Today in U.S. History: In this segment historian, Rick Britton talks with Les Sinclair about what happened on November 9, 1862.

On this day in 1862, Gen. Ambrose Burnside assumed command of the Union Army of the Potomac following the removal of Gen. George B. McClellan.

McClellan was well-liked the soldiers, and had a loyal following among some in the command structure. Many others detested him–he had failed to produce the results that he’d bragged about, for example–and his successor would have a difficult time reconciling the Army’s pro- and anti-McClellan. Furthermore, Ambrose Burnside was not the obvious choice to replace McClellan. Many favored Gen. Joseph Hooker, who, like Burnside, commanded a corps in the army. Hooker had a strong reputation as a battlefield commander but had several liabilities.

Burnside, by his own admission, was not fit to command an army. The Indiana native graduated from West Point in 1847, and after serving for five years in the military, entered private business. He developed a new breech-loading carbine, but his firm went bankrupt just prior to the Civil War. Burnside then worked as treasurer for the Illinois Central Railroad under McClellan, who was president of the line.
When the Civil War erupted, Burnside became a colonel of volunteers. He fought at the First Battle of Manassas (or Bull Run) in July 1861, then headed an expeditionary force that captured Cape Hatteras, NC, in February 1862. Burnside returned to the Army of the Potomac and was given command of the Ninth Corps, and fought at the Battle of Sharpsburg (or Antietam), in September 1862. Afterward, he was tapped for the top position in the army over his own protestations. He reluctantly assumed command in November and proceeded to plan an attack on Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. His forces attacked Lee’s entrenched troops on December 13 at the Battle of Fredericksburg and suffered heavy losses. Within one month, officers began to mutiny against Burnside’s authority, and Hooker assumed command of the Army of the Potomac in late January 1863. After the war, Burnside (whose unusual facial hair inspired the word sideburns) served as governor of Rhode Island and as a U.S. senator. He died in 1881.