The Immortalization of Burnside's Image

The General Committee and Building Committee assigned to the creation of the statue attempted to create a monument that immortalized Burnside in Rhode Island Civil War lore and erased the controversy over his military career. Burnside was criticized as being unqualified and overpromoted for his position as commander of the Army of the Potomac.[3] He was widely held responsible for “costly defeats” at Fredericksburg and Petersburg.[4] As a result, a main function of the dedication and subsequent monument was to clear Burnside’s name of these military failures. In his speech, General Horatio Rogers asserted that the position of Commander of the Army of the Potomac was “thrust upon” Burnside, and that Burnside’s reluctance to accept the position can only be interpreted as “magnanimous self-immolation,” not incompetence.[5] Rogers lashed out at critics of Burnside, attempting to replace the claims of the general’s military leadership ineptitude with narratives of self-sacrifice and selflessness.

In response to the accusation that Burnside must be held accountable for the Union defeat at Fredericksburg, Rogers pinned the blame instead on “the government’s procrastination.”[6] By placing the culpability of the Union defeats on other individuals and factors, Rogers was reconstructing a memory of Burnside that did not have space for narratives of failure and loss. Roger’s revision of the memory of Burnside functioned as a way of glorifying an image of the general that would persist beyond his lifetime. In an article in The Providence Journal printed the day of the dedication, a poem boasted that the monument was “for the homage of new generations / Who shall know and love his name.”[7] Consequently, the monument seemed to function principally for The Providence Journal as an attempt to perpetuate a sparkling legacy of Burnside with narratives of heroism and nobility. This goal was echoed in a criticism of the statue that emerged in the newspaper, which lamented that instead of representing the “noblest moment” of Burnside, the statue depicted “a petty trivial transcript of his work-a-day life."[8] There should be no room, the writer argued, for flaws, failures, or every-day life occurrences; on the contrary, the monument should contribute to an almost mythological worship of Burnside and his flawless legacy.