informed of any duty uponwhich I am to be placed.\" He finally resigned his commission on April 15,1865, after Lee\'s surrender at Appomattox.[24]

The United States Congress Joint Committee on the Conduct ofthe War later exonerated Burnside, and placed the blame for the Union defeat atthe Crater on General Meade for requiring the specially trained USCT (UnitedStates Colored Troops) men to be withdrawn.