Nothing in Ambrose Burnside’s pre-Civil War career indicated that he would be anything but a successful and energetic general. A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, Class of 1847, he had served in the Mexican War and on the southwestern frontier, being wounded during a skirmish with Apaches. He was well liked and well considered by his superiors.
The first hint of trouble came after Burnside resigned his commission in 1853 to open a munitions factory in his native state of Rhode Island. He intended to manufacture a new breech-loading carbine he had personally designed. The Burnside carbine was a short rifle with no fore stock that fired a .54-caliber metallic cartridge—the first American firearm to use such a round.
A Major General in the Rhode Island Militia
Ambrose Burnside knew better than anyone ele that he was ill-suited to command an entire army into combat.The success of Burnside’s Bristol-based enterprise depended entirely on receiving a government contract. But despite producing and selling 200 of the weapons to the Army, he failed to secure the expected contract. As a consequence, he was forced into bankruptcy, with creditors assuming control of the carbine’s patent. Eventually, some 55,000 Burnside carbines were sold to the government, along with millions of rounds of metallic ammunition. Burnside did not receive a penny of the profits.
When the Civil War began, Burnside, then a major general in the Rhode Island Militia, was named a colonel of the 1st Rhode Island Volunteers, a 90-day regiment he had helped organize. Rushing to the nation’s capital, he fought competently at the First Battle of Bull Run and was promoted to brigadier general.
In the spring of 1862, Burnside led an expedition down the coast of North Carolina, capturing Roanoke Island, New Bern, Beaufort, and Fort Macon, despite being threatened with mutiny several times by the men in his combined Army-Navy invasion force and almost drowning off the coast of Cape Hatteras.
