Library of Congress

BURNSIDE, Ambrose Everett, a Senator from Rhode Island; born in Liberty, Ind., May 23, 1824; attended a seminary at Liberty and Beach Grove Academy; graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1847; served in the Mexican and Indian wars; resigned in 1852 to manufacture a breech-loading rifle of his own invention; moved to Illinois, and was appointed treasurer of the Illinois Central Railroad in 1858; during the Civil War entered the Union Army in 1861 as colonel; commanded a brigade at the first Battle of Bull Run; commissioned brigadier general and major general and resigned in 1865; Governor of Rhode Island 1866-1868; during a visit to Europe in 1870 acted as mediator between the French and the Germans then at war; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1874; reelected in 1880 and served from March 4, 1875, until his death in Bristol, R.I., September 13, 1881; chairman, Committee on Education and Labor (Forty-fifth Congress), Committee on Foreign Relations (Forty-seventh Congress); interment in Swan Point Cemetery, Providence, R.I.