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BURCH, JOHN C. 



BURNSIDE, AMBROSE E. 



clamoring for their right to vote, were dispersed 

 by a charge of bayonets. By corruption, vio- 

 lence, and intimidation, and frauds of every 

 kind, a majority was obtained in most of the 

 towns. One or two of the Liberal strongholds 

 were declared disfranchised on account of dis- 

 orders. Such means did not fail to furnish a 

 subservient popular convention, more illiterate, 

 however, than the Assembly complained of. 

 The Great National Assembly, thus composed, 

 assembled at Sistova, and accomplished the 

 usurpation of Alexander by their vote annul- 

 ling the Constitution, on the 13th of July. 



BURCH, JOHN C., born in Jefferson County, 

 Georgia, October 21, 1826; died in Washing- 

 ton, D. C., July 28, 1881, of organic disease of 

 the heart. His parents were Georgians, and 

 with them he resided in Fayetteville until 1862. 

 Having received a preparatory education in his 

 own State, Mr. Burch entered the freshman 

 class of Yale College in 1843, and graduated in 

 1847. He then returned to Georgia and studied 

 law in the office of Governor Charles J. Mc- 

 Donald, of Marietta, one of the most eminent 

 jurists of the State. In 1849 Mr. Burch was 

 admitted to the bar, and opened an office at 

 Spring Place, Murray County, where he re- 

 mained three years, and then removed to Chat- 

 tanooga, Tennessee. Here he established a 

 successful practice, and in 1855 was elected to 

 the General Assembly as the member for Ham- 

 ilton County. The House of Representatives, 

 in which he served, was equally divided in 

 politics, and, though one of the youngest mem- 

 bers, Mr. Burch took a foremost place as de- 

 bater and parliamentarian, and was one of the 

 recognized leaders of his party. The session 

 was a long and important one, in which Know- 

 nothingism figured as a new phase in politics. 

 In the debates and discussions growing out of 

 that issue Mr. Burch achieved State-wide repu- 

 tation, and in 1857 was elected Senator from 

 the district composed of Hamilton, Bradley, 

 Rhea, Bledsoe, Sequatchie, and Marion Coun- 

 ties. Though barely of senatorial age, he was 

 chosen Speaker of the body. In 1859 the 

 Nashville " Union and American," the organ 

 of the Democratic party of Tennessee, lost its 

 leading editors Messrs. Poindexter and East- 

 man and, acting under the counsel of the party 

 leaders, Mr. Burch assumed the editorship of 

 the paper, which duty he performed during the 

 presidential campaign of 1860, and the critical 

 agitation which culminated in civil war. After 

 the fall of Fort Sumter he enlisted as a private 

 in Company C, Rock City Guards, but was 

 soon after chosen lieutenant of another com- 

 pany. Before going into the field, he was ap- 

 pointed aide-de-camp to Major-General Gideon 

 J. Pillow, then in command of the Provisional 

 Army of Tennessee, which was organized to 

 support the army of the Southern Confederacy. 

 He was soon promoted to the office of lieu- 

 tenant-colonel, and when Tennessee became a 

 member of the Confederacy he was made as- 

 sistant adjutant-general, and continued in that 



capacity during the war, serving on the staffs 

 of Generals Pillow, Forrest, and Withers. At 

 the expiration of the war he returned to Nash- 

 ville, and resumed the practice of Jaw until 

 September, 1869, when he purchased a control- 

 ling interest in the "Union and American," 

 and again became its editor-in-chief. In 1873 

 he was appointed by Governor J. C. Brown 

 Comptroller of the State of Tennessee. This 

 service was rendered with great ability and 

 rigid integrity, and upon retiring from it he 

 returned to journalism, in which he continued 

 until 1879. On the accession of the Demo- 

 cratic party to the power of the majority of 

 the United States Senate, Colonel Burch was 

 elected secretary of that body over a number 

 of formidable competitors, each of whom was 

 an ex-member of the United States Senate or 

 House of Representatives, and this position he 

 held at the time of his death. 



BURNSIDE, AMBEOSE EVERETT, born at 

 Liberty, Indiana, May 23, 1824; died at Bristol, 

 Rhode Island, September 13, 1881. In 1843 he 

 was appointed from Rhode Island to the United 

 States Military Academy, where he graduated 

 in 1847, and was made brevet second-lieutenant 

 of the Second Artillery. During the war with 

 Mexico, 1847-'48, he served at the city of Mex- 

 ico, and received his full commission as second- 

 lieutenant. In 1848-'49 he was stationed at Fort 

 Adams. Newport, Rhode Island. Engaged on 

 frontier duty at Las Vegas, New Mexico, in 

 1849-'50, he took part in a skirmish therewith 

 lacarillo Apache Indians, August 23, 1849, re- 

 ceiving a wound. From April, 1851, to March, 

 1852, he was with the Mexican Boundary Com- 

 mission, acting quartermaster. On December 

 12, 1851, he was commissioned as first-lieu- 

 tenant, and on returning from New Mexico he 

 was again stationed at Fort Adams, Newport. 

 Having invented a breech-loading rifle, he re- 

 signed from the army October 2, 1853, to en- 

 gage in manufactures, and pursued that business 

 in Bristol, Rhode Island, from 1853 to 1858. In 

 the year 1856 he was appointed one of the 

 Board of Visitors to the United States Military 

 Academy. During his residence in Rhode 

 Island he was active in the militia, and from 

 1855 to 1857 he held the rank of major-general. 

 Finding the business of manufacturing arms 

 unsuccessful, General Burnside became cashier 

 of the land department of the Illinois Central 

 Railway Company in 1858, and removed to 

 Illinois. In 1860-'61 he was treasurer of the 

 same corporation. When the civil war broke 

 out, he at once tendered his services to the 

 Union, and was appointed colonel of the First 

 Regiment of Rhode Island Volunteers, which 

 marched to Washington four days after the 

 President's call for troops was issued. At the 

 first battle of Bull Run he commanded a bri- 

 gade, and was soon after made brigadier-gen- 

 eral. In command of an expedition to North 

 Carolina in January, 1862, he captured Roanoke 

 Island, Newbern, and Beaufort. At the close 

 of the campaign on the Peninsula he was re- 



