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Ambrose Burnside, 1824-1881
After the fall of Fort Sumter in April 1861, Ambrose Burnside organized and led the First Rhode Island Regiment of Volunteers. Among the first units to come to the defense of Washington, D.C., that summer, Burnside and his men were in the thick of the fighting at the First Battle of Bull Run. In November 1862, Burnside reluctantly succeeded George McClellan as head of the Army of the Potomac but was relieved of that command following the Union army's crushing defeat at Fredericksburg in December. He posed for this portrait wearing the distinctive tunic he designed for members of Rhode Island's militia.
Manchester & Brady Studio, c 1861 |