BURNSIDE, AMBROSE EVERETT Amer ican soldier, was born at Liberty, Ind., on May 23, 1824, of Scot tish pedigree, his American ancestors settling in the north-west wilderness, where his parents lived in a rude log cabin. He was appointed to the U.S. military academy through casual favour, and graduated in 5847, when war with Mexico was nearly over. In 1853 he resigned his commission, and in 1853-58 was engaged in the manufacture of firearms at Bristol, R.I. In 1856 he invented a breech-loading rifle. When the Civil War broke out he took com mand of a Rhode Island regiment of three months' militia, on the summons of Governor Sprague, took part in the relief of the na tional capital and commanded a brigade in the first battle of Bull Run. On Aug. 6, 1861 he was commissioned brigadier-general of volunteers, and placed in charge of the expeditionary force which sailed in Jan. 1862, for the North Carolina coast. The victories of Roanoke Island, Newbern and Fort Macon (Feb.–April) were the chief incidents of the campaign. He was promoted major general U.S.V. soon afterwards and was transferred to the Vir ginian theatre of war. Part of his forces fought in the last battles of Pope's campaign in Virginia, and Burnside himself was engaged in the battles of South Mountain and Antietam. At the latter he was in command of McClellan's left wing, but the want of vigour in his attack was unfavourably criticized. His patriotic spirit, modesty and amiable manners, made him highly popular, and upon e1cClellan's final removal (Nov. 7) from the Army of the Po tomac, President Lincoln chose him as successor. The choice was unfortunate. He sustained a crushing defeat at the battle of Fredericksburg (Dec. 13, 1862), and on Jan. 27, 1863, gave way to Gen. Hooker. Transferred to Cincinnati in March, 1863, he caused the arrest and court-martial of Clement L. Vallandigham (q.v.), lately an opposition member of Congress, for an alleged disloyal speech, and later in the year his measures for the sup pression of press criticism aroused much opposition ; he helped to crush Morgan's Ohio raid in July; then, moving to relieve the loyalists in east Tennessee, in September entered Knoxville, to which the Confederate general James Longstreet unsuccessfully laid siege. In 1864 Burnside led his old corps under Grant in the Wilderness and Petersburg campaigns. After bearing his part well in the many bloody battles of that time, he was overtaken once more by disaster. The failure of the "Burnside mine" at Peters burg brought about his resignation. In 1866 he became governor of Rhode Island, serving for three terms (1866-69). From 1875 till his death he was a Republican member of the U.S. Congress. He was present with the German headquarters at the siege of Paris in 187o-71. He died at Bristol, R.I., on Sept. 13, 1881.
See B. P. Poore, Life and Public Services of Ambrose E. Burnside (Providence, 1882) ; A. Woodbury, Major-General Burnside and the Ninth Army Corps (Providence, 1867) ; Daniel Ross Ballou, The Military Services of Major-General Ambrose Everett Burnside in the Civil War (1914).