When Union forces under the command of General Ambrose E. Burnside succeeded in recapturing Fort Macon on April 25, 1862, the victory capped the most successful campaign of the Union Army thus far in the Civil War. This success had its origins in the fact that Burnside had proposed the War's first Amphibious Division, which combined Army units with shallow draft Navy vessels under a single command. In this he had the support of his good friend and mentor, General George McClellan, the recently appointed commander of the Army of The Potomac.
Ambrose Burnside graduated from West Point in 1847. After six years of routine duty on the frontier and in garrison duty in Rhode Island, he resigned from the Army to go into business to manufacture a breech-loading carbine he had invented. The business, located in Rhode Island, was a failure; but his friend McClellan, who was then Vice President of the Illinois Central Railroad, obtained a position for Burnside on the railroad. While living in Chicago, Burnside lodged with the McClellans. Because of his good organizational abilities, Burnside soon rose to become the Treasurer of the Illinois Central.
When the War broke out, the governor of Rhode Island asked Burnside to organize and lead a regiment of Rhode Island Volunteers. Thus, when the Battle of First Manassas (Bull Run) took place, Colonel Burnside commanded a brigade of Rhode Island and Massachusetts regiments. It was shortly afterwards that Burnside surfaced his amphibious division proposal. With McClellan's support, the idea gained approval at the highest levels, including that of President Lincoln. It was at this time that Burnside was given his Brigadier's star.
During the Civil War, it was not unusual for a general to be given command of a major military organization on paper. But with the command might come the responsibility of recruiting, organizing, and equipping the organization he was asked to command. In the case of Burnside's amphibious division, he also had to find many of the ships and boats he would need in his campaign to invade the North Carolina sounds.
Burnside's expedition almost foundered in getting through the treacherous shoals of Hatteras Inlet. After regrouping and consolidating his forces on Hatteras, Burnside's forces were clearly much stronger than the local Confederate militia units they encountered as they swept over the Core Banks to Roanoke Island and secured Pamlico Sound, including the town of Washington. The important battle for New Bern was well contested by its defenders, but the Federals had too much strength to be denied. The subsequent capture of Beaufort and FORT MACON provided the North with control of eastern Carolina that it would maintain throughout the rest of the War. The details of this interesting campaign will have to await a future issue of the RAMPARTS.
With the capture of FORT MACON, Burnside became a national hero in the North. With the exception of Ulysses Grant, who had some notable successes in Tennessee, up to this time Union generals had presented the North with an unrelieved series of military disasters. Thus, the North Carolina campaign propelled General Ambrose E. Burnside to a prominence that he would later have reason to regret.
While Burnside was basking in glory, his friend, General McClellan, was struggling to keep his job. McClellan had built the Army of the Potomac into what even his detractors considered to be a first class army. His officers and soldiers loved their commander, "Little Mac", and McClellan loved them. Apparently, he loved them so much that he didn't want to lose any of them by committing the army to battle. Lincoln was constantly frustrated by McClellan's delays and failures.
On two occasions, Lincoln offered the command of the Army of The Potomac to Burnside. On both occasions Burnside rejected the offers. He told Lincoln that he didn't feel that he was qualified to lead an army of more than 100,000 men. But unspoken was his great reluctance to be the cause of his good friend losing his position as the top field commander in the entire Union army.
McClellan should have been grateful to Burnside for his loyalty, but instead he began a quiet campaign to make Burnside appear deficient as a commander. After the battle of Antietam, McClellan's reports made it appear that Burnside's failure to capture an important river crossing soon enough was the cause of the Union army's failure to crush Lee's Confederates. In spite of McClellan's best efforts to destroy Burnside's reputation, Lincoln proceeded to fire McClellan and give command of the army to Burnside.
Ambrose Burnside not only inherited the Army of The Potomac, but with it he also inherited all of McClellan's very loyal, and bitter, subordinate commanders. Most of his Corps and Division commanders would be happy to see Burnside fail and be replaced by one of their own. It only took one major battle for them to have their wishes fulfilled.
It was agreed by the President and Lincoln's chief military advisor, General Halleck, that Burnside should quickly move his army south, about 40 miles, then cross the Rappahannock River to capture lightly defended Fredericksburg. He would thereby get between Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and the Confederate capital of Richmond. Unfortunately, the pontoon boats that were to be used for bridging the river were delayed.
Burnside waited for weeks for the boats while Confederate forces across the river grew substantially. When Burnside finally launched the attack, the Confederate position was almost impregnable, but he counted on General Franklin to use his Grand Division to roll up Lee's right flank while Burnside's main body attacked the entrenched center of Lee's forces defending the high ground. Unfortunately, the less than loyal Franklin failed to even begin the critical flanking attack. The resulting Union losses at Fredericksburg exceeded 12,000 killed and wounded. The defeat at Fredericksburg resulted in Burnside being replaced as commander of the Army of The Potomac by General "Fightin' Joe" Hooker.
General Hooker was no more successful than Burnside, as commander of the Army of The Potomac, but he too left his imprint on the American language. He was notoriously fond of one component of the civilian opportunists who followed the Army wherever it went. The officers referred to them as "Hooker's Ladies", but to the troops they were simply "hookers".
Although Fredericksburg ended Burnside's brief tenure as head of a large army, it was not the end of his troubles during the war. Later, Burnside commanded a Corps under the control of generals Meade and Grant during the siege of Petersburg in 1864. One of Burnside's division commanders had a regiment of former Pennsylvania coal miners. They suggested to Burnside that they could tunnel more than 500 feet to place explosives under a Confederate strong point and blow it to kingdom come. Although there was the usual skepticism on the part of higher headquarters, Burnside enthusiastically approved the plan. The resulting explosion blew up a Confederate infantry regiment and a battery of artillery, and created an enormous crater (which can still be seen). For some mysterious reason, no one told Burnside's troops to charge around the crater. Instead, they charged right into it and then couldn't get out! Needless to say, for the Confederates it was like shooting fish in a barrel!
The battle of The Crater marked the end of Ambrose E. Burnside's military career. Who would have believed, on that fateful April day in 1862, when the brave defenders of FORT MACON were forced to lower their flag, that their conquering opponent was destined to write one of the most unusual chapters in American military history? Is it any wonder then, that General Burnside is better remembered for his bushy "sideburns" than he is for his military exploits?