Ambrose Everett Burnside, bewhiskered Ulster-Scot Civil War general who gave us term ‘sideburns’

This is unfair, as history often is, because he conducted successful campaigns raiding Confederate installations in North Carolina between September 1861 and July 1862 and East Tennessee in the latter months of 1863 (which went some way to restoring his military reputation after Fredericksburg).

While Burnside was personally brave and widely popular, he possessed sufficient critical self-awareness to appreciate that he lacked the military acumen of a great commander. (He twice declined command of the Army of Potomac and only very reluctantly accepted on the third occasion.)

However, his skillset enabled him to enjoy a varied and largely successful career in business (as a railroad executive, inventor and industrialist) and in politics (serving as governor of Rhode Island between 1866 and 1869 and a US Senator for the state between 1875 and 1881).

Burnside, who was born on May 23 1824, graduated from West Point in 1847 and was commissioned into the artillery. He served in the Mexican War but without seeing combat and served against the Indians before resigning his commission in 1853.

In civilian life he began manufacturing firearms at Bristol, Rhode Island, and in 1856 he invented a breech-loading carbine which fired a metallic cartridge. A well-made but expensive weapon, it did not meet with immediate success. However, with the advent of the Civil War the weapon came into its own but by then Burnside’s company had gone into liquidation and the carbine was being manufactured by his creditors.

Between 1855 and 1857 Burnside was major general of the Rhode Island militia. Soon after the outbreak of the Civil War, as colonel he took command of a Rhode Island militia regiment. He was later promoted to brigadier general and fought, as we have already noted, in the North Carolina coastal campaign.

On November 7 1862 Lincoln removed George B McClellan as commander of the Army of the Potomac for his failure to pursue Robert E Lee’s retreat from Sharpsburg/Antietam and, despite Burnside’s protests, Lincoln appointed him as his replacement.

Lincoln pressured Burnside to take aggressive action and on November 14 approved his plan to capture Richmond, the Confederate capital. This entailed Burnside moving the Army of the Potomac from around Sharpsburg/Antietam to Fredericksburg on the Rappahannock River. To enjoy any prospect of success Burnside needed to move quickly and mount a surprise crossing of Rappahannock. He advanced on Fredericksburg with commendable rapidity but bridging the river required pontoons. For whatever reason, three weeks were wasted in securing these and the element of surprise was completely lost.

This permitted Robert E Lee to fortify Marye’s Heights just west of the town. It took Union engineers, who suffered heavy casualties from the deadly sniping of Brigadier General Barksdale’s Mississippians, two days to bridge the river.

Battle commenced on the morning of December 13. Major General Sumner launched nine completely unsuccessful attacks against a stone wall and a sunken road held by James Longstreet’s Corps, supported by Confederate artillery fire from Marye’s Heights.

The Confederates enjoyed every advantage – a commanding position and protection from return fire – and were thus able to inflict horrendous casualties on the advancing Union troops at minimal risk to themselves. Union troops encountered ‘a sheet of fire’. E P Alexander, a Confederate artillery commander, had correctly anticipated: ‘A chicken could not live on that field when we open up on it’.

It was a bitterly cold day rendered even more unpleasant by frequent snow showers. For several hours wounded Union troops lay pinned to the frozen ground without cover. Those who shifted cramped limbs sustained fresh wounds as they did so.

Assaults south of the town, which were supposed to be the main attack, were also mismanaged, and initial Union breakthroughs went unsupported.

Distressed by the failure of his plan and by the enormous casualties of his repeated, futile frontal assaults, Burnside wanted to lead an assault by his old 9th Corps the following day. Fortunately, his Corps commanders talked him out of it.

Union casualties of 12,653 at Fredericksburg were extremely heavy, especially considering that the brunt of the fighting was borne by only five divisions out of an army of 116,000 men. Most of the Union dead lay in front of the sunken road beneath Marye’s Heights. By contrast, Confederate casualties were light: 5,377 out of an army of 78,000 men.

Burnside fully accepted responsibility for the disaster. Major General Darius Couch saw him at 2am after the battle. He subsequently wrote: ‘... one knowing him so long and well as myself could see that he wished his body was also lying in front of Mayre’s Heights. I never felt so badly for a man in my life.’

When informed of what had happened at Fredericksburg, President Lincoln told a friend: ‘If there is worse place than Hell, I am in it.’ For the South, Fredericksburg was a tremendous fillip to morale after Lee’s retreat and unsuccessful invasion of Maryland. Furthermore, Richmond was no longer in imminent danger.

In January 1863, Burnside, who was a fighter, launched a second offensive against Lee, but the aptly named ‘Mud March’ became bogged down in winter rains before anything could be accomplished. The Confederates jeered that Burnside was ‘stuck in the mud’.

In the aftermath of this brief but unsuccessful campaign, Burnside asked that several officers, who were openly insubordinate, be relieved of duty and court-martialled. He also offered to resign.

Lincoln, who admired Burnside’s personal qualities (and probably also appreciated that he was on the verge of a breakdown), refused to allow him to resign his commission but replaced him on January 26 with Major General Joseph Hooker, a bitter rival of Burnside’s and one of those officers who had conspired against him.