Babies named for Ambrose Burnside

Ambrose Everett Burnside was general in the Union Army throughout the American Civil War.

After the war, he served as the governor of Rhode Island for three single-year terms (1866-1869) and as a U.S. Senator from 1875 until his death in 1881.

Several hundred baby boys — most born during the war — were named in Burnside’s honor. Some examples…

• Ambrose B. Taylor (b. 1866, Rhode Island)
• A. E. B. Leathers (b. 1866, Pennsylvania)
• Ambrose B. Pillsbury (b. 1865, New Hampshire)
• Ambrose B. Pence (b. 1864, Ohio)
• Ambrose E. B. Miller (b. 1863, Indiana)
• A. Burnside Harris (b. 1863, Ohio)
• Ambrose B. Furman (b. 1863, Pennsylvania)
• Ambrose Everett Burnside Stephens (b. 1862, Ohio)
• Ambrose B. Barnard (b. 1862, Indiana)
• Ambrose Burnside Bowen (b. 1862, Ohio)
• Ambrose E. B. Peatfield (b. 1861, Massachusetts)

A handful of boys conveniently born into Burnside families were simply named “Ambrose” or “Ambrose E.” (like Ambrose Everett Burnside, b. 1860).

Here’s how one newspaper summed up Ambrose Burnside’s life a few days after he died:

He was not remarkably brilliant as a statesman, but he was eminently successful as a leader of fashion, and the style of whiskers to which his name has been given will probably exist among the dandies long after his breech-loading rifle [the Burnside carbine] and record as a Senator are forgotten.

His distinctive facial hair — bushy side-whiskers with a clean-shaven chin — was initially known as “burnsides.” At some point, the syllables switched places and the term morphed into “sideburns.”

Sources:

• Ambrose Burnside – Wikipedia
• Burnsides – Online Etymology Dictionary
• “Death of Senator Burnside.” Silver State [Winnemucca, NV] 15 Sept. 1881: 2.