BURNHAM-L Archives

From: <>
Subject: Hiram BURNHAM
Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 20:08:22 EDT

Subj:Re: Hiram Burnham
Date:04/24/99
To:

Karen,

My notes
1860 Census listed as a Day Laborer.

Hiram Burnham (? - 1864)
Biography: Burnham, Hiram, brigadier-general, was born in Maine, and
entered the Union service at the beginning of the Civil war as colonel of the
6th Maine volunteers. He led his regiment with skill and gallantry through
the Peninsular campaign, at Antietam and subsequent engagements. He
distinguished himself for gallantry at the second battle of Fredericksburg
and at Gettysburg, and on April 27, 1864, was made brigadier-general of
volunteers. He bore a conspicuous part in the campaign from the Wilderness
to Petersburg. He was killed Sept. 29, 1864, in battle at Chaffin's farm. A
few weeks prior to his death he was given command of a brigade in Stannard's
division, 18th army corps.
Born: Narraguagus, ME
Died: 9/29/64 in Fort Harrison, VA
Promotions Date To Rank Full/Brevet Army/Vol
Comments
07/15/61 Lt Colonel Full Vol
6th ME Inf
12/12/61 Colonel Full Vol
04/27/64 Brig-Gen Full Vol

Commands From To Brigade Division Corps Army
05/03/6305/11/63 Light 6 Army of
Potomac
02/01/64 04/05/64 3 16 Army of
Potomac
04/28/64 07/31/64 21 18 Army of the
James
07/31/6408/03/64 1 18 Army of the
James
09/27/6409/29/64 21 18 Army of the
James

>From "No Rich Men's Sons" by James H. Mundy, 1994, p.17:
The Sixth Maine Volunteer Infantry
The biggest man in the Cherryfield Company was Sgt. Alonzo Stevens of
Steuben. Alonzo stood 6' 5" and weighed two hundred pounds, a giant of a man
by the standards of the day. The toughest man in the Cherryfield Company and
the reason for its existence was not Alonzo, but a fifty-year-old lumberman
by the name of Hiram Burnham. During Maine's bloodless Aroostook War of 1839,
Captain Burnham had led a company from Cherryfield to Calais to defend the
border. Born in Machias, the grandson of Job Burnham, he was a successful
lumberman and mill owner and in 1860 he was elected County Commissioner on
the Republican ticket. A biographer in the Adjutant General's Office would
later pay him this compliment in high Victorian prose:
...he did not hesitate as to his duty when the old flag was fired upon
... the brave strong men in the swamp and on the drive heard his clarion
voice calling on them to go with him to the defense and rescue of his
imperrilled country. They believed in the patriotism and fidelity of the
man, and it therefore required but a few days to raise a company in the town
of his residence ... (Maine Adjutant General's Report, Vol. 1, 1864-65,
(M.S.A.), 325. Job Burnham was the builder and owner of Burnham Tavern, where
the attack on the "Margaretta" was planned. Hiram's great uncle was Jeremiah
O'Brien.)
Well, that was one way to put it, but it hardly gives a clear picture of
the man. Burnham was a militia colonel and in those days that was about as
much military experience as anyone in the area had. As a successful
lumberman he commanded the respect of a company and regiment made up mostly
of woodsmen.
Spending the winter in a logging camp required adaptation to living and
working conditions that were harsh and cramped to say the least. It was a
man's world where outside authority rarely intruded. Infringements upon the
social contract were settled behind the camp by the strong right arms of
bosses and foremen. A natural hierarchy developed based on brute strength and
respect for authority. This was Hiram Burnham's world and in it he had
already proven himself. His leadership among the logging fraternity was
unquestioned and his men looked up to him as both a father figure and the
leader of the pack. Even at fifty he was a stocky and robust figure and his
men lovingly referred to him as the "Grizzly."
Burnham would run his comany and later the regiment as if it were a
giant woods crew and would be immensely successful at it. His men would play
practical jokes on him and talk to him in a manner that other officerswould
have considered insubordinate. He would laugh, slap them on the back, and
give an order in his folksy down-east way and whatever he asked of them they
would do. Legend has it that on May 3, 1863, after receiving orders from
General Sedgwick to attack acoss the "slaughter pen" at Fredericksburg and
take Marye's Heights, he galloped up to his men and said: "Boys, I have got a
government contract." "What is it Colonel?" came the reply. "One thousand
Rebels, potted and salted, and got to have them in less than five minutes.
Forward! Guide centre!" Burnham would be wounded in the charge but his "boys"
would fulfill the contract.
Under his command they became the "Fighting 6th" and their performance
would earn him a brigadier general's star. Decades later the survivors
gathered at his graveside and without a word filed by with hats in their
hands and tears in their eyes. The "Bangor Whig & Courier" once admiringly
referred to him as an "old war dog, in command of a regiment of war dogs."
(Thomas W. Hyde, "Following the Greek Cross", (Cambridge, 1894), 125-126,
"Machias Republican", (July 31, 1862). Burnham appears to have accompanied
the Cherryfield Company as a sort of supernumerary, with the understanding
that he would be a field-grade officer when the regiment was organized.
Everyone appears to have deferred to Burnham even though Captain Ralph W.
Young was in nominal command.)

Hiram was orphaned at a young age when his father killed his mother in a
drunken rage

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