Burnside

“ You mean to say that you got all six of 'em?"
"They pile out the door at me—they stood in the light of the lamp, and as they come out one by one——"
"All lies—all lies!" thundered Red Stanton. He had risen and strode toward them.
"You," called Pete Burnside, "get out and stay gone. You hear me, Red?" ”

“ Nothing could be more systematic and vigorous than the march of Burnside's columns. [Footnote: Id., p. 569.] They made from fifteen to twenty or twenty-five miles a day with the regularity of clock-work, though the route in many parts of it was most difficult. There were mountains to climb and narrow gorges to thread. Streams were to be forded, roads were to be repaired and in places to be made anew. On the 1st of September Burnside occupied Kingston, having passed through Emory Gap into East Tennessee and communicated with Crittenden's corps of Rosecrans's army. ”

“ General Burnside bore himself like an honorable man. During the battle he had proposed to put himself personally at the head of his old corps, the Ninth, and to lead it in the assault. Reluctantly he desisted, yielding to the earnest protests of his generals. After the defeat he unhesitatingly shouldered the whole responsibility for the disaster. He not only did not accuse the troops of any shortcomings, but in the highest terms he praised their courage and extreme gallantry. He blamed only himself. ”

“ Several efforts were made to drive Burnside's men from the hills covering the town on the south side of the river, but they were defeated, and communication was kept up with the valley of the French Broad River, and supplies enough were brought in to make it certain that Burnside could not be starved out, although the rations were reduced to the smallest quantity and the fewest elements which would support life. ”

“ Afterwards he gave a qualified consent to Burnside, who was still bent on crossing the river and delivering another attack. Very different now was his counsel from that which he had been accustomed to give McClellan. “Be cautious,” he wrote to Burnside, “and do not understand that the country or government is driving you.” Burnside moved his army four miles up the river. “The pontoons, artillery and all other accessories were up in time,” wrote Meade, “and we all thought the next morning the bridges would be thrown over and we should be at it. But man proposes and God disposes. ”

“ As he came in, Charles recognised on his legs a pair of cord breeches of his own, with a particular grease patch on the thigh: a pair of breeches he had lent Burnside, and which Burnside had immediately got altered to his own size. A good singer was Burnside. A man who could finish his bottle of brandy, and not go to bed in his boots. A man universally liked and trusted. An honest, hearty, little fellow, yet, one who always lent or spent his money as fast as he got it, and was as poor as Job. The greatest vehicle of news in the district, too. ”

“ Standing by his head-quarters, Burnside could see the dark lines moving to and fro on Miller's field. Mansfield was going up the slope. Sumner was crossing the Antietam. The batteries all along the line were thundering.
"You are to carry the bridge, gain the heights beyond, and advance along their crest to Sharpsburg, and reach the rear of the enemy," was the order from General McClellan to General Burnside. Easily ordered; not so easily accomplished. Burnside has less than fourteen thousand men to accomplish a task harder than that assigned to any other commander. ”

“ On the evening of November 7, 1862, the dispatch came which relieved McClellan and put Burnside in command. The moment was not well chosen. McClellan seemed in an unusually energetic temper. He had Lee's army divided, and was conceivably on the verge of fighting it in detail. [43] On the other hand, Burnside assumed the charge with reluctance and self-distrust. A handsome, popular gentleman, of pleasing manners and with the prestige of some easily won successes, he had the misfortune to be too highly esteemed. ”

“ It became evident also that Burnside's army could only subsist by making the most of its own lines of supply through Kentucky. To add its trains to those which were toiling over the mountains between Chattanooga and Bridgeport, would risk the starvation of the whole. Until a better line could be opened, Burnside was allowed to concentrate most of his forces in the vicinity of Loudon, where he guarded the whole valley. His cavalry connected with Rosecrans on the north side of the Tennessee, and also held the line of the Hiwassee on the left. ”

“ Other Rebel batteries are cutting Burnside’s brigade to pieces. The men are all but [Pg 48] ready to fall back before the terrible storm. Burnside sends to Porter for help,—he asks for the brave old soldiers, the regulars, who have been true to the flag of their country, while many of their former officers have been false. They have been long in the service, and have had many fierce contests with the Indians on the Western plains. They are as true as steel. Captain Sykes commands them. He leads the way. You see them, with steady ranks, in the edge of the woods east of Dogan’s house. ”

“ Burnside is near." Once, when Palmer's division was falling back through a corn-field, our line was hotly pressed. Pointing to Palmer's columns, which were coming from the left toward the right, the officers shouted, "Give it to 'em, boys, Burnside is here," and the boys went in with renewed confidence. But, alas, at nightfall Burnside had played out, and the hearts of our brave fellows went down with the sun. Burnside is now regarded as a myth, a fictitious warrior, who is said to be coming to the rescue of men sorely pressed, but who never comes. ”

“ Burnside lent himself to that policy, but neither he nor the President took sufficiently into account the great ability of the commander whom they opposed. By the last week of November, Burnside, with his army 113,000 strong, was on the north bank of the Rappahannock river opposite Fredericksburg where Lee had 72,000. Burnside proposed to cross the river and strike at the enemy in his chosen, strong position. No movement could have given Lee greater satisfaction. ”

“ The manoeuvres were perfectly performed, and the fighting of our troops had been everything that could be desired, meeting and matching Longstreet's veterans in a way to establish the soldierly reputation of all. The comparatively new organization of the Twenty-third Corps proved itself equal to the best, and Burnside declared that he could desire no better soldiers. The same tactics were continued through the day, and Burnside followed the hard labor and the fighting of the day with a night march which brought him to Knoxville on the morning of the 17th. ”

“ E——, with an ambulance, took me for a day’s rough travel over corduroy roads and ditches and through woods to General Burnside’s 9th Corps headquarters in a clump of trees before Petersburg. The General came out of an inner tent, putting on his coat and apologizing, saying he had been sleeping.
“Why, General, how can you sleep with the shells screaming and exploding so near?”
“Oh,” he replied, laughingly, “this is when I can sleep comfortably. It’s only when I hear musketry that I fear there is mischief brewing.”
A very courteous, handsome, soldierly gentleman was General Burnside. ”

“ The parson evidently made some weighty communication to Mr Humbert, as that gentleman's attitude towards Burnside soon underwent a marked change, and this was shown by his commencing to chat whenever they met. It was not long before they were on the most cordial terms. The squire found that Burnside was not only a powerful religionist but a strong personality. His reading was very wide, and his knowledge and conversational gifts made him an attractive man to come in contact with. ”

“ Burnside had 113,000 men of all arms, well supplied and thoroughly organized, commanded by the ablest generals in the service. His preponderance of force was therefore close to fifty per cent., but unfortunately that was not enough to outweigh the natural and artificial obstacles, the heights, stone walls, entrenchments, open fields and river to be overcome by the advancing army. ”

“ Sumner and Hooker led their men to the most dreadful slaughter of the war. On the night of the 15th of December the Union forces were withdrawn across the river, and Burnside resigned his command late in the following month, being succeeded by Hooker. Burnside served in the west during the year 1863, and commanded the ninth corps under Grant during the final Virginia campaigns. Re-entering civil life, he served as governor of Rhode Island, 1866-69, and as United States senator, from 1875 until his death in Rhode Island, September 13, 1881. ”

“ According to alarming reports, Burnside was in sore need of speedy help. It seemed to be a matter of days how long he would be able to hold out. The distance to be covered in a hurry was 120 miles. We marched in the lightest kind of order—no tents, no wagon trains, the men carrying only their blankets and knapsacks, if they had any, with something to eat in their haversacks, and plenty of ammunition in their cartridge boxes. But they were in fine spirits after the great victory, and bore the fatigue of the forced march with excellent cheer. ”

“ SAMUEL M. BURNSIDE. His ancestors were Scots. He was a son of Thomas Burnside, and was born in Northumberland, New Hampshire, July 18th, 1783. His education was at the common schools in New Hampshire, except nine months at an academy, preparatory to his entering Dartmouth College.
After he was graduated from college, in 1805, he took [6] charge of a Female Academy in Andover, Mass., for two years. He read law with Hon. Artemas Ward, so long Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. ”

“ As was also that at "Burnside Bridge," a mile southeast of the town, for the possession of which Burnside's corps and Toombs's Georgians contended till late in the afternoon. I was not averse to leaving this scene when the disabled caisson proceeded, and reached the pike.
A mile farther on I was deposited on the roadside, near the brigade field-hospital; and, completely exhausted, was carried into the yard of a neat brick cottage by two stalwart Alleghany Roughs and laid beside their captain, John Carpenter. The place, inside and out, was filled with wounded men. ”

“ They are sheltered by woods, by ravines, by the hedges and fences, but Burnside has no cover for his troops. They must march out upon the plain, charge up the hillsides, and receive the fire of a sheltered foe. ”

“ Burnside testified, before the committee on the conduct of the war, that he had, in round numbers, one hundred thousand men, all of whom were engaged in this battle, and that he failed because it was found impossible to get the men up to the works ”

“ On the morning of the battle, Burnside took his station on the east side of the Antietam, in a field overlooking the country on the other side of the river. The gathering of his staff to their breakfast brought the shells of the enemy in their midst, and compelled a change of position to the rear of some haystacks. On the same hill was placed a formidable battery of rifled cannon, throwing twenty-pound shot, commanded by Lieutenant Ben [Pg 156] jamin, of the regular artillery. The guns are so heavy that they each have eight horses to drag them, and the caissons have six. ”

“ The river must be crossed, but while Burnside was trying to lay pontoon bridges, the engineers were terribly harassed by the continuous fire of the rebel sharpshooters, who were using the houses skirting the river bank as places of refuge.
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General Burnside determined to try the effect of shelling the town. The men who were detailed to lay the pontoon bridges were falling at their posts by the rifles in the hands of a Mississippi detachment which was hidden securely in cellars, behind walls and fences, and in every corner where it was possible to [146] conceal a man. Crack! ”

“ She was the eldest living child of Lady Burnside's eldest daughter, who had married a gentleman high in the Civil Service in India, and who had always lived there. As so often happens, the children could not bear the climate after a certain age, and they had been committed to their grandmother's care, who lived during the winter at San Remo, and of late years had not returned to England in the summer, but had spent the hot season in Switzerland. ”

“ Burnside did not deem it prudent to enter into controversy, but determined that nothing should deter him from carrying out the work that God had sent him to do. The circumstances were so discouraging that no ordinary man would have persisted in going on with it. ”

“ Burnside, but I must return by the excursion train on Tuesday morning," returned Lulu; and May dared not urge the point. To invite the Inglises to any meal but afternoon tea was out of her power, for Miss Waller disapproved of promiscuous guests at luncheon and dinner. So, bidding a cordial farewell to Lulu, May set forth with Doris to Victoria Square, escorted by happy Harold.
"I call her a beautiful anomaly!" Lulu observed later on to her brother, when he asked what she thought of Mrs. Burnside. ”

“ He is not the first man who has been misused and placed in a false position, nor the last, as a later victim of blind confidence and obedience, Burnside, [8] is very likely to bear sad witness.
[8] January 25th, 1863.
But all this while, for the purposes of this narrative, Tom Leslie and his friend Harding have been standing unnoticed in the presence of the Superintendent. ”